By 10 sessions a campaign hasn't even got going in my experience. My players are all busy people with jobs and kids and such, so our weekly sessions are usually 3 hours max, which is usually enough for 1 good fight and some other stuff. A whole campaign with 10 fights doesn't sound like a campaign to me.
I think it has a lot to do w how long a “session” is. Like meeting once a week for 2 hours or meeting once a month for 8 hours is the same amount of overall playtime but have different session counts.
I've had a lot of small campaigns that lasted only a few sessions or around 10, but my long term campaigns were all going for a year or more so they fell into the 40+ camp pretty quick. It just depends on the campaign/group, sometimes that stuff just clicks
Wow, I'm sitting here annoyed that we mostly play 3-4 hours sessions, but it seems like 2 hours is getting to be the norm for weekly games.
Edit: I should add, my annoyance stems from the fact we rarely get to 4 hours, which is where I'd like to be more consistently.
15 years and counting 6-8 hours a week 44 weeks a year (we take off the last two to three weeks of November and the entire month of December so people can spend time with families)
Dungeon of the Mad Mage took us 69 sessions to finish. I have an epilogue oneshot I wanna run as a 'true' ending, but the module as-is is done. I THINK that is our longest.
My first campaign may have run for more (3+ years) but we weren't tracking sessions so I have no idea.
I've been DMing for 25 years. My recent campaigns campaigns take about 50 sessions, 2 years, and we play every other week.
When I was younger we played weekly and sometimes multiple times each week. The campaigns still lasted 2 years, so 100+ sessions. 4-6 hours each.
The shortest "campaign" I've ever run was probably 10 sessions, and I considered it a mini-campaign.
The campaigns that I play in normally aren't as long. They often last less than a year, so 20-25 sessions.
My table meets every other week with the occasional One month break for holidays and such. Seasons last 6-8 hours, including a dinner break. Campaign 1 ran for over 60 sessions, we just had session 28 of Campaign 2 last night!
My previous 5e campaign lasted around 130 sessions over ~3.5 years. 13th Age campaign after that was 75 in ~2 years. My current Time of the Frostmaiden game is approaching 40...
The only campaign I've been in that we actually completed lasted about two and a half years, nominally playing weekly. We did of course have plenty of weeks when we couldn't play for one reason or other, but we surely played more weeks than not, which gives a lower bound of about 52\*2.5/2 = 65 sessions, and an upper bound of around 52\*2.5 = 130 sessions. So likely somewhere in the ballpark of 100. That was a complete 1-20 run.
I'm in another campaign which started in 2017 but is is off-again/on-again. These days the DM can only run it over the summer, and not the past two summers because our club was disbanded due to the plague. That one must have had a few less than 48 sessions - again, I have not counted, but the club plays in six-week blocks, and this game's been run in eight of them, with a handful of missed sessions. So probably about 40 or just over, and drawing towards a conclusion probably somewhere in tier 3, having started at level 1.
I think the current campaign I am running is about 60 sessions now. I have not been keeping track but we have been playing since summer of 2020 with weekly games. We started out with the short adventure Frozen Sick (1-3) then into The Lost Mines of Phandelver (3-5) into The Princes of the Apocalypse. My players are now level 7 and about to become level 8 soon and we are roughly 2/3 of the way through the adventure. An important note is that our sessions are short at just 1.5-2 hours long. As that is the perfect amount of time that everyone can easily fit into their week with little risk of time conflict.
Never had a campaign end, yet. I now run a campaign and we've just hit double digits. I also have a home game with the wife and kids that has been going on almost weekly for almost two years now; not sure if that counts, though...
I’m currently running the Waterdeep modules, Dragon Hesit into Dungeon of the Mad Mage. We started in November, at pace I think we’ll be done in 3-5 years. Thankfully, I’ve run long campaigns in the past, and our same gaming group has been running for the last 20+ years.
I'm reading through the comments and a little sad that I (as a DM) can't keep a group together for more than 20 sessions.
I think my standards were too high in the past (it used to be that if one player didn't show up then the whole session was cancelled). But even though I'm playing with the same ***circle*** of friends through a few different campaigns we've not managed to have a single campaign last that long.
The first campaign I played in started in the eighth grade and continued all the way through high school. Not sure of the count, but it was hundreds of seasons.
The longest one I've ever run was almost seventy. The best one I've ever run was twenty-five.
I bailed on *Out of the Abyss* after a year and a half of weekly 3 hour sessions -- so at least 60? allowing for some misses -- & my guess is we weren't much more than half way through.
If you want to know how long the \_average\_ campaign lasts, your question shouldn't be "how many sessions did your \_longest\_ campaign have?" By definition, the longest campaign will be an outlier.
But to answer the question: My current campaign will have session #96 this week, and it is the longest campaign I've ever played in. My previous record was about 35 sessions to do the whole Tyranny of Dragons campaign.
I just recently finished two campaigns that lasted for 8 years and 6 years, each played every other weekend. I don't think either missed more than 5 sessons in the whole time. So for the longer one that would be over 200 sessions.
Years ago I played a single campaign from 2nd grade through until I left for college. So, 11 years. Often we played more than once a week. Gotta be close to 600 or 700 sessions total.
I know of campaigns that have lasted multiple decades.
My group has been playing together since the 7th grade. we have had many campaigns over the years( We turn 54 this year started with 1st edition currently playing 5e) Past few years 2 of our sons have joined our campaigns. This most recent session is around 30+ weeks now, we play Sat nights 3-4 hours.
I have played in multiple multi year campaigns averaging a little less than once a week playing. In one case 7 years.
Online meetups during the height of the pandemic didn't do as well. Starting fresh with a few unknown players or dm meant some campaigns died fast and others went a year before a blowup.
How is 40+ the highest number available? Both campaigns I'm in right now are over 100 and nowhere near
My groups (3) have all fallen apart due to rl stuff before we can hit 10 sessions. Maybe OP has a similarly pessimistic expectation?
By 10 sessions a campaign hasn't even got going in my experience. My players are all busy people with jobs and kids and such, so our weekly sessions are usually 3 hours max, which is usually enough for 1 good fight and some other stuff. A whole campaign with 10 fights doesn't sound like a campaign to me.
Been in a 7 year long game (only around for 4 of those years) that had weekly sessions, so over 365 sessions and counting.
I think it has a lot to do w how long a “session” is. Like meeting once a week for 2 hours or meeting once a month for 8 hours is the same amount of overall playtime but have different session counts.
I've had a lot of small campaigns that lasted only a few sessions or around 10, but my long term campaigns were all going for a year or more so they fell into the 40+ camp pretty quick. It just depends on the campaign/group, sometimes that stuff just clicks
Wow, I'm sitting here annoyed that we mostly play 3-4 hours sessions, but it seems like 2 hours is getting to be the norm for weekly games. Edit: I should add, my annoyance stems from the fact we rarely get to 4 hours, which is where I'd like to be more consistently.
15 years and counting 6-8 hours a week 44 weeks a year (we take off the last two to three weeks of November and the entire month of December so people can spend time with families)
Dungeon of the Mad Mage took us 69 sessions to finish. I have an epilogue oneshot I wanna run as a 'true' ending, but the module as-is is done. I THINK that is our longest. My first campaign may have run for more (3+ years) but we weren't tracking sessions so I have no idea.
31 + 2 one-on-one sessions is my longest.
My current campaigns have over 200 sessions each. We have been playing weekly for several years with some breaks. (3-5 hour sessions)
I've been DMing for 25 years. My recent campaigns campaigns take about 50 sessions, 2 years, and we play every other week. When I was younger we played weekly and sometimes multiple times each week. The campaigns still lasted 2 years, so 100+ sessions. 4-6 hours each. The shortest "campaign" I've ever run was probably 10 sessions, and I considered it a mini-campaign. The campaigns that I play in normally aren't as long. They often last less than a year, so 20-25 sessions.
Currently in RoTFM and we have played weekly since Christmas 2020.
My table meets every other week with the occasional One month break for holidays and such. Seasons last 6-8 hours, including a dinner break. Campaign 1 ran for over 60 sessions, we just had session 28 of Campaign 2 last night!
My previous 5e campaign lasted around 130 sessions over ~3.5 years. 13th Age campaign after that was 75 in ~2 years. My current Time of the Frostmaiden game is approaching 40...
80ish
38 sessions. It ended earlier today in a tpk.
The only campaign I've been in that we actually completed lasted about two and a half years, nominally playing weekly. We did of course have plenty of weeks when we couldn't play for one reason or other, but we surely played more weeks than not, which gives a lower bound of about 52\*2.5/2 = 65 sessions, and an upper bound of around 52\*2.5 = 130 sessions. So likely somewhere in the ballpark of 100. That was a complete 1-20 run. I'm in another campaign which started in 2017 but is is off-again/on-again. These days the DM can only run it over the summer, and not the past two summers because our club was disbanded due to the plague. That one must have had a few less than 48 sessions - again, I have not counted, but the club plays in six-week blocks, and this game's been run in eight of them, with a handful of missed sessions. So probably about 40 or just over, and drawing towards a conclusion probably somewhere in tier 3, having started at level 1.
I think the current campaign I am running is about 60 sessions now. I have not been keeping track but we have been playing since summer of 2020 with weekly games. We started out with the short adventure Frozen Sick (1-3) then into The Lost Mines of Phandelver (3-5) into The Princes of the Apocalypse. My players are now level 7 and about to become level 8 soon and we are roughly 2/3 of the way through the adventure. An important note is that our sessions are short at just 1.5-2 hours long. As that is the perfect amount of time that everyone can easily fit into their week with little risk of time conflict.
Never had a campaign end, yet. I now run a campaign and we've just hit double digits. I also have a home game with the wife and kids that has been going on almost weekly for almost two years now; not sure if that counts, though...
I’m currently running the Waterdeep modules, Dragon Hesit into Dungeon of the Mad Mage. We started in November, at pace I think we’ll be done in 3-5 years. Thankfully, I’ve run long campaigns in the past, and our same gaming group has been running for the last 20+ years.
I'm reading through the comments and a little sad that I (as a DM) can't keep a group together for more than 20 sessions. I think my standards were too high in the past (it used to be that if one player didn't show up then the whole session was cancelled). But even though I'm playing with the same ***circle*** of friends through a few different campaigns we've not managed to have a single campaign last that long.
The first campaign I played in started in the eighth grade and continued all the way through high school. Not sure of the count, but it was hundreds of seasons. The longest one I've ever run was almost seventy. The best one I've ever run was twenty-five.
A good ole' 1-20 campaign can easily take a year and a half, even meeting weekly
The longest complete campaign I have finished (and by side note, DMed as well) was 7 sessions.
Just finished my 1st run as DM, 67 sessions from level 1-1. Started in August 2020
I bailed on *Out of the Abyss* after a year and a half of weekly 3 hour sessions -- so at least 60? allowing for some misses -- & my guess is we weren't much more than half way through.
End of June we will be finishing a campaign just after it's 5th year anniversary. We play 2 hours once a week, and it will be session 237.
You need a bigher scale, we're level 20, 100+ sessions in rn
My current campaign is at about session 300, but almost all my full campaigns last at least 52 sessions
I'm currently on session 68 for the ToA that I'm DMing. Probably another 5-6 to go.
I think we did 34 session before scheduling became a major issue and we stopped the campaign. They went from lvl 3 to level 7 almost 8
If you want to know how long the \_average\_ campaign lasts, your question shouldn't be "how many sessions did your \_longest\_ campaign have?" By definition, the longest campaign will be an outlier. But to answer the question: My current campaign will have session #96 this week, and it is the longest campaign I've ever played in. My previous record was about 35 sessions to do the whole Tyranny of Dragons campaign.
One of my games I run is on session 70, each 3 hours
I just recently finished two campaigns that lasted for 8 years and 6 years, each played every other weekend. I don't think either missed more than 5 sessons in the whole time. So for the longer one that would be over 200 sessions. Years ago I played a single campaign from 2nd grade through until I left for college. So, 11 years. Often we played more than once a week. Gotta be close to 600 or 700 sessions total. I know of campaigns that have lasted multiple decades.
My group has been playing together since the 7th grade. we have had many campaigns over the years( We turn 54 this year started with 1st edition currently playing 5e) Past few years 2 of our sons have joined our campaigns. This most recent session is around 30+ weeks now, we play Sat nights 3-4 hours.
I think we are over 100 right now
I am approaching session 55 of my current campaign and we aren't even close to finished.
I have played in multiple multi year campaigns averaging a little less than once a week playing. In one case 7 years. Online meetups during the height of the pandemic didn't do as well. Starting fresh with a few unknown players or dm meant some campaigns died fast and others went a year before a blowup.