NZRaG

[MikeSands]

From Mash's other thread...

The game length thing is pretty variable. My group - we play every fortnight, which means at most 26 games a year, but realistically 20-22 is more likely.

Mostly we play short run stuff. One-offs, or up to 3 or 4 sessions.

Every now and again we find something that really works and play a long game. Recently that was In A Wicked Age, which we would have played maybe 15 sessions of (making it not even count as long by many people's standards, including mine 15 years ago). Before that it was Rohan's Godlike game, running from 1938 to 1944 in game and taking maybe two and a half years in real time (as I recall).

There are two big things that I'd say push us to keep switching games. These are basically things that push me, as I'm the one in the group mainly driving the game we play (usually running, finding new things to try, etc).
1. Getting bored with what we are doing. This comes from everyone - if anyone is dissatisfied with a game, we tend to drop it pretty quick. Our reasons for dropping games have included:
- System too complex
- System too simple
- System too easily gamed (for Stef in particular this can really make it un-fun for him)
- Losing interest in ongoing story, often a problem with the bi-weekly game when we have multiple cancellations for general life reasons.
- Related to the previous one, games which absolutely require everyone to be present every session don't work so well for us.

2. There is something new that I really want to try out.

Anyhow, just noting that this is very different to what a lot of other people consider long. I'd be interested to hear what other people thought of as 'long' and 'short' and why you pick some games to keep going with and others to drop.
_________________
Games: http://genericgames.co.nz/
Blog: http://gamesteratlarge.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GamesterAtLarge

[MattCowens]

I'm in a gaming hiatus at the moment, playing only the occasional one-off.

When I have more time I'm inclined to keep to 'short-run' games for the most part, where short-run is anything from 1 to 6 sessions.

I played in two of Luke's recent games (last few years):

Orpheus - 30 sessions
Exalted - 22 sessions

Both of which I would describe as long-term games. Luke's breaking up of games into seasons of about 12 sessions was a good way for our regular group to play longer term games but still have the option to play one-offs between seasons and alternate games if we felt like it

[Luke]

[thad]

In the D&D game I'm in, we're at 17 sessions.

In the Heroic Cthulhu game I'm in... it's been going on for about a year and a half now, although the modern version of the campaign is only just over a year. (They play 20 hours every weekend, of which I'm in for 7+ hours depending...)

[Luke]

[thad]

[Luke]

[Mashugenah]

I remember one fight I had in a brief DQ experiment where we started playing at 10am, finished at 6 or 7 and the fight was still going, so we picked it up the following week. Gaming like that it's not too hard to write 20 hours of material per week.
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The opinions prevalent in one age... are confuted and rejected in another and rise again to reception in remoter times. Thus the human mind is kept in motion without progress.
- Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare

[MikeSands]

[Dan]

From across the ditch... something from Mikes post caught my eye

[MikeSands]

Dan,

I think both number of sessions and time passed factor into the perceived length of a game, but not in a simple way. Not sure if I can say more at this point, it's not a well-articulated thought, just a feeling.
_________________
Games: http://genericgames.co.nz/
Blog: http://gamesteratlarge.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GamesterAtLarge

[Luke]

[MikeSands]

I think that intensity of the sessions can factor in separately as well - probably less intense sessions contribute to a feeling that a campaign is a longer running one, although that is probably not an invariable relationship.
_________________
Games: http://genericgames.co.nz/
Blog: http://gamesteratlarge.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GamesterAtLarge

[sophmelc]

[Mikeythorn]

We play once a week, for around 4 hours. Our longest campaign lastest 73 sessions over 18 months, but the majority of our campaigns seem to last for 6 months or so - with the odd one-off jaunt to spice things up every now and then.
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My favourite roleplaying memory - "Daisy at Colonus", two drunk cowboys and a pantomime cow in a 'reinterpretation' of Sophocles greatest play.