What is 'normal' for you?

[DragonLancer]

- 5 to 6 players max (5 male, 1 female).
- One PC each.
- The bases are always covered.
- Weekly sessions, each Sunday (7pm - 11/midnight).
- 4-5 hours gaming.
- A single campaign lasts a year to sixteen months.
- I (the DM) decide what individual materials/books may be used.
- 50/50 mix of home brew and published scenarios.
- Very few house rules.
- PC death is uncommon but does happen.
- All games are at my place (ease of books at hand) unless situation comes up.
- Powergaming and Rules Lawyering are not welcome player traits.
- Rule Zero in permanent effect.
- NO evil characters allowed.
- Only game with people we know and trust.

 

[Jolly Giant]

4-6 players (1 female; my wife), +DM
1 PC each
Don't care too much about whether the bases are covered
Irregular sessions, although we strive to keep a 1/week average
5-10 hours of gaming per session
A campaign can last anywhere from 1 month to 5 years
All WotC non-world-specific books allowed (i.e. no Eberron or Faerun books)
50/50 homebrew or published settings
100% homemade adventures - always!
Very few house rules
PC deaths fairly common
Always game at my house
Very little power gaming or rules lawyering; the DM always has the final word
Rule Zero always in effect
PCs can be of any alignment
Everyone in the group are close long-time friends

Ok, there have been exceptions to all of the above points, but this is what is normal in our group.

 

[Black_Swan]

Modified version of the OP's post.

- 2 players, not counting DM, always running 1 PC
- Completely ignore the DMG wealth by level guidelines and XP table
- more often than not magic item are rare and powerful
- Used to have wide open choices on books and materials now just the main book for simplicity
- house rules like action points, 'dying' rules, etc not unusual
- in general settings are purchased and adventures are a mix of homebrew and purchased as well.
- campaigns rarely last beyond 10th level or a few months of play
- PC death is pretty common in a game
- rarely do we have the "classic" 4 roles covered
- character driven play is a must
- dungeon crawls are rare
- all male gamers
- play only with close friends

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm currently in 2 different groups with overlapping membership.

Group 1 (Currently running 1Ed/2Ed):
- fewer than 3 players, not counting DM, often running 2 PCs
- more often than not following DMG wealth by level guidelines and XP table
- more often than not any magic item is available provided the community wealth level is appropriate
- wide open choices on books and materials
- in general, its pure homebrew seasoned with purchased products
- campaigns is essentially epic- its been running since the mid 1980's
- PC death is unlikely, but occurs. Ressurrection is de rigeur.
- character driven play (in that what makes the game interesting for most of the players is developing and expanding their character's personality, goals, etc rather than just getting new powers)
- no females
- play only with close friends
- currently considering updating to the current version of the game


Group 2 (Currently running 3Ed):
- 9 players, not counting DM, may soon become 10
- more often than not following DMG wealth by level guidelines and XP table
- limited resources
- Core 3 + softcover splatbooks, no psi.
- running through RtToEE, and this single campaign has been running for nearly a year
- PC death has not yet occurred, but I'm thinking its probable.
- character driven play (in that what makes the game interesting for most of the players is developing and expanding their character's personality, goals, etc rather than just getting new powers)
- no females
- play only with close friends

I just want to point out that within our fluid group of gamers, we have had women join in some fairly long-running campaigns.

However, all have left the games due to RW reasons, like moving out of state. Even so, there were only about 4 and all of them were in the same groups (they were all pals).

A campaign I'm planning will be a wide-open 3.5 campaign including 3rd party materials and extensive HRs...but it won't be ready to play for some months.

 

[Rothe]

- 2-4 players running 2 characters and maybe an NPC each;
- homebrew pretty much all the way, campaign world in use since 1978;
- adventures about 70% modified modules, 30% homebrew;
- sessions 4-5 hours triweekly on average;
- use rule where if not below -half/CON and sufficient potions or magic are immediately (very same round) pumped into person they may come back above 0, but will be unconscious;
- 2 character deaths in last 15 sessions, 1 permanent, many near death experiences that above rule kept from being a death experience... lots of careful, skillful play has made the encounters less deadly than they could have been;
- potions and scrolls readily available if you got the cash, they take much longer to make than in 3e;
- magic items generally only available if have a high powered connection and then it is only what they have on hand and are willing to part with (but I'm pretty open about what's on hand);
- magic item customization limited, items very hard to make, but the world has making them for 8,000 years so a fair bit are lying around;
- miniatures sometime used mostly for the DM to keep track of the many critters;
- large scale battles not uncommon, last session 6 PCs versus 72 orcs, 1 cave troll, 4 ogres, 1 garm, and 1 wartok (yep ther is some homebrew monsters in there), as the system we run keeps such battles to about 2 hours (and they don't even have fireball yet);
- free-form adventure available, many locations detailed after decades of play politics and personalities in every town; adventure arcs available, the NPCs of the world are going about there plans and can string together series of adventures based thereon;
-PC actions can and do effect the world; the PCs of the 00's hear tales of the deeds of the PCs of the 90's who shaped history a 100 years ago, who heard tales of the PCs in the 80's who heard tales of the PCs in the 70's, who had to put up with a teenage kid making it up.

 

[Lanefan]

For us, in no particular order:
- typically 5+ players, not counting DM, sometimes running 2 PCs
- flexible choices on books and materials depending on DM
- house rules not unusual but little that is major.
- in general settings, campaigns, and adventures are homebrew not purchased but there are occasional module binges
- campaigns typcially last 2 years or longer. (longest was 7 or 8 years)
- PC death is likely but not constant
- environment and ambition driven play
- dungeon crawls are frequent but not exclussive, there can be a good bit of wilderness adventure and politics when appropriate.
- play mostly with folks know for years or with realtives/close friends of those folks but not at all adverse to drop ins (one drop-in played with us for over 5 years)
-Sessions are 3-6 hours, usually with a dinner at the start of the session
-sessions are weekly, but wind up 45 to 48 a year becasue of scheduling.
-play is usually at DMs house.
- one session might be a single fight or months of play with dozens of encounters depending on the pacing of the session.

This sounds remarkably like our crew...well, except for the dinner before each session.

Lanefan

 

[Ahnehnois]

-3 players, 1 character each, plus 1 DM
-All male (currently-we had the occasional girl a while back when the group was bigger)
-4 roles actually covered pretty well, even in current 3 PC group (multiclassing)
-Homebrew setting and adventures
-Plenty of houserules, including a lot of UA stuff
-Material either WotC or homebrewed
-4 to 6 hour sessions at somebody's house, usually w/ food; 2/ week if we can manage
-No true dungeons, mostly wilderness encounters or centerpiece battles
-Dragons are godlike in power, PCs have only ever killed one (and they were epic) and rarely try
-Gods have little clout by most standards; many remember their days as mortals
-Dragons/psions/divinities/mages all in conflict in-game (mixed parties still work well enough).
-No alignment restrictions (currently good and neutral PCs)
-Most fights are serious threats to PCs, but death is rare due to action points/good healer
-Very easy to buy/sell/customize magic items
-Never use miniatures or battle maps. DM just gives general descriptions.
-Levels ranging from 1 to 20 with epic "reunion" sessions after campaign ends
-Free form XP (I usually do close to the book-though each encounter is several CRs above PC level)
-Tons of treasure (several times book values, with many artifacts at high levels)
-Using my ability allocation system, which is both high-powered and simple
-A lot of DM intervention in character creation and such
-Style historically epic plot-driven with plenty of hacking and slashing, moving somewhat towards more rules-lite and character-focused adventuring

 

[DarkJester]

In my longer running game the following are normal:

* Around 6 hour sessions, played at my (the DM's) house.
* 5 PC's
* No stopping for dinner, eat (usually pizza) while playing
* Use battlemap and miniatures for battles where terrain is important.
* Wands/Scrolls/Potions are usually available. Higher items (Which require bigger item creation feats) are comparatively more rare and may require going to specific locations to purchase them, or take significant time to locate them.
* Wealth near, perhaps a little above, DMG guidelines.
* All WOTC sources are allowed for character creation, but subject to DM approval for anything not in the PHB, DMG, or MM. People tend to make good use of the other sources.
* PHB races only.
* Custom game setting with other influences
* PHB pantheon
* PC death is relatively common at lower levels and tapers off getting to levels 5-6 and above. We we averaging about 1 every other session at levels 1-3.
* Games have tended to be short campaigns lasting 3-4 levels before starting new games.
* Games 3 out of 4 weeks a month.
* 3-4 encounters per day (and typically at least 1 day per session)

In the other, more recent game most of the above is true, but we usually only have 1--2 encounter per day with rarely more than one encounter per session. We play 3 1/2 or 4 hours per game, and the group is smaller (3-4 pcs on average). This game meets at our FLGS.

 

[pawsplay]

3-5 players
40% female
sessions last 3-4 hours
mostly extended campaigns
mixed episodic and saga style
frequently use non-core classes and races
use miniatures and maps
home brew campaign world
no dice fudging
non-core spells and feats allowed with permission
guesstimated wealth and items, probably leaning toward generosity on the wealth side but concentrate in a few powerful items rather than trinkets
relatively small world population, with lower level NPCs and consequently rarer magic

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

• I'm almost always the DM
• Four or five players, not counting DM. 1 character per player
• Attempts are made to follow wealth by level guidelines and XP table
• Magic item availability is determined using a fairly simple random system
• All the books I own (except BOVD) are freely available except Unearthed Arcana and Spell Compendium, which are used on an "ask me" basis.
• Action points often used, death at negative Con, a few other idiosyncratic rules
• Negative levels are less "sticky", ability scores cannot be reduced to less than 1
• We tend to run adventure paths or other published adventures, because I'm too busy to homebrew.
• Things tend to break down around levels 7 - 10, for reasons not connected to the game, and we start over with new players.
• PC death not uncommon, but action points make it less likely. In the Age of Worms, we still averaged 1 death per session for a while.
• My players are generally obsessive about covering all the bases, so we generally have the 4 roles in one way or another.
• I shoot for a good mix of action and character development.
• I loves me some dungeon crawls, and have since my 1st ed. days.
• Not currently any female players
• I play with whomever I can manage to find, assuming they're not disruptive. It's hard enough just finding players, much less finding well-adjusted, experienced players.
• Sessions are usually 6 hours, although sometimes we go late.
• We shoot for weekly sessions
• We play at whatever location we can arrange. Many of my players live out in the suburbs, and are in town for school or work, and only one of them has a local apartment, so it's often at his place. Otherwise, we scrounge for rooms around the university.