Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ImagoKid 10-11-04, 06:34 AM	Hey I was wondering, how long do most campaigns go for? I recently DM'd a campaign that went for about two terms, and each game session went for ten hours and were two weeks apart. So,,, how long do others go for, and how often do people play?
amethal 10-11-04, 07:15 AM	We play once a week for about 3 to 4 hours. The campaign has gone on for about a year now, but the characters are only 8th level. I get the impression from other posts on these boards that this is a slow progression, which wasn't intentional - its just the way it has turned out. The aim is to get the players up to 20th level and then see about an epic campaign, but don't know if we'll make it that far.
xmcknight 10-11-04, 07:20 AM	Umm, well. The first campaign I ever played was about 4 years playing every Friday and/or Saterday. (That ended once everyone in the group turned sixteen and started the dating scene.) Other campaigns have usually run about a year, with us playing either once a week or twice a month. The first campaign I DMed ran about 5 months. Then one ran all of 3 hours. (Almost everyone made characters execpt one idiot who could not understand that he could not play a half drow / half black dragon at first level. We were all ****** and called it a night. Never played that campiagn again.) The last game I ran lasted about a year, and is on hold until I get back to the States in December where it will resume (hopefully.) O, just clearify, we normally play from anywhere from 5 up to 8 hours a session and normally on either Friday and Saterday. I normally DM on Fridays and play in another game on Saterday. The same group of players for both people in both games. So um, yeah, I have no life. Thank god my girlfriend plays as well. :)
devinmdp 10-11-04, 02:33 PM	My 2nd edition campaign met once every other Saturday for 6 hours. It lasted 9 years. My current 3rd edition campaign meets once every other Saturday for 6 hours. It has lasted 2.5 years so far and is slated to go about 5 years. Devin
protonik 10-11-04, 03:29 PM	I have been running a 3e campaign since 2000 early 2001 and we meet once a week but play other games in between adventures but the first year and a half was just me running all the time. They are 9th level now (played a total of probably 22 months in that three year period) and I am working on a small adventure to get them ready for City of the Spider Queen. Jason
ssvegeta555 10-11-04, 09:20 PM	I play every other weekend (well use to anyways). And usually lasts around 3-4 hour sessions. So far my campaign has been going since 3e came out (2000 I think) and the PCs are at level 7 now. They would be higher level but latly we havn't played for about 3-4 months. It sucks...
ImmortalBlueMage 10-11-04, 09:29 PM	I gather I have a different definition of the word "campaign" than everyone else does. I use campaign to refer to singular adventures. If the PCs spend eight game sessions looking for Generic Ancient Artifact #8, then find it, well, that's the end of that story hook, so I call that a wrap on the campaign and start a new one next week. From what I read here though, most people consider a campaign any series of games that utilize the same reoccuring PCs, no matter how many individual adventures they go through? Or am I wrong? Anyways, I've been with the same group and the same PCs about a year now. Three times a month, average about 6-9 hour sessions. When it comes to designing adventures, I utilize a rule I picked up from Vampire Storyteller's Handbook: "No, shorter than that even." It was referring to one-shot games for conventions, but I find it's applicable elsewhere too. My stories are designed short on purpose, with the knowledge that they'll always take longer thanks to player, um, creativity, shall we say? Base rule: If I intend it to go for two sessions, it'll go for five instead. I'd love to design longer campaigns, but the first couple years of DMing I did taught me that long drawn-out affairs never reach their conclusion. Anytime an aspiring DM starts telling me about this "HUGE story they did that will take like TWO YEARS for us to get through!" I have to tell them "Make it shorter. No, trust me, make it shorter".
Fromost the Grimm 10-11-04, 09:29 PM	The last campaign I DM'd lasted about 18 months real-time. We played once a week, for about 4-5 hours per session. Within that game, characters had progressed from to about 11th-12th level over a period of about one year . . . although it was very 'busy', with little down-time in-game. I've been a player in another campaign for about 18 months. Again, we play once a week for about 4-5 hour per session, and our characters are just breaching 11th level. Within the game, about 2 years have passed all up . . . although we have a little more down-time in this campaign, and sometimes we 'fast-forward' a month or so if it suits where we're at. Hope this helps . . . :)
Thailfi 10-11-04, 09:41 PM	Still running the original continuity from my playgroups campaign. Since leaving college we have been down to one 12-14 hour session per month, but we have been going strong for 24 years and 4 months.
Telperion 10-12-04, 01:33 AM	One year maximum, although there are some minor breaks during holidays. Once a week and about 4 - 5 hours per session. I usually divide my campaigns into 3 - 5 "stories" and each of them takes about 8 - 12 weeks to run. Character advancement is slower than usual. We start around 4th - 6th level and end the campaign around 12th - 16th level. I flat out give half the XP the DMG suggests and some experience for good roleplaying and for advancing the Story. My campaigns are usually fairly heavily themed, and don't have all that many sidetrips.
ImagoKid 10-12-04, 03:54 AM	Still running the original continuity from my playgroups campaign. Since leaving college we have been down to one 12-14 hour session per month, but we have been going strong for 24 years and 4 months. Wow!!! Don't you ever want to be a player?
Naeron 10-12-04, 06:23 AM	Still playing the campaign I joined in University 19 years ago (so its been running for 22 years), and with my original PC. Its gone from an average of one 10 hour session every week to about 1 8 hour session a month.
Robert Craven 10-12-04, 05:27 PM	Hey I was wondering, how long do most campaigns go for? I recently DM'd a campaign that went for about two terms, and each game session went for ten hours and were two weeks apart. So,,, how long do others go for, and how often do people play? The campaign I am in right now started about two years ago. Some players left, some players were left, some others joined. Before summer we played once a week for 5+ hours. Depending on our schedules this year I hope to get to play at least twice a month this fall and winter. We are now at level 12. Only recently I started to dm my first campaign. Only three sessions so far. Players at level 2.
Rian Lightblade 10-12-04, 06:25 PM	For my second group I am currently still running a campaign, with 5 hour sessions that meets once a week. This campaign (same players) has been going on for two and half years IRL and 75 years in game. I thought it was going to end several months back but the party was unable to defeat the BBEG (bad dice, combined with an awful tactical choice). In the end We decided not to scrap the story but continue it with the grandchildren of their PCs. That's just one campaign though, most of the others I have ran and still run for my primary group, only go a few months.
Shemeska the Marauder 10-13-04, 03:55 AM	Once a week for 5-7 hours for the past 2 years, with only 3 weeks having passed in that time when we didn't game for various reasons. Still going strong though the metaplot for the campaign is slowly winding down so it's unlikely to last more than 6 more months before I take a break.