Session length: what do to think is “right”

[sedgetone]

Typically I allow a 4hr slot with the aim to wrap at or just after 3hrs. About 1hr per player is my normal rule of thumb. Most of the time I play with 3 or 4 players on FGU Call of Cthulhu sessions.

[Valyar]

3 to 4 hours session works best for me as player and GM. If there is too much off-topics as people haven't talked for a while and need time to catch up, clearly extend the time with 1h to allow everyone to get in the mood.

[Bolorokenpay]

I run 2 hours, but people start getting on an hour before to chat, so it's 2 hours without distractions.

[mhossom]

We play 4-5 hours every other Saturday night. Usually stop around 4 hours.

[HywelPhillips]

When I run evening sessions, we start at 7 pm and usually end between 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm so people don't have ridiculously late finish for work the next day. That's especially true for my groups with EU players who are an hour ahead - finishing at 11 pm for them is definitely as late as I like to push it. It's a bit on the short side, but we get a decent chunk of stuff happening so long as I keep things moving as the GM.

For weekend online games I like four hours with a mid-game comfort break, both as a player and as a GM.

In person, we often do longer sessions at the weekend of 5-6 hours on Saturday then 2-3 hours Sunday morning before people head home. With breaks of course.

Cheers, Hywel

[Mgrancey]

Depends on the system and players.

I have been in groups that just want to get started and been in groups that like to BS or get easily distracted (put the laser pointers away people). So I have done 3 day once-a-month-ish sessions IRL, run convention games in 4-ish hours when WotC finally admitted they were 5 hour modules, but generally I would say somewhere between 3 (without breaks) to 5 hours (with breaks) is probably about normal.

[krking]

I played for many years once a month around a table and we played for 6-8 hours. Then I stopped playing for 6 years, got back in with 5e in 2019 and started on-line in 3-4 hour sessions weekly. And I really liked the format because I had so much less time. Then about a year ago I found a game that played 2 hours, 7-9 pm EST. At first I wondered if it would work, but the key is when we started we STARTED PLAYING. People that wanted to chat got on the Discord channel at 6:30 and did that, which I started to do as well as we all became friends. But we knew that the GM was going to finish at 9, almost no exceptions, and it really disciplined us to not get sidetracked.

[sorvan76]

3 hours is the sweet spot for our group. 4 hours, everybody switches off and it's hard to inject in any enthusiasm.

[Marquis_de_Taigeis]

when i started running games for friends a few years ago we were only able to play for a 2 hour session and it felt like we had just started when we hit the time we had to stop for other commitments

it would probably need to be combat light as this is an area ive found slows rpgs down

it might be more that have everyone log in and caught up on socialising before the 2 hour gaming session

[Myrdin Potter]

Online I stop at 3 hours. In person 4.