How long is your sessions, and how do I extend my?

[bradikus]

The date is now 11 AWAK (11 years After Wife And Kids) and we play for only 4-5 hours every other week. I would say half of that time is just sitting around BS'ing. I started playing, with the same group, in approximately in the year 14 BWAK (14 years Before Wife And Kids), and we would put in anywhere from 4 to 12 hours sometimes every day of the week. The one hope I have is that when I retire to an old folks home I will be able to put in 8-12 hours a day again and I will have a nurse change my bed pan so that I don't even have to break to go to the bathroom... she'll be a cute young thing too, and will have to be very tolerant to constant groping, as I will constantly be in character, and probably playing a rowdy half-orc.


aaa the day!

 

[drothgery]

I don't think I've ever been part of a game where sessions averaged much over 4 hours. If you play from lunch-dinner on a weekend (which was what I did in college) or after dinner on a weeknight (which is what I do now), and figure on a bit of delay between 'official meeting time' and the start of the game, it's pretty hard to play longer than that.

And I've never really had much enthusiasm for marathon gaming sessions; it's hard enough to concentrate on coding for eight hours a day (hence I'm writing an ENWorld post from the office), let alone a recreational activity.

 

[Quarion Hawksong]

I have two groups, The first group plays for 12 hours per game, but we play once a month or once ever two months depending on availability. This group consist of players from four different towns each two hours away from our central location. there are nine people including the DM

The second group also plays once a month but for 4-5 hours with 5 people which include my wife and a player who plays with the first group. I DM this group.

 

[MerakSpielman]

My sessions usually run around 4 hours.

After that, we tend to have obligations. Some people have to go put their kids to bed. Some people have to work in the mornings (those weeks we play Sunday nights tend to run 3 hours). Sometimes we're just getting tired. The age of the players in my game ranges from 25 to 50. I am one of the 3 DMs (and one of the 25 year olds) and we rotate games weekly to keep up interest and give the DMs time to prepare.

One of our highest compliments to a DM is when we don't want to stop playing. There have been a few marathon sessions lasting 5 to 7 hours, or until we simply couldn't stay awake any longer.

 

[shadoe]

My wife and I usually arrive at around 6:30 pm every Friday night after work to game. We BS with everyone while the straglers show up and everyone eats dinner until about 7:30, and then the gaming starts. This goes until about 1:30-2:00 am after which I drive 45 min to and 1 hour to get home and go to sleep.

Maybe sometime soon we will start up the earthdawn game again, and then we will also be playing on Saturday as well for a similar amount of time.

I'm a 29 year old nightowl.

 

[JadeLyon]

Well, we start at 10:00am every other Sunday. We work on characters and BS generally from the time someone gets there, between until we have lunch, and then we game.

I used to try to start gaming and then break for lunch, but it was hard to get back going after eating. Not that anyone didn't want to, but just had a hard time getting back into focus.

Now what we do is eat first, 11:00-12:00ish, and then around 3:00 I put out a snack we can eat during play. Just something cool I get at Costco or something.

Then we keep on playing until 6:00 and take it from there. If we're all having fun, we usually end up playing until 9:00 or 10:00pm.

What I'm getting at though, is we plan 10:00 - 6:00. If boredom is there, we stop at 6:00.

Usually boredom will occur when there have been a few battles that were long, but didn't require much creativity. Unfortunately, this will happen sometimes. But if there's a lot of role-playing or some kickass creatures, we will go into the night.



One thing I noticed though... If we go much longer than 9:00 or 10:00 at night, people start losing focus. I remember when I was younger, we'd START at 9:00 or 10:00 at night and go on until 5 or 6am!

Those were the days!

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

We usually run about 4-5 hours once a week and then every Thanksgiving eve a marathon 12 hour session. We used to go 8 hours or so every week but getting everyone onsite and ready was a bit taxing so we reduced the time, even now we have the sporadic late start. Ideally I could play all the time but being a GM unless I've had some serious prep time I'm pretty worn out at 5 hours

 

[Orco42]

In college my sessions would run about 10-14 hours. Now I am down to about 6 hours.... I'm already getting old at 22.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Geez. I thought our play sessions were "normal" length. We usually go from 2M to 2:AM or so on Saturday night to Sunday morning. (11 hours with a one hour or so dinner break.) We have on occasion run 'til 5AM on Sunday. Most weekends we play a different campaign on Sunday from 2PM to about 8PM. (We all have to work on Mondays.)

I am the oldest of our group at 31. Our youngest is about 23. Admittedly some of us periodically get tired around 11PM, but the games must go on as they say. We've gamed this way for the last 7 or so years.

Tzarevitch:

 

[Dextolen]

We only meet once a month, so it's 12 hours (including a dinner break for about an hour).

The time flies. We don't start feeling crispy until the last two hours or so. Lots of bottled water and snacks to keep us going.
If we cut out the kibitzing, we could do it in 10, and I think the group has pretty good focus.

The day (from 11:00 to Midnite) totally fulfills my gaming need for the month.