That old WotC survey of gaming habits...

[Umbran]

The results of that survey were important in the design of 3E, from what I understand. In particular:

* An average D&D campaign lasts about 1 year.
* An average D&D campaign has 1 DM and 4 Players.

Also note that while they state an average, they don't state the standard deviation. We don't know the width of the peak. Perhaps they are tightly bunched, perhaps not. The "average" may represent a great many 2+ year campaigns balanced by many 2 month campaigns.

 

[Krieg]

Nada & Nyet.

 

[Chroma]

* Were you one of the players surveyed?
* Do the above conclusions match your experiences of D&D?

Nope and nope.

Eight players, for each of the last three campaigns. The first two each lasted about 5 years, and the current 3rd Ed campaign has been going on for three; we play approximately bi-weekly for 6 hours a week and usually take two months off in summer. They're just hitting 7th level.

 

[bubbalin]

well, I deifnately didn't get surveyed, and my games have mroe players but last much shorter.

I would guess that the average campaign length here is much greater, because there are a lot mroe hardcore gamers here. As for number of players, well that also seems off, but maybe hardcore gamers have better GMs who attract mroe players.

I'd say you have a bad sample here in comparision to the sample interviewed.

 

[Salad_Shooter]

No and yes. Our campaigns rarely last more than a few weeks (we're fixing that with a big epic go around this summer). We have somewhere between 3 and 6 players. Toodles!

 

[LGodamus]

one thing to bear in mind is this community is not the average.....most people here would be considered "hard core gamers" and thus more likely to have longer campaigns if not more players

 

[jgbrowning]

nope and nope.

joe b.

 

[Gundark]

* An average D&D campaign lasts about 1 year.
* An average D&D campaign has 1 DM and 4 Players.

I have two questions:

* Were you one of the players surveyed?
* Do the above conclusions match your experiences of D&D?

No I wasn't surveyed. We have 1 DM and 4 players, and our campaigns last over a year, going on about 2.

And somebody else mentioned it but not knowing the SD lets us know nothing about variability, so the curve could be wide or narrow. However if they surveyed lots of people then my guess is it's more of a natural shaped bell curve.

 

[Li Shenron]

Also note that while they state an average, they don't state the standard deviation. We don't know the width of the peak. Perhaps they are tightly bunched, perhaps not. The "average" may represent a great many 2+ year campaigns balanced by many 2 month campaigns.

In fact those final results are a bit odd without further information.

IMXP, we were always at least 4 players (a few times), but most of the time 5 or 6. Whenever there were less than 4 players coming to a session, we never even considered meeting.

 

[Piratecat]

Yes and no - our campaigns last much longer and involve more people. Their research sounds about right, though.