I have been continuing the Ryuutama campaign and will post some 'omnibus' AP reports on the blog shortly. But running these sessions have got me thinking about the timing of sessions.
I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on the ideal time length of an RPG session. The immediate reaction people tend to have, and which I myself would once have had, with these things is to just go, 'How long is a piece of string?' But now I'm not so sure. Because of my own time constraints, the session I've been running tend to be about 90 minutes long, and almost invariably that feels - to me at least - like we are just hitting our stride.
This is in some respects good, because there is almost nothing in life to which the motto, 'Always leave them wanting more' is not applicable and solid advice. But 90 minutes I think errs too far on the wrong side of that principle - it isn't quite satisfying enough. What I think it indicates is that 90 minutes would be a good point to have a break, before another 90 minute second half, as it were.
An additional argument for this is that I have come to believe, for pseudoscientific reasons, that 90 minutes is a kind of sweet spot for human beings in general - a natural breaking point in the attention cycle, something to do with the ways our brain activity fluctuates throughout the day and night. Most people have sleep cycles of around 90 minutes, for instance, and it may be why feature films are about that long. Teaching classes at university has also taught me that an hour is usually too short, but two hours are too long - 90 minutes has a way of working out at being 'just right'. This would suggest to me that 90 minutes has a natural rhythmic feel to it at a phenomenological level, but also that 3 hours with a short break in the middle may be the perfect amount of gaming, since 90 minutes isn't quite enough to really make major progress.
For playing in person we usually end up with about... 3 hour sessions, plus a little before hand of just socializing/catching up. Lately, though, for playing online most of us are finding 2 hours is about when we reach a point of... ready to get up and not be staring at a screen.
ReplyDeleteThe screen definitely affects things. I hate sitting looking at a screen for extended periods of time.
DeleteI wonder if stepping back from the idea that sessions should be the base unit of measurement when interacting with RPGs might bear fruit, i wouldnt be surprised if much shorter sessions(20-30ish minutes, maybe upward to 45 but that feelzs wrong) are ideal and that the standard 'important division' of rpgs is a group of 3 or 4 of these mini sessions.
ReplyDeleteOf course, i understand the argument that most people cant/wont have sesisons every other day, but thats not what im arguing; my argument is over whether weve been slae to tradition because single large sessions are easier organizational, but not ideal regarding playing the game.
I do agree though that 90 minute sessions, if seen as 'the session' of the week, sort of sounds right
It is undoubtedly true that what is easier organizationally may not be what is best in terms of play, but it would be really hard to find out - because I do think more frequent short sessions would be impossible to sustain.
DeleteMy group aims for four hour sessions but taking into account faffing about, we get about three hours of play.
ReplyDeleteSince lockdown we have been playing shorter sessions of about two to three hours. I'm not sure why that change has come about. I suspect that there's something a bit more difficult or tiring in playing via video; perhaps the buzz of being in close proximity isn't there, or perhaps the added difficulty of a video call -- not picking up on non-verbal cues as easily, for example -- makes it tougher. Dunno.
We do tend to stop for a tea -- and sometimes cake! -- break about halfway in so your suggestion of 90 minutes each "half" seems about right to me.
Yes, more tiring but also less congenial. Chitter chatter is more difficult.
DeleteTen hours was my ideal. Gather at noon on a Saturday, make a gallon of tea, put some luxury biscuits on a plate and exhaust the idle chit chat for half an hour so it does not intrude on the game's beginning. Break for food and a change of environment around five. Break for the first beer around eight, try not to talk about the game. Wind up at eleven almost always in the middle of something too large to resolve. IME players are not immersed in play before an hour has passed.
ReplyDeleteI think you are probably close to the truth with that last sentence.
DeleteBy the time I read "90 minutes," I was thinking to myself, "No, double that!" And there you said it at the end of the note: a three-hour session with a short break. For me, that is the ideal.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you in thinking that after ninety minutes, we're just getting going.
When I was young, my friends and I would play for five hours at a stretch. But then we had no real responsibilities.
My son's buddies at school were playing in twenty- to thirty-minute sessions, filling their post-lunch break in the yard with monster encounters and dice rolled on pavement. Now they are all at home because of the pandemic, gathering once per week for ninety minutes online. Still, they initially somehow managed to sustain themselves on very small doses.
Much depends, I suppose, on the focus and zeal of the players as a group.
When I was in school we did lunch break games all the time. So I suppose under an hour?
DeleteWe rarely play less than 4 hours, or longer than 8. But we are old now.
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager, play usually started at the first moment in the day that we didn't have something else to do (the lake was a big time competitor in the summer) until the delivery guy came with supper), and then from the time that everyone was mostly finished their food until we were so tired it started to get silly.
I find sessions that are anywhere between 2-4 hours just perfect. That's mostly the case when I run games anyway. "Sadly", I'm part of one group where the GM tends to run 7-8 hour sessions and those are just excruciating, especially since they are in the evening/night/early morning.
ReplyDeleteYeah, long sessions feel like torture to me, like being stuck in a meeting. There really is a point where a good thing gets too much.
DeleteShorter sessions, 90min or 2 hours, definitely have adventurers pace as an advantage. That said, maybe not so much talking at the game table. On task is an act of will.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a three-hour session GM, as much for schedule constraints as anything, but I find myself drifting a bit after that period of time as well.
ReplyDeleteMy 'old normal' schedule consisted of fairly regular three- or four-hour sessions with the kids and their friends (though sometimes those sessions were used for wargames rather than RPGs), and much more occasional games with my old gaming friends that typically got started at half-nine or ten (after a meal and a beer or two) and could easily last until dawn.
ReplyDeleteIn the new paradigm, we've been playing every day with a seven-strong party (six kids and one other parent) for about 90 minutes after work during the week and for three or four hours on both weekend days. The short sessions work because they're so regular, and can sometimes consist entirely of planning a raid or the next step. But the long sessions are the most satisfying.
I've also been playing online with the adult group; sessions tend towards three or four hours. I think that's the natural length.
It used to be that we would meet after lunch around 14:00, and play into the early morning hours, maybe 2:00 or even 3:00. I would go home on foot with a backpack of game books because the bus was not running anymore. That was perhaps too much of a good thing, although I don't recall anyone complaining.
ReplyDeleteOur regular schedule in the last twelve years or so has been constrained by my travel needs (I live in a distant city from my regular groups, and game on the afternoons when I am visiting family every third week). So we start at 14:00, and typically play until 19:00. The game has to be substantial to make it worthwhile, and it cannot be wasteful - we shoot the shit for a short time, but then I say "Meanwhile, on Fomalhaut...", and we focus on the action.
A five-hour unit is enough if everyone is on board. It does not always work out perfectly, but it is enough to introduce a situation, devise and execute a plan, and see the consequences play out. Continuity and campaign-length considerations still apply, but the time slot must also stand on its own, as an "episode". It is also a passable convention game slot (the local custom at the mini-con we frequent is 4.5 hours), and about the length of time we can play via videochat nowadays.
So five hours.
I disagree about the session having to be an 'episode'. But I will write a post on that possibly.
DeleteI often run from 19:30 to 22:00 and I sometimes catch myself looking at the clock and wondering: how much longer still? Not sure if a break would help. So, like DerikB above I’m starting to think 2h might be better.
ReplyDeleteA break might help. It definitely helps me. Concentration really starts to wane after 90 mins.
DeleteYes, I agree (OTOH I too am a lecturer and used to the midway break in 3 hour class!) - 3 hours of gaming with a mid-game break is ideal. With settling in time and goodbyes, total session time is more like 4-5 hours, but 3 hours of actual dice rolling is best.
ReplyDelete