How long are your game sessions?

[Ziriel]

First of all, thanks for the warm welcome.

The system we are using iz actually one of our own devising.  (Perhaps one day it will even be finished. *grin*)  When I refered to getting into the flow however I wasn't really speaking in terms of game mechanics.  We often don't even touch the dice or look at our sheets during our warm up period.

It seems to take some time to recap what we did last session/what we were planning to do this session, establish mood, and get everyone back into the frame of mind they were in a week ago.  This may in part be due to the fact that we tend to run stories that can last over a month within a larger long running game (5 years now).  

We also have a very character driven feel and spend a lot of time on little details like: "Oh yeah, my character iz in a foul mood because you called him a jerk last session.  He's going to have something to say about that."

I do agree with getting a story going quickly and making sure it's engaging from the get go, like a movie.  What I'm more refering to is if you are running a mystery story it will slow down in the middle while you look for clues.  Then if you cut a session during this slow spot it can take a while for the players to remember their clues, assemble their thoughts, etc.  Unless of course the players have spent all their time in between sessions plotting the GM's doom, in which case you blaze forward without delay.

[Matt Gwinn]

The biggest time factor in my gaming groups is the day of the week.  work schedules seem to play a greater roll now, moreso than in college when we could play nonstop till everyone passed out.

You see, one of my group plays on Mondays which means we can't start till everyone is out of work which is around 6, then we have to eat dinner, so we sometimes don't start until 7 or so.  Then, we have work on Tuesday which means we have to finish around 10 or 10:30.  Tom gets up at like 3am and Scott and I both have  a 45 minute drive home.

My Friday game works about the same as far as start time goes, but we often play until people start getting tired - nowadays that's around 11 or 12.

My saturday D&D game is very different.  We start at 4pm and usually finish around 11 or 11:30.  Subtract the time for food and goofing around and the average game session still runs about 6 hours or so.  Most of the time we don't even notice the time pass.

My Sunday game or Kayfabe runs from about 6pm to 11 or midnight and that's rarely enough time to get in everything for the 6 player session as the gaming over the web tends to slow things down.  I suspect that if none of us worked on Monday we would play later.

,Matt Gwinn

[contracycle]

Well, my games in school were pretty much from midday/breakfast Sunday till mandatory hometime.   Sometimes we pulled all-nighters, quite a lot really, but an average of 6-10 hould be feasible.  In college things got a fair bit shorter, 4-6 hours, usually on a sunday but sometimes on weekdays depending on schedules etc.

In London, there are gaming clubs that operate in pubs, so these games ran from about 6:30ish to last tube time, which was about 11 - 11:30ish, depending on how far you had to go.  This was quite disciplined in that we were relative strangers and the group got quite large, although there was starting chit-chat and drinks-buying.

More recently, a sunday afternoon/early evening pattern was most common, running to 4-6 hours I guess from early afternoon.  Frequently dinner will be cooked, this is both because, as was mentioned above, we find it enriches the experience, and as a break which allows me tyo get my shit together.

I;m defnatelty in taking time camp, it takes me a while to settle into character and get the mnindset right, I don;t really like to kick off with too much action.  As a GM, I like to give players conversation time, as I like to get a handle on what they are thinking, but I keep an eye on the clock (I often bring my own clock).  This gives me time to formulate thoughts and adapt plans to what has now been established and the direction the players are going.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Ziriel,

Thanks for clarifying.

After I posted I realized that you might have thought I was referring to "dice roles" when I meant rules.  But if you look at a game like Sorcerer, you'll find lots of mechanics (like Kickers), that really influence the game, but aren't what most RPGers think of when we mention "mechanics".  ("Mechanics" for most gamers refer to how a physical or mental action is modelled.  Kickers are clearly not that.)

If you're interested in continuing this discussion further, let me know.  We should probably start a new thread ("Dramaturgy and RPGs" or something), as we're clearly drifting off thread.

Let me know.  And again, welcome.

Christopher

[jdagna]

My playing times pretty well match the 3-4 hour average.  I usually schedule 5 hours of gaming time, because I know about 1.5 hours of that will be occupied with tardiness and social stuff.  We often end half an hour early or so, so the games are usually 3 hours of actual play, sometimes less.

My marathon gaming record was 18 hours in a day back when my friend and I used to do sleepovers all the time on 3-day weekends.  We probably did 40 hours worth on that one weekend.  Back then, I usually pushed for games that were about 5-6 hours and we would go as long as we possibly could.

Somebody brought up needing time to get into character, and that describes me as well.  I usually need about an hour to get into my character and then stay there for about six hours.  With my game nowadays getting shorter, than means I usually need a couple of hours to "unwind" afterward.

With AD&D and Champions, so much of the session is dragged out (in my view), with book keeping, page flipping, rules adjudicating and so on, that you'd need nearly eight hours to squeeze the "story" elements in.

I may be misunderstanding your definition of "story" elements, but in my experience, things happen the opposite.  Finding a rule is always faster than role-playing a scene out in detail or delving into a complicated plot.  In general, the more book-keeping and page-flipping a game lets me do, the more efficient I feel the time has been.  The "story" elements are where the fun is, of course, so they're well worth spending the time on.  

On the other hand, I disliked AD&D 2E so much that I played it for only a few months during junior high, and have only tried Champions once at a convention.  But WFRP, GURPS and Palladium are not exactly rules-lite systems built for speed and they're the ones I've played most.

[vegasthroat]

Hello All (first time post, btw)

In my circle game time is generally between 7 and 10 hours.  With the occassional 16 hour marathon session thrown in when it's really good.

With the level of concentration on role-playing, interpersonal character interaction, and plot/subplot/metaplot weaving/unravelling my group doesn't even start to feel like they're gaming until around hour 3.

It takes them generally until the 3rd hour in character to feel a sense of complete immersion into the world and story.

But, then again, we may be the most obsessive psychotic gamer elitists in history.