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.

 

[pemerton]

Double

Your posting is going too fast!

 

[Moving Pictures]

I started running my weekly Daggerheart campaign at the beginning of November. We've missed only a few sessions and play for about 3 hours.
The characters are level 6 - in a 10-level game (which would be about equivalent to level 12 in D&D). So they reached level 6 in let's say around 10 sessions.

yes.

This afternoon, we're doing session 33. XP based, no xp for money but xp for role-playing, missions, etc.
PC Samurai - 4
NPC F3
PC Rogue - 4
PC Nature Cleric (Druid)/Ranger 3/3
PC Shaman/Ranger 3/3

They are JUST getting to the point where they are able to handle some nasty things, and their XP collection rate is increasing rapidly.

Old skul.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If this is the first Daggerheart campaign you've run and the players are playing in... I'd say to keep things going at the pace you are running it... get to the end of the campaign to wrap things up... and then start another one right after.

If most of the players are enjoying the game as you've been running it... then I would not think changing how you are running it will actually be beneficial. And while the players say they are really enjoying it and don't want it to end... I suspect that could be more attributed to the actual game itself and not this specific campaign. They don't want Daggerheart the game to end... so just keeping playing it in subsequent campaigns.

Thus my vote would be to keep the briskness up... get the characters up to Level 10... wrap up the finale so that you can all finally say as a group you "ended a campaign"... and then start up an entire NEW campaign using Daggerheart that you can then choose to run more slowly. Because it's easier and better to change things with a new campaign than it is to change an existing one mid-stream. Just my opinion.

 

[mamba]

I know the right answer is to ask the players and consider their feedback and my own thoughts. I'm curious if others here would find a 15-20 session campaign too fast. Any suggestions about how I could slow it down a little bit (if that ends up being what they want)?

well, you know the answer already, so here is my take. 15 sessions does feel fast for me, but ultimately it depends on the scope of the campaign. For level 1 to 10 in DH (going by this being similar to 3 to 12 in 5e), I’d probably prefer 25 to 35

Slowing it down is a matter of how you level. I generally use milestones, so slowing things down is easy, just put more content between the level-ups