How long are your sessions on average?

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When I was a stupid student we would do 24hr sessions on the odd weekend (very odd weekends...)
 
When I was a stupid
We have on occasion pulled an all-nighter while smoking pot and drinking alcohol with a dentist appointment or rental room sighting planned for the next day.

EDIT: I really don't know how I survived those ordeals...
 
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We play F2F between 4-5 hours almost every week. Of course, it's zero hours at moment as no one in the group likes online play. We've tried and it just never works well.
 
The hanging out total time is usually 5-6 hours, with a 4 hour block in the middle that is the actual gaming, sometimes a lil shorter.
 
Sometimes I miss the 8+ hour sessions I used to do. In college, we often played for 10-12 hours with one or two marathon sessions running longer. Those longer sessions were nice for games with crunchy combat systems, though so far we have actually managed to finish crunchy RQ combats in our 2 hour sessions, though sometimes running long (I have flexibility to run 30 minutes long). One of those marathon college sessions involved a combat that took some 8-10 hours to run (we started sometime after midnight and were definitely still running when the sun came up. That "next" day, my friend and I were supposed to go on a spring break camping trip, we agreed to take a good nap, and leave in the afternoon...).
 
Yeah. We used to do longer sessions.

I think it really changes how you play and what you will tolerate. Things like pouring through the books for different spells and crafting options are fine when you're playing over 10-12 hours with meal breaks and the like and the game stops and starts over that period.

When you've got 3 to 4 hours you just need to get shit done.
 
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Actual play is probably between 2.5 - 3 hours, but there is always a good socialising before, during and after and usually a meal or at least some snacks so the session is much longer. But with the right kind of system you can cover a lot of ground in 3 hours.
 
I think the longest I've ever played was 8 hours, and that wasn't in a game I was running. It really felt long in the tooth though, but that might have been because I was suffering from a hangover from the previous night of partying.
 
I literally just finished a 10 hour session on Microsoft Teams for our Rifts game. We don't bother with any online tools, just get each other up on video and play like we would normally.
 
One session a week, about 8-10hrs average. We *rarely* play less than 8hrs. Rarely more than 12.

Back in the day... it was pretty common for me to run 3-sessions a week, and every session would be minimum of 8hrs, and at least one of those sessions would turn into Dawn Patrol... and we'd wrap up when the sun came up (coincidentally - not specifically), going around 15hrs. Ahh the days of youth.
 
I used to run 4 hour sessions, now I've generally cut out down to three but with a scheduled break halfway through and a bjt of time to chat at the end. I tend to run a couple of sessions a week, more when I'm doing oneshots.
 
I usually try to schedule 4 hour sessions (6:30 to 10:30pm is typical), but I'm anticipating getting about 3 to 3.5 hours of actual play in. (This assumes 10-15 minutes for everyone to get settled, recapping the previous session, usually a break in the middle somewhere, and the fact I'll start looking for a good stopping point in the last 20 minutes, so it's not unusual to wrap a little early.)

This is not universally true. For my recent Dragon Heist campaign we specifically scheduled monthly weekend intensives, with a 10 hour session on Saturday bracketed by 5-6 hour sessions on Friday night and Sunday morning. Since we'd take meal breaks, that probably translated into about 17-18 hours of play over three days.

COVID-19 has thrown a massive spanner in the works by cancelling everyone's babysitting. Two of my regular campaigns can't get started until 8:30pm so that parents can put their kids down, so we've moved to 2.5 hour sessions (with a goal of getting 2 hours of play in). (The Dragon Heist group has dropped to weekly 4 hour sessions because online gaming makes anything longer intolerable.)
 
Nowadays an average session is only 2 hours. That's one on one, though. No dead time.

Sometimes when we're both firing on all cylinders we go for a 4 hour session. It requires just the right engagement in melodrama and characterization as well as inspiration though.

Back in the group days, I think 6+ hour sessions were pretty much standard. We'd start getting together about 7PM and go until after midnight. 2AM was the usual cutoff, but with 6 people there was a lot of catherding and general screwing around. But we also managed that huge dose of gaming multiple times a week. We typically had two long game nights each week. I miss being able to be focused on games like that for that stretch of time, but I don't miss anything else about it.
 
In theory 3.5 hours, from 1930 to 2300, but it depends when people turn up, whether they have to eat and so on, so actually between 2-3 hours.
 
In the online era, my Savage Worlds games are scheduled for 3 hours, and actually run somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 hours, based on when we arrive at a good stopping point.

In the F2F era, Beatrix's D&D game would run 5-7 hours. That was a bit long for me, but we would typically take a short break every 60 to 90 minutes, so that helped. In the online era, her games have been 4-5 hours.

Red Ted's Curse of Strahd game has been running 4-5 hours online.

Every time I've played at a convention or game store, the game has been scheduled for a 4-hour slot. Seems to be a pretty good amount of time for that sort of event.
 
Since I started playing by Zoom I've gotten into the value of short (1-2 hour) punchy sessions. I played as many crazy days-long games of D&D as the next 50+ year old, and they are awesome, but there is something great about having an excellent hour together and then moving on to the next thing
 
My paid sessions are scheduled for four hours, but I don't start trying to pull the plug until after five and so far they've always run over six.

Offline sessions are generally closer to four hours, because people actually have to pack up and go home.
 
In theory 3.5 hours, from 1930 to 2300, but it depends when people turn up, whether they have to eat and so on, so actually between 2-3 hours.

Thought #1: That kind of consistency over 370 years is impressive.

Thought #2: He must be referring to Traveller 2300. What's 1930? Traveller 1930? Is that some Skylark pastiche version of Traveller I'm not familiar with?

Thought #3: I'm being a provincial American.

I should probably head to bed. I'm getting punchy.
 
Normally about 3 hours as most of us have jobs and commuting and stuff (families in some cases) that really precludes starting the session before 7 or so.
 
My group's playing 3-4 hours, max 5 hours, and only once a week due to time zone differences and work commitments.
 
My current game goes between 3 and 4 hours so far.
 
2.5 to 3 hours online, 3 hours (evening) to 4-5 hours (daytime) in person, is typical. You can probably deduct 30 minutes online & 1 hour in person for chitchat, longer in daytime game with old friends where there's a yummy dinner break. :smile:
 
Home campaign, in-person - 6-8 hours
Convention game, in person - 4-6 hours
Home campaign, online - 2-4 hours
 
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