What's a "typical" campaign length?

[Kuld]

Playing once a month, my campaign should last a few years

 

[GuardianLurker]

My 2e Campaign died at 5 years due to player/GM burnout. Characters were 15th level.

I played in a few 3e campaigns. One died a whimpering death after about a year. Two more died due to group implosions - one after about 3-4 months, the other after about a year.

My 3.x campaign is 2 years old this year, the characters just hit 15th, and I'm planning on going epic.

 

[pogre]

We play about 35 times a year and a campaign lasts in 3e for about 40-50 sessions. At least that's the average of the four I have run since the release of 3E.

 

[Baron Opal]

Story arcs have lasted about a year (~ 20 sessions). First story arc ended with a TPK, and the second ended with the PCs victorious. I keep offering to let others run or change characters, but they say they keep having a good time. So, the campaign goes on.

 

[cjdc1973]

I've had two recent campaigns ends in the last few months.

The first ran 40 months of real time and 28 months of game time.
The second ran 28 months of real time and about 14 months of game time.

I am starting a brand new campaign that is being architected to last
about two years of real time, but run over about 75 years of game time.

 

[S'mon]

The average "campaign," meaning a series of linked adventures including many of the same Player Characters and a defined face-to-face group of role-players, typically lasts about three years for me.

That's a good definition.

 

[diaglo]

Don't know what "typical" means. "True" campaigns are forever. They never die.

Hey, hey, My, My....OD&D will never die

 

[MonsterMash]

Defining "campaign" is indeed important in this regard. I've been running games in the same world, based upon a single time-line for over 25 years. Adventuring parties and players have come and gone, but the world moves on, and the quests of the past become the ledgends of the present. Is that one "campaign" or many?

To me that would be many campaigns in one setting.

I'd say that to qualify as a campaign there does need to be a minimum duration and number of sessions probably about 6 months/10 sessions. I could see something as a campaign if it has a shorter duration, but is intensive on the number of sessions - e.g. playing weekly for about four months giving 16 sessions could count, but it'd probably be a bit frustrating on the overall character development.

Ideally I'd see campaigns running for a multi-year period.

 

[Narfellus]

If one takes all of these as a continuum, I've had close to 400 Player Characters use various rules systems explore my "campaigns!"

That's a heckuva lot of players. Most impressive.

 

[Shemeska]

Around 2-3 years / 100-160 sessions or more. I just don't do anything on a small scale unless I'm doing a oneshot game.