D&D General How long should an after work online gaming session be ideally?

[TheSword]

Hey folks, just wanted to know your thoughts.

I’m lucky enough to play in a few gaming sessions. One every Tuesday evening where I alternate campaigns with two different groups. A monthly weekend of face to face gaming and a monthly online session. The weeknight online sessions lasts about two hours, the monthly online sessions last about 4 hours.

I am finding that we don’t seem to get as much done as I expect in the weeknight sessions. We’re pretty good at not wasting too much time. Usually 5-10 mins catching up which is nice, but rarely more than that. We’re also generally on time and don’t take more than 5 mins break if that. Both groups are the same so I don’t think it’s an issue with either group prevaricating. Weeknight time is always precious and I usually eat dinner afterwards so don’t want to go on too late.

What is the sweet spot for you in your online games? Two, three, four hours?

 

[Stormonu]

For online games, two hours as DM is pretty much all I can stomach. For some reason it's a lot rougher mentally on me than in-person. I can stretch to four hours, but that's generally very draining. DMing, every two weeks is what I shoot for as I find I can really chew up time doing VTT prep for games (collating music, drafting up NPCs, reading/drafting encounters, drawing and prepping maps, testing, etc.).

Also, for the first time ever I've gotten myself involved in a middle-of-the-week game (as a player). I prefer Friday nights or the weekend to do my D&Ding so that the remnants of work are out of my mind. I also have occasions where I have to work into the evenings, so I try not to schedule gaming during the work week.

As a player, I could do four hours or more, weekly if I so desired - though I'd prefer bi-weekly.

 

[Sulicius]

3 hours is the sweet spot for a weekday for me. On a weekday you can’t ask more than that or people zone out.

If you don’t get much done during a session you have a few options. One of them is to just accept that this is how the group plays. It’s not fun if a group doesn’t engage with your prep in a way you like, when you bring the energy, but the group doesn’t pick up on it.

You could also have a talk with them. Ask them if they also feel like they get little done, and if they want to see that change. After all, even the best DM can’t make a group play the exact way they like. Especially on a weekday online.

 

[thullgrim]

My weekly online game meets from 7-10 on Tuesday night. I very often find what we are playing influence how much we get done. When we I was running Savage Worlds we got quite a bit done. When I was running PF2 less so. Now that I’m running g GURPS the pace of play has slowed to a crawl. So much so that I’m thinking of dropping the campaign.

We are talking about trying to push for an extra hour. Starting at 6:30 and going to 10:30. It’s just tough on a weeknight.

My bi-weekly in person game runs for three hours as well on Friday night at the FLGS. We could go longer or start earlier and as that game is in its beginning stages the schedule may change.

 

[schneeland]

We play online and usually schedule our sessions for 3 hours on weekdays (8-11pm) every other week. Actual playtime typically 2.5 hours in the regular games. We sometimes extend by half an hour if it's required to close a scene, but rarely more. This is also pretty much my sweet spot (for online games).

 

[cranberry]

Our online games which we hold on Fridays typically last 4 to 5 hours.

If it were held on any other day of the work week, it probably wouldn't go for more than 3 hours.

But of course, the available time is dependent on everyone's work schedule.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hey folks, just wanted to know your thoughts.

I’m lucky enough to play in a few gaming sessions. One every Tuesday evening where I alternate campaigns with two different groups. A monthly weekend of face to face gaming and a monthly online session. The weeknight online sessions lasts about two hours, the monthly online sessions last about 4 hours.

I am finding that we don’t seem to get as much done as I expect in the weeknight sessions. We’re pretty good at not wasting too much time. Usually 5-10 mins catching up which is nice, but rarely more than that. We’re also generally on time and don’t take more than 5 mins break if that. Both groups are the same so I don’t think it’s an issue with either group prevaricating. Weeknight time is always precious and I usually eat dinner afterwards so don’t want to go on too late.

What is the sweet spot for you in your online games? Two, three, four hours?

We usually do 3-4 hours

 

[MarkB]

Our weeknight session is 3 to 3 and a half hours, starting at 8pm and generally ending around 11 to 11:30pm.

 

[GrimCo]

We used to do 3 hour max. Usually started around 21 and finished by 23-23:30. Midnight was hard cut off point since everybody had to get up for work in the mornings (games were mostly Wednesday night). Some session we would do barely anything relevant, some would move plot further in significant ways, some would be single encounter stretching 2 hours. For us, combats were major time drain. At the time we played low tier 3 PF campaign, every body ether had companion or couple undead at their command.

 

[aco175]

I would like 3 hours but tend to get just 2. We play on Wednesdays after scouts from 8:30 to 10:30 and sometimes it ends at 11:00 if we are in the middle of a big fight or such. There are times though at 10:15 when I say to stop since there is a big fight as well.