Is My Campaign Going Too Fast?

[Neonchameleon]

Double

 

[GrimCo]

We average about 3 hours of actual play per session.

Which is very good actual game time.

I don't include a lot of "fluffy" stuff. I don't use verbose, purple language to describe unimportant details. I handwave extended travel scenes. I don't roleplay shopping sessions. My players don't like to belabor social encounters or puzzles - instead, preferring to roll some dice after a few minutes of talk.

In short, we get a lot done.

Yup, you are very efficient and you skip stuff that usually slows down games. Pair it with very good actual play time per session and sure, you will move fast.

20 session campaign, in that style, sounds awesome, at least for me.

 

[zakael19]

We average about 3 hours of actual play per session. I don't include a lot of "fluffy" stuff. I don't use verbose, purple language to describe unimportant details. I handwave extended travel scenes. I don't roleplay shopping sessions. My players don't like to belabor social encounters or puzzles - instead, preferring to roll some dice after a few minutes of talk. In short, we get a lot done.

Yeah so like, if you're just resolving scenes and moving on over and over without a lot of the stuff that eats up time (mainly: talking, decision making), I can see why you're blitzing.

What I've learned to do from my time running FITD games for my tables is have some periods of decompression/downtime where we focus in on character interactions; relationships with each other and NPCs; etc, to give some space between the high intensity conflicts.

If your table doesn't give a crap about such things and you're basically just zooming through the equivalent of modules with framed key scene after another, sounds great. But weaving some space to let things breathe and vibe before getting back to the grind can be nice, and maybe avoids that sensation some of your players seem to be highlighting.

Something else you can do (maybe not now, but in the future?) is adjust the fictional space in which level-ups happen. For instance, Nimble 2e suggests that as players gain levels, the in-universe time interval should go from like days/weeks to week/months to months/years. An unseasoned warrior may get a lot from a couple of dungeons, a veteran master of body and weapons may need months of campaigning to have a serious increase in their skills.

 

[TheSword]

Yes, definitely.