How long does your campaign usually last, how many sessions and how long are those sessions? Do you like to run shorter campaigns before moving on to a new one or do you prefer to run long term ones that last years?

mean of about 15 sessions, median of 2

>>96091590 (OP)
honestly i thinks its best to not overprep the game that way you wont burn out so much

>>96091590 (OP)
Don't GM myself but the norm for my both my groups is 1-2 years. One group tends to play weekly to fortnightly, the other weekly to monthly. Sessions are usually 3-6 hours excluding time spent fucking about, eating etc.

A year or two. I think I've had one go longer, but I couldn't say for sure. Weekly. 5-ish hour sessions normally.

>>96091590 (OP)
Hey everyone glad you can make it, okay so three of you guys have yet to make characters, let's do that real quick
*three hours later
Well I at least want you guys to meet each other, you all meet in a wayshire as night closes in... oh we're out of time.
See you guys next week
*no one shows up next week

I've done various lengths in the past, but I've settled on one year long campaigns, which is what I prefer. It's enough time to explore the setting/story/characters, but not enough to overstay its welcome.

One year means about 20-30 sessions, each lasting about 5 hours. We also run smaller campaigns and one-shots on the side, for when a player can't make it.

>>96091590 (OP)
Mine usually last about 40-50 sessions over the course of a year or two but that's just the ones I run, when I'm a player it's usually short campaigns and one-shots

>>96091590 (OP)
>>96092515
Forgot to add that I obviously like long-running weekly campaigns best

>>96091590 (OP)
6 months to a few years. I've been trying to do shorter, more focused games but my players do things to stretch them out and we all have fun anyways.

>>96091590 (OP)
As long as it lasts. I've got two year long campaigns under my belt.

>>96091590 (OP)
My first foray into ttrpgs was a one shot.
After that I played a year long D&D 5e strahd campaign, followed by a couple of short series of one shots, followed by a proper campaign where we played from 1 to 11 in the span of several months.
Three years ago I joined an on-going D&D 3.5e campaign that's been happening on and off since something like 2008.
We are still playing that.
In the meantime I've also played a couple of one shots here and there.
My favorite campaigns so far have been the long ones, with my favorite being the one I joined 3 years ago that's still going to this day.
Its cool seeing a contiguous world state and how the characters exist in and influence it.
I was really bummed when my character died, good thing he got better.
That said, I also appreciate the short campaigns and random one shots alongside this longer seemingly never ending sandbox game. I enjoy having both the stability and continuity as well as the variety on the side.

Let's see....
>a D&D 3.5 campaign I DMed that lasted at least 100 sessions
>a D&D 3.5 campaign that I played in that lasted for, by my estimation, 200 to 300 sessions
>a D&D 3.5 campaign that I am playing in, that's lasted 115 sessions so far
>a Pathfinder 1e campaign I GMed that lasted 124 sessions
>a D&D 5e campaign I ran that lasted 38 sessions
>a Pathfinder campaign that lasted 75 sessions where I was the GM
>a Savage Worlds campaign I GMed that lasted 72 sessions.
>another Savage Worlds campaign I GMed that lasted 32 sessions so far
>loads of other shorter campaigns
This is with a few different groups of course.

>>96091590 (OP)
>How long does your campaign usually last, how many sessions
~20-30 sessions.
>how long are those sessions
2-4 hours
>Do you like to run shorter campaigns
I prefer mid-length games since I tend to run games on rotation with other GMs who are in the same group(s).

>>96093217
On and off since 2008 sounds awesome. Would be cool to try out something crazy long-term like that.

>>96093384
200-300 sessions is a lot. How many years did that last?

>>96093004
Two-year-long or two year-long?

>>96094741
>On and off since 2008 sounds awesome.
Yeah.
One of the characters is an OG too, created back in 2008.
He's something like lvl 17 while the rest of the party is around 15.
Pretty crazy.
A lot of old characters from past players, or current players who made new characters, still roam the world as NPCs and show up from time to time.

>>96094741
>>96095317
Oh, and one of the characters is this fella
>>96082561
>>96082723

>>96091590 (OP)
A year's worth of 4-5 hour weekly sessions.

>>96094741
>How many years did that last?
Roughly 11 years.

>>96098318
I'm impressed you guys managed to stick together for so long. I've only been playing ttrpgs for 8 years, my 5e addled brain can barely comprehend this.

>>96095321
Pic related

Also, how do you manage the plot over these 10+ year long campaigns? Is there a big bad the PCs will eventually fight? Many smaller bad guys? Fully open sandbox?

>>96099764
>how do you manage the plot over these 10+ year long campaigns
In my case, I only joined 3 years ago, but the game is a full sandbox, and from what I understand, shit just keeps happening around the world and the PCs managed to snowball problems forward as much as they managed to solve them.
Hell, one of the main enemies of the party is a an NPC that used to be a PC back in the day.
So basically, the DM is really good at both using the bits and pieces native to the setting as well as the consequences of the PC's own actions to fill the universe (multiverse now, I guess) with shit we could be doing, as well as shit we really, really ought to do if we want to see the twin suns rise over the horizon tomorrow.

>Pic related
He did manage to become the left hand of the king emperor of not-australia and essentially a member of the shadow government.
So yeah, can't stop winning.

>>96099884
That sounds fun af, I'm guessing you have an amazing dm.

I'd be interested in running something similar myself, but I don't think I'd want to have it as my main campaign. I'd probably have it as an ongoing thing in the background, that we'd return to for short storylines inbetween our regular sessions. Otherwise it would be too much of a commitment for me. I enjoy starting new campaigns too much :P