Is the average RPG campaign only six sessions long?

[Umbran]

To be honest this makes me suspect it's a Median or Mode rather than a Mean.

Having no sign of any actual data behind the assertion, I don't think speculation on that serves a useful purpose. If we have to speculate that maybe the speaker meant some other word, we are in teh weeds next to a swamp. I'm not following into that muck.

 

[Morrus]

My campaigns aren't, but I can't speak for the average campaign.

 

[aramis erak]

Yeah. Mean, median, mode, and "typical" are not the same.

Mode has issues, too... A buddy of mine tracked his games pretty well for a while... he had a mode of 1, a minor secondary mode at 3.... and median of 2... with a mean of 2... but a range up to about 50... and several of them. He ran a lot of 1-shots and "3 night one-shots"...

This makes a lot of sense considering the college crowd. The group is only in physical proximity over the school year.

I GM'd open table in two towns with significant university student players...
Anchorage has a signifcant change over Christmas break... it also uses a 2 semester academic year. (Fall and Spring. Summer is offered but not expected.)
Oregon State and LBCC have 3 term academic year... Fall, Winter, and Spring. (and, again, an optional summer)
Mid year turnover is important to note. It happens in both towns.

My modal length probably is about 10 sessions. I haven't run a game past 20 sessions since my last FFG Star Wars; it ran about a year (40-some sessions), but had a full turnover across that time. (As in, the last session had no players who had been at the first session; Only I, the GM, was there for all sessions.)