D&D in short doses

[scalydemon]

So, with the lockdown it seems many of us are playing online. Sometimes I'd like to hop online and run or play in a game on a weekday evening, but would really only have an hour or two free.
Normally I consider a game session to be 4 hours.

What's the minimum time limit that you'd consider it worth it to play or run a D&D game? 1 hour? 90 minutes? 2 hours? 3 hours?

[Finarvyn]

My group usually goes for 2-3 hours, whether it's live or online.

Funny, because back in high school I swear we went for days nonstop. We would just rotate DM's and keep playing most of a weekend. Nowadays I just feel like anything more than 3 hours of so is soooo long. (Except at the game store, where a lot of AL sessions go 4+ hours, but I'm not the DM there.)

[dicebro]

Minimum: 1.5 hours
Maximum: 2.5 hours

[bravewolf]

I like refereeing 4-6 hour sessions but I am beat when I get home! I consider 3 hours to be a minimum.

[Punkrabbitt]

A few years ago, I was invited to a D&D game in Fresno. Great guys, great group, the game started at 5pm... by 10pm I was wondering when we would be ending. By 11pm I asked. Apparently "dawn" was when they would be looking to start winding down. I remember those days, but I'm old and medicated now so I had to drop from the group.

If my players can handle serioysly short bursts, I can run a session in 30-40 minutrs. With my kids, we played Star Wars (the WotC one with a zillion hardcovers) and D&D 4E and frequently ran short sessions, just an NPC encounter or a short combat.

[delta]

Apr 21, 2020 19:34:40 GMT -6 Punkrabbitt said:

A few years ago, I was invited to a D&D game in Fresno. Great guts, great group, the game started at 5pm... by 10pm I was wondering when we would be ending. By 11pm I asked. Apparently "dawn" was when they would be looking to start winding down. I remember those days, but I'm old and medicated now so I had to drop from the group.

Geez, that's the kind of basic social interaction stuff that should be set up front (esp. to a newcomer). How long does this event last?

[creativehum]

We play three hours a night... half an hour catching up as actual human being, talking about tv and movies, and then two and a half hours of play.

[hamurai]

Our regular online group usually plays for 3-4 hours, Leaning more towards the 3 because it's weekdays. Less wouldn't make sense to me as you still have to account for the usual non-game chat.

I think 5 hours of online play is the most I could take so far. I find it a lot more exhausting than table play. At the table my table group usually play 5-6 hours but we've played 10 hours of D&D right before the lockdown with the irregular group. That was great! Threw me back to my school days. Like Fin, we have played entire days and weekends. (That's how you learn to run a game! )

[bigjackbrass]

Geography has dictated my group's play for years, so online is our normal method. Generally we play for about two hours. Three would be ideal, perhaps, but even with the lockdown several of us have work and childcare commitments.

Assuming we could get straight into the game I'd happily play for even half an hour… but we never get straight into the game 😁

[Malchor]

Live OD&D we did 3 hours, 7–10pm with a hard stop.

Pandemic online RPG play (me DMing OD&D, playing Traveler Mongoose ed.), 8–10pm or 8:30–10:30 with a hard stop, so people can get the kids to bed and can get up and get things going the morning.

So, 2–3 hours.

[DungeonDevil]

Apr 21, 2020 19:34:40 GMT -6 Punkrabbitt said:

A few years ago, I was invited to a D&D game in Fresno. Great guys, great group, the game started at 5pm... by 10pm I was wondering when we would be ending. By 11pm I asked. Apparently "dawn" was when they would be looking to start winding down.

Q: "Sooo, when does this wrap up?"
A: "Mmm, dawn -- " {a beat} "-- two years from now."
Q: "GAAAAAAHHHHHH!" *thud*

[davidbrodeur]

Personally 3 to 4 is the best. Less than 3 and I feel we don't have much time (since we always joke and fool around for about 30-45 minutes), but more than that it's tiring and people lose focus. If people are really up to it, 1-2h could work for a continuing campaign.

[tdenmark]

3-5 players for 3 hours is the sweet spot for me.

[scalydemon]

I got to test this out a couple weeks ago when I ran an online Swords and Six Siders game with a 2 hour hard stop game time duration. We did character creation at the beginning as well. It was a lot of fun, it probably helped using a minimalist game system.

[scottenkainen]

At least two hours...probably no longer than five anymore. I don't think I've ever played longer than 8 hours straight, even when I was young.

[Finarvyn]

Another factor that just popped into my head is distance. I know that the OP specifically mentioned online gaming, but when we game live I have some friends who live an hour away. That has to factor into the equation. If folks travel a lot to get to a game, you don't want it to be TOO short.

[jamiltron]

3 hours is my optimal time, although I'll do 4 with a lot of social time and a lengthy breaks.

[Deleted]

Longest session I ever ran was 12 hours, and that was right after 5e came out for some close family members. It was a pure dungeon crawl and it was really fun at the time, but I was utterly exhausted and actually woke up sick the next day. Luckily it was on a Holiday break and I had time to recover, but I decided "never again" shortly after that. I prefer to limit games to 3 or maybe 4 hours now, but that's pushing it. Most end up more like 2 to 3. To me, that's no longer a "short dose" but "enough but not too much." If it was a convention game or a really, really engaging game with the right people I could go five or six hours but wouldn't wanna make a habit of that.

[Parzival]

It depends on the group and the adventure, but I find that for online gaming 2 hours is quite sufficient either way, at least as a player. But then studies show that video interaction can be more tiring than face-to-face, as video lag can play havoc with our brain’s natural expectations for personal interaction. The brain has to work harder to process and connect what’s coming through visually with what’s said audibly.

In a live gaming group, I’d probably want 3 to 4 hours, but 2 is still acceptable.

[tombowings]

I run (ran, before the quarantine) a weekly 55 minute game for 13 8th and 9th graders at school. Worked fairly well. Everyone had a good time.

[sixdemonbag]

2-3 hours is the sweet spot for me. 2 hours is fine as long as sessions are very regular (weekly sessions, for instance.) Otherwise, I'd rather carve out a 3 hour block if sessions are more infrequent than weekly. More than 3 hours seems to encourage lots of breaks and attention starts to wane, especially online where I almost exclusively play.

As the DM, I prefer to always leave players "wanting more," so I prefer shorter sessions overall. Shorter 1.5-2 hour sessions also allow for easier prep, which I'm always a fan of. Any session shorter than the runtime of a movie seem hardly worth the effort, at least for adults.