WOTC's research on gaming groups

[Geoffrey]

I have heard that a few years ago WOTC did research on how often gaming groups actually gamed. From what I gather, they found that the average group:

1. consists of a DM and four players
2. plays once a week
3. plays four hours per session
4. continues the campaign for 18 months

Have I been correctly informed? Is the above indeed what WOTC discovered? Also, does anyone know where I can find WOTC's published results of their research?

 

[Wolfspirit]

That's what I've heard the exp and CR systems are designed around, that way a party of 4 can get to about level 20 before the campaign finishes.

I haven't seen any WotC confirmation on this, though

 

[Mouseferatu]

That sounds like what I remember hearing, although I thought they'd said the average campaign was about a year...

Wish I could tell you where to find the official study results. Wouldn't mind taking a look-see myself.

 

[Crothian]

It was posted on the boards, but of course that was few board versions ago so I don't know if it got saved.

 

[Monte At Home]

That's what the research showed. Except I thought campaign length was 11 months (but I'm hazy on that one after all this time).

 

[Corinth]

The average campaign length was about 12 months.

 

[RyanD]

The data reflected the play patterns of people who reported playing D&D once a month or more often.

The thing I found most interesting was how often the groups indicated they underwent a "restart"; the figure was something around a year (I don't recall the exact number of months).

Based on the 2E progression, that meant that people who started at 1st level and played "by the book" rarely had PCs that exceeded 10th level.

I think that we decided that 3E could double the amount of time that people would be willing to play without a restart, and one of the design goals to achieving that doubling was to improve support for PCs over 10th level.

It would be interesting to have that study run again now and see what effect 3E has had on the perodicity of restarts.

Ryan

 

[Morrus]

You'll find it here:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/news...ns&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=35&page=1

 

[d20Dwarf]

I think that we decided that 3E could double the amount of time that people would be willing to play without a restart, and one of the design goals to achieving that doubling was to improve support for PCs over 10th level.

Someone should have told the designers this, then. Essentially the game supports levels 1-10, and now 21+. The highest prerequisite for a feat is BAB 9+, (2) BAB 8+, and (2) Spellcaster level 12th+. Prestige classes are about the only nod to 10th-20th levels.

Spycraft has feat chains that require character leves all the way up to 18th.

I'd be interested to hear what besides PrCs in 3e encourages character growth and development beyond 10th level or so. Clearly BAB, improved spellcasting, and the like aren't different, so those aren't appropriate answers, unless I'm missing something. Perhaps the exclusion of racial level limits is one such design.

 

[Zappo]

Prestige classes are something more than a nod.

But yeah, I think that high-prereq non-epic feats would be cool.