Marathon Play

[ffilz]

Over in [url http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12933]this thread[/url] LordSmurf asked about others experiences with marathon play.

My most vidid marathon play example was back in college in a Cold Iron (home brew system - I've mentioned it a few times here) campaign I was running. We had already been playing for 8+ hours when I introduced a major undead encounter at night. In my campaigns, night encounters were always the worst, especially undead. Most of the PCs would be asleep and not wearing full armor. It could take several rounds for everyone to wake up.

At this time, I was using some hex maps that Steve Jackson Games produced with outdoors on one side and dungeon on the other. There were three maps and I rotated through them for encounters. The particular map in use on this day had a cluster of rocks in the center. The PCs set up camp around the rocks, with the watch standing on top.

As the undead closed, the PCs started waking folks up and preparing to defend. Spell casters buffed up the fighters. A few shots with very large crossbows/small ballistas were taken (PC groups usually had two or three of these that were designed to be capable of being left loaded all night, sitting on tripods so anyone could run over and aim and fire them).

The undead force was almost overwhelming. I recall several PCs went down. In Cold Iron, rarely do you die immediately, the hit points are D&D style, but you can go quite negative and still be healed eventually. There is no resurrection. Because of the time frame to be healed when you go seriously negative, usual practice is to turn the body to stone for later recovery. Undead being who they are often swing at downed bodies (one or two swings at a downed body almost guarantees an unrecoverable body). Even being turned to stone doesn't totally protect you. As I recall, at least once, a PC had to parry for a downed body.

As the sun was rising (real time, not game time), the battle was finally coming to a close. By the time we were finished with the battle, handed out experience, and at least noted down the treasure haul, it was about 11:00 AM. The battle itself had taken almost 12 hours to run, and the entire session had run for over 20 hours.

I think we were all on the edge of our seats all night (well, we had one catatonic player in the campaign - he may have slept some - I don't remember if he was there that session).

Would I run this way again? Probably not. In retrospect, we should not have started another encounter so late at night. But then we usually ran at least until midnight or 1 AM (so usually a 10-12 hour session). One thing that made this encounter so much harder was the undead had comparable spell casters to the PCs, so the undead were buffed, plus the undead tried to dispel PC buffs.

Cold Iron does have some things that can contribute to very long battles. While healing is slow, and there are limits to how much healing you can have in a day (basically you can heal your hit points once in a day), there are buff spells that add additional hit points, though the PC takes part of that as fatigue damage (but the amount of fatigue damage is small enough that it CAN be healed effectively during combat). Other buff spells increase the damage absorbtion of armor to the point where a pretty good crit is necessary to do damage if you can't gain a tactical advantage on your opponent. Oh, and undead are immune to fatigue effects... So those hit point buffs are very nice on undead...

I think that encounter is the single most intense encounter I have ever run.

I have run other >12 hour sessions, again they always occur because a climactic encounter happens late in the evening. Most of the times, the encounters are combat encounters, but I'm pretty sure we had some marathons when I ran a campaign in a home brew system where we averaged less than one combat per two game sessions (and average session length for that campaign must have been 8-10 hours). That campaign had a lot of mystery and puzzle solving.

These days my preference would be for about an 8 hour session, with room to extend to 10 hours, but I would make a real effort to cap it off at 10 hours. I'm not sure if my most recent campaign had sessions longer than 10 hours, I don't think so.

Frank

[C. Edwards]

Extended, "marathon" game sessions are not something I find enjoyable. I've played some eight hour sessions, a couple weekend spanning sessions, and a few in between. I find, particularly as I get older, that I have a practical gaming limit of about three to four hours, tops. After that I just become cranky, fidgety, mentally drained, and ready to move on to something else. But during those three or four hours I'm usually having a damn good time.

-Chris

[TonyLB]

Out of interest:  Do you still remember the three coolest things PCs did during that encounter?

[b_bankhead]

I have never particuarly been a fan of superlong sessions, I find that mostly it's just sluggish pacing, not a lot happening. I find that you can get just as much done if you are focused and get to the point in half the time. Another way to keep your pacing is just use rules that don't lead to 12 hour combats (I HATE long combats!!! I stopped playing D&D forever because of a 2.5 hour combat, I would have walked out on that game long before it was over)

But that goes against the ethos of most of the game crowd.  The consensus seems more is better, longer sessions, more rules etc. but more and more I find that less is more. A time limit forces you to get down to business.

[ffilz]

Hmm, three coolest things? Not really. Unfortunately my memory of game sessions tends not to be very good. I do remember someone parrying for a downed body. I want to say I remember the dwarf using a magic item to turn someone to stone when he was almost out of mana (in Cold Iron, most magic items other than potions require the user to supply the mana to power them, dwarves have half as much mana as humans). I guess the last stand aspect was pretty cool and the fact that they all stood on the rocks for height advantage. This by the way was more than 15 years  ago...

Something on shorter sessions: I have considered doing shorter sessions, like 3-4 hour, but they just don't work for me for some of the following reasons:

- Overhead time. I assume at least 30 minutes of chit chat at the start of the session, 60 minutes is more like it, especially when you consider non-punctual players. Plus, an hour or so before a game session, I pretty much go into non-productive mode. Then there's set up and clean up time. I figure my overhead for a game session is 2-3 hours. This is not prep time, this is all just logistics of hosting a game session. It could be cut down some if someone else hosted the game (but not that much, replace some of the time with 1 hour of commuting back and forth).

- I like tactical combats with miniatures or counters on a map. This adds handling time to combat meaning combats will be hard pressed to take less than an hour if they are significant.

- I prefer about 6 players. Each player adds handling time, plus  there needs to be enough spotlight time for each player (and the player's share of spotlight time will be balanced against their overhead time).

- Session overhead time: figure 30 minutes of "set the scene and remember what happened last time" and 30 minutes of wrap up (experience, treasure, other book keeping).

Now obviously with different play styles, and different numbers of players, these things can change. 2 or 3 really dedicated players could probably reduce the overhead time (both non-game and game) significantly. Don't do tactical combats (or reduce the importance of combat), and a few other changes, and a 3-4 hour session could work quite well.

Frank

[ffilz]

Oops, I want to clarify... most of the 2-3 hour overhead time is not included in the session time, but it factors in the cost/benefit analysis. Am I getting enough value for the time I'm dedicating. The session overhead time I do include in the session time (session time for me is from scheduled start to when the players break up, so it does include the 30 minutes of chit chat and waiting for tardy players).

But all of this is getting away from talking about marathon sessions, why they happen, what the benefit is, and what the cost is.

For me at least a big cost of a marathon session is impact of loss of sleep. Since I usually start sessions at noonish, a marathon session will extend past midnight (these days bedtime for me is more like 10-11, so even midnight is affecting my sleep patterns).

I'm trying to think if I've really had a player drop out of the game because of marathon sessions. I don't think I've directly lost a player. I have certainly had players drop out who couldn't do the 8ish hour sessions I prefer. I guess a big factor is I have never had a marathon session without a pretty dedicated play group.

So I think one of the benefits of a marathon session is sustaining intensity.

Frank

[TonyLB]

I think you've correctly noticed the correlation, but you're guessing at the wrong causation.

It sounds like intense play causes marathon sessions, not the other way around.

[Rob Carriere]

It sounds like intense play causes marathon sessions, not the other way around.

That's how it works for me.  Mostly I'm with Chris, somewhere around the 4 hour mark enough is enough. But, I'm currently in a game where the unintentional norm is about 8-9 hours and this is entirely because everybody forgets to look at their watch...until the eventual "My god, it's 4:30 AM!". And this among a crowd where normal bedtimes are before midnight.

SR
--

[nellist]

Most of my gaming experience has been in the 'marathon play' style. When I was at school we would play at the weekend, 10am until 5pm, usually on a Saturday, bringing packed lunches to whoevers house we were at. This would range from 5 to 10 people, mosty D&D, Traveller, Runequest. In holidays we would also repeat during the week.

After University, when my old gaming group were scattered across the UK we would meet for weekend sessions, once every six months, which usually met on Friday night, having travelled for three of four hours to get wherever we were meeting, then starting on Satruday morning at 10am (or a bit later depending on hangovers from previous late night drinking, or on the size of the gruesomely large greasy fry up that started the morning. We would game until about 1 or 2pm, stop for lunch, sometimes going out to a pub, then carry on all afternoon with a plan to go out for a curry at about 9pm. This usually finished off gaming for the day, but occasionally we'd do some stuff past midnight, but not much. Sunday morning would be a repeat of Saturday but usually with a time set for finishing based on someone needed to catch a train, get back to do some crucial DIY or other girlfriend/wife/family mandated activity. This time period is really too much (IMO) to sustain a concentrated role playing experinece - everyone runs out of ideas on Saturday afternoon, so we tend to do 'other' games related to the setting/story/characters. This might be a bit of wargaming, some sort of story telling game relating to the character or major NPC backgrounds or something similar. These sometimes work in a self contained way and sometimes they do not, but they are a break from the norm and refresh brains. On Sunday, with plots to tie up the pace gets really quick and excitement is at its highest peak.

Some of the lull that occurs is down to me, the GM, being concerned that the whole thing might be resolved by Saturday evening, leaving me struggling on Sunday. I found it hard to ad-lib for such a long period of time. I also found it hard to prepare things that will fill a long session and get resolved on Sunday by the deadline. This was one contributing factor to the subgames - they were easier to time. Another important factor was the increasing difficulty of everyone getting there on Friday night. Saturday morning often ended up at 2pm, so a game that not everyone was in was good for Saturday morning.

I have had some 3-4 hour sessions, in the evening after work, and found that the downsides - 2 hours travel for 3 hours games, tired due to a days work, late night affecting next days work all added to my frustration with the scheduling.

Keith

[Marco]

I tend to favor 4-5 hour time blocks for serial style games (i.e. long continuing story arcs with the same characters). But once in a while I'll do one-shot single-story games over an extended weekend (3-4 days).

I very much like this format. It is intense, the pacing is usually high through-out, and the focus is good. These require some scheduling and can be a bit of an endurance exercise--but I've found they're quite rewarding.

We usually don't play standard genre games for these but rather work on doing something more non-standard.

-Marco

[ffilz]

It sounds like intense play causes marathon sessions, not the other way around.

Yes and no. It's actually a circular thing. But I also did say "sustaining intensity." In my experience, the intensity level ramps up after the decision to keep going. Sure, a certain intensity level has made folks willing to keep going.

Frank

[jdagna]

I'm not generally a fan of marathon play, but there is one advantage I see in it: it  usually takes me about an hour to really get into character.  Most of the time, I do this before the game starts by thinking over past events and sort of conforming my thoughts to the character's, so that I can jump right in.  So in a marathon game, I can stay in character longer and get slightly more "efficient" (sort of in the way ffilz was talking about).

The only times I've ever engaged in marathon play were with my best friend in high school.  We'd often do sleep-overs and play all weekend, even through the night.  (In fact, we had more than a few funny incidents where I'd gotten so tired I started talking nonsense without realizing it).  It made for a lot of very deep NPC/PC interactions and formed some character relationships that were much more complex and real than I see in most games.  However, I think a lot of our motivation was that we didn't really have any other friends and didn't have a lot in common either.  (i.e. we used gaming to cover up deficiencies in our relationship, if I can say that without sounding gay - a lot of guys would have used sports for the same reason).

Anyway, I simply don't have the time or interest for marathon sessions any more.  I much prefer regimented games of about 4-5 hours long - get in, have some fun, get out and back to real life.

[ErrathofKosh]

Back in college, before I was married, I lived with three other guys.  We had a fourth friend who would often come over.  We'd stay up until 5:00 a.m. no matter if we were gaming or not.  Most nights we gamed...  

We'd start at about 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. and just go.  Gaming almost everyday, week in and week out is an incredible experience, even if it caused all to drop out of college.  We just worked and roleplayed.  We had one guy who was the primary GM, but some nights one of the rest of us would lead a different game.  Those old WEG Star Wars games are the only experience that I've had that would be simliar to Jay's LOTR campaigns.  

We developed a tight bond between the five of us, only one of this group is currently not in contact with the rest of us even though we now live in California, Mass. (I don't know how to spell it...), Texas, and Oregon.  The emotional tension is definitely escalated by the freshness of this type of gaming, there is little "warm-up" time necessary.

I know most gaming groups don't operate this way and I feel extremely fortunate to have had this experience.

Cheers
Jonathan

[Bill Cook]

I played D&D for a whole Summer once. I don't remember any of it. I also spent a whole Summer writing spells for a D&D rehash. Ah, my wasted youth.

Marathon play is stressed by drinking. It's hard enough to stay awake. Also, I think music/movies going on in the background are especially deleterious to this format.

In my twenties, I used to just be made of iron, and I could make myself strain through that 1:30am trough. But now, forget it. I made a motion that our group should end play by midnight. They counter-motioned that I should take a nap before we start. That's what I do.

Using arbitrary time limits concentrates play. It is not entirely comfortable to GM, but it's fun to wield that gale-force punch. I will sometimes use a timer, set for 45 minutes. When it goes off, we take a 15-minute break.

What I would really like to do is get a second group to bring my monthly cross-group session count up to two per month, on average.

[beingfrank]

We tend to play for 8-12 hours once a fortnight.  We played once a week for a while but it was a bit too much for me.  The session starts with chatting to catch up on each others' lives, and we often stop playing while we eat lunch or dinner.  And about every second session we'll stop midway through and go for a walk, sometimes roleplaying as we walk, just to get some fresh air and a chance of scenery to keep the brains functioning.

In terms of the effect session length has on style of play, long sessions allow long cuts for individual players.  We only have two PCs, but we do try to keep periods of individual spotlight time less than an hour, and usually less than half an hour.  It does mean that scenes can drag on.  Particularly when they're scenes that are fun to play, but not particularly important to plot.  A common one is the regular family breakfast that both PCs can attend.  This is fun to play out, because it involves swapping info, talking about unimportant things in character, and just playing with characters and dialogue.  And it's pretty much guarenteed that nothing stressful will happen, which can sometimes be nice for a change.

If we were aiming for 4 hour sessions, these things would never be played out, because they're not 'important' to the game as such.  But having long sessions gives us permission to spend our time with such scenes that don't actually advance the game as such.  The GM sometimes finds this a bit frustrating, because the players can seem as willing to talk about knitting patterns in character as engage with the clever plots he's crafted, and it's hard work on him playing 4-8 NPCs in a full on social situation with multiple conversations going on in all directions (but he does it marvellously, which is why we like these scenes so much).

We're currently going through a phase of trying to be more focussed on specific aims in the game (like engaging with plots that effect both PCs, players taking more responsibility for ensuring that that game doesn't become two separate games about PCs that never do anything important together, and so on), and one of the results has been an effort to cut down on family breakfast scenes.  But it's also a very useful way to start off a situation, because all sorts of information is exchanged and plans hatched that PCs can take up and run with.  It's kind of our equivalent of the 'so you're all in a tavern.'