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View Full Version : Longest Game you Ever Played or DMed



DM Raven
2008-09-23, 07:20 PM
Hey all, just curious how long everyone's longest game lasted...as a player or DM.

My personal best is a 17 hour straight game I DMed back in college. I started at 7pm the night before and we ended the next day at 12pm in the afternoon. (We all got lunch after the game)

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-23, 07:32 PM
I generally play one game, starting Saturday, from 2pm to 6pm, another from 7 to midnight, a third from midnight to 4 am, go to sleep, and then play a game from 2 to 7 on Sunday. Weekly.

Lycan 01
2008-09-23, 07:32 PM
HOW.


3-4 hours? 5, tops...

BobVosh
2008-09-23, 07:33 PM
26 hours. One shot epic game. At the end we stop being able to add correctly so we gave up.

Matthew
2008-09-23, 07:35 PM
About twelve to fifteen hours, I think. We got carried away. Most normal sessions are four to eight hours.

DM Raven
2008-09-23, 07:35 PM
I generally play one game, starting Saturday, from 2pm to 6pm, another from 7 to midnight, a third from midnight to 4 am, go to sleep, and then play a game from 2 to 7 on Sunday. Weekly.

Nice, a fellow DM enthusiast! I myself run three games a week...I run one on Thursday from 7 to 11:30 ish

I run one on Friday from 12 to 4ish

And I run one on Saturday from 12 to 6ish.

DM Raven
2008-09-23, 07:37 PM
26 hours. One shot epic game. At the end we stop being able to add correctly so we gave up.

0.0 props my friend props...yeah after 26 hours of D&D I don't think I could add anything either.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-23, 07:38 PM
Nice, a fellow DM enthusiast! I myself run three games a week...I run one on Thursday from 7 to 11:30 ish

I run one on Friday from 12 to 4ish

And I run one on Saturday from 12 to 6ish.I don't DM. I really should, but I don't have the time.

TheCountAlucard
2008-09-23, 07:40 PM
Ran a game from about seven-thirty to about three A.M. once, with no breaks. It was pretty fun, though all of us were feeling pretty tired near the end.

Kaihaku
2008-09-23, 08:11 PM
I played in a six year real time long campaign online, tabletop longest was two years.

But for one sitting... I think it was 5PM to 8AM. Right after Finals one year.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-23, 08:17 PM
I played in a six year real time long campaign online, tabletop longest was two years.

But for one sitting... I think it was 5PM to 8AM. Right after Finals one year.My current DM has been running nearly every Saturday since 1976 in one setting, continuous campaign.

drengnikrafe
2008-09-23, 08:21 PM
My stories are nowhere near that epic.

My longest consecutive gaming time was probably from Noonish to 11ish (PM).

Longest running campaign was very sad. 4 sessions (I think), from 1st to 8th level.

Innis Cabal
2008-09-23, 08:22 PM
Before my oldest gaming group disbanded from children/life etc, we started at 11 am on sunday and played well past midnight on a normal day, there have been times we played almost a day straight, minus food and bath room breaks

We've had several year's long games, though not quite as long as 1976 to present

Colmarr
2008-09-23, 09:15 PM
My current DM has been running nearly every Saturday since 1976 in one setting, continuous campaign.

Out of interest, how is it that that in approximately 1000 sessions, you haven't managed to:

1. Eradicate all of the real threats from your campaign world; and/or

2. Gained so many levels or so much power that the game has become more than a little silly; and/or

3. Stopped being about adventuring and more about running a civilisation?

EndlessWrath
2008-09-23, 09:16 PM
5pm ---> 4 am...


...then woke up and finished it...

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-23, 09:24 PM
Out of interest, how is it that that in approximately 1000 sessions, you haven't managed to:

1. Eradicate all of the real threats from your campaign world; and/or

2. Gained so many levels or so much power that the game has become more than a little silly; and/or

3. Stopped being about adventuring and more about running a civilisation?It's college. No one but him's been around that long. The system itself balances well, too. I've seen characters with 300+ sessions of XP in a party with characters with 30 and both have been useful.

Deepblue706
2008-09-23, 09:29 PM
I DMed for 5 hours once, years ago. I think.

I don't really get to play. I don't have enough people to play with.

My longest running PbP game has been around just over a year.

Ravyn
2008-09-24, 12:44 AM
The longest I've run was about ten hours, by AIM, 5:30ish to 4 am-ish. Not sure about the longest I've played, as those didn't tend to go quite as nonstop. (Wusses.) If you're looking for duration, I've been running the same game for three years now; amusingly enough, it's the first one I ever tried running for people outside my family.

BobVosh
2008-09-24, 12:54 AM
0.0 props my friend props...yeah after 26 hours of D&D I don't think I could add anything either.

Oh, there were breaks, but mainly it long enough between turns to. Epic games take a wee bit of time to decide what to do.

It was funny, we had midfield true ressurrect spells being thrown.

Our normal game sessions are 4-6 hours though.

Behold_the_Void
2008-09-24, 02:52 AM
Apparently I'm on the shorter end of this, I average 2-3 hours for most sessions, probably. I had one go 5 or 6, but that was an anomaly which involved too many players who didn't know their abilities and a dungeon crawl with reasonably heavy combat encounters.

Honestly, I don't have the time to run longer sessions. I have a hell of a time getting people together for a game at all, what with conflicting schedules and general being busy.

Charity
2008-09-24, 02:57 AM
We used to do sponsored 48 hour roleplaying sessions at a club I set up years back, we did about 4 or 5 of them over the years... so 48 hours.

DMfromTheAbyss
2008-09-24, 03:33 AM
Well back in college when we'd get a really good session going it would occasionally go till 8AM... Mind we'd start at 1-2 pm the day before so... yeah those were the days.

My longest game run was definately at UBcon, It was advertised as 48 Hours of Renedge (my campaign world) but there was a "nap" break sometime after the first day (somewhere around 30 hours in, details are understandably sketchy) due to people passing out... As people woke up the game continued, But with a few breaks for coffee and showers. So From Friday late afternoon to early sunday, but definately with breaks.

And as for longest running continous campaign I think I'm still the longest I've heard of (besides that 1976 guy earlier this thread...WOW) going from around 1990 to present. And they still have trouble even figuring out "WHAT" the BBEG is much less defeating it, and with the side plots (which would be what some would call entire epic campaigns) it still moves along pretty well. So yes some games don't end with one plot arc, or a measly single BBEG plotline. Also with games like this you usually see character turn over enough that the game starts to mutate and take on a life of it's own, as players start making up different characters all over the campaign world, involving themeselves in different plots and such.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2008-09-24, 03:33 AM
I'm not sure, it's a little blurry... obviously... but I think the longest game I was in was around 11 hours. 7 pm to 6 am.

leperkhaun
2008-09-24, 06:55 AM
normal 10-12 hour game, longest just shy of 23 or so.

BobVosh
2008-09-24, 06:58 AM
We used to do sponsered 48 hour roleplaying sessions at a club I set up years back, we did about 4 or 5 of them over the years... so 48 hours.

I did one 26 and swore "never again." 2 days? Ye gads

DigoDragon
2008-09-24, 07:13 AM
Yikes... never had a game last longer then 10 hours in one sitting. After that all the pips on our dice start adding alike. :smallsmile:

Charity
2008-09-24, 07:24 AM
I did one 26 and swore "never again." 2 days? Ye gads

As it goes the first night is the hardest, after that your body gives up trying to shut you down and starts burning resources, plenty of food is a must.

This was back in the day when roleplaying was truely popular, we had a good 30 odd people in 4 or 5 games + a few boardgames on the side.

Much coffee is consumed, and the occasional tactical unconciousness was not unknown, but as I organised them, I was awake for the whole shebang each time.
Then again that is not the longest period I have stayed awake for by any measure, and yes it is true after about 70 hours you do begin to hallucinate quite badly.

Fiery Diamond
2008-09-24, 09:24 AM
When I read the title, I thought you meant campaign, not session. Then I read the posts.

Usually 4.5 hrs to 6 hrs on Saturday (I'm in college, I DM). Longest ever was a different campaign I ran in high school during the summer which lasted from around 11 AM to about 9 PM. Nobody but me wanted it to last that long, so I got some heat over that.

Currently I DM a game I started the beginning of first semester last year. Hopefully the story will continue a while longer. I started them out at level 3 and they're almost to level 9 now. They've been leveling more quickly as they've shot up. Given that the most powerful player-race entity in anywhere but a metropolis (of which there are ... 3) in my homemade setting is level 7, and in a metropolis a level 9 is probably about what to expect, with maybe a couple topping level 10, 11 (with certain exceptions in certain countries -- one kingdom has higher level fighters, another higher level casters, etc) the PCs are really strong right now.

-Fiery Diamond

arguskos
2008-09-24, 09:30 AM
Personal record? 72 hours. It was a MARATHON. We played three different games, and rounded out the weekend with a rousing game of Paranoia (after 2.5 days awake, Paranoia is quite hilarious. No one remembered ANYTHING the next several days though).

However, most normal sessions run about 10-13 hours in length (about 7 PM to roughly 6 AM).

Oh, yes, longest running campaign I've been in. Nothing like that 1976 guy, damn, that's AWESOME. Rather, I've been a year-long game that finally ended when we confronted the BBEG (actually a priest swelled with his god's essence) and defeated him. That was a worthy ending, actually.

-argus

EDIT:

As it goes the first night is the hardest, after that your body gives up trying to shut you down and starts burning resources, plenty of food is a must.

*snip*

Much coffee is consumed, and the occasional tactical unconciousness was not unknown, but as I organised them, I was awake for the whole shebang each time.
Then again that is not the longest period I have stayed awake for by any measure, and yes it is true after about 70 hours you do begin to hallucinate quite badly.
These two points are quite true. For our 3 day monster, we had 7 people total. I think we took 2 catnaps of an hour a piece, consumed enough soda and coffee to kill an elephant, and bought the local Kroger out of several kinds of chips, buns, and ground beef (made burgers, meat chili, and several kinds of pasta, so we could eat it later on in the session).

kjones
2008-09-24, 09:58 AM
You people are madmen. The longest I've ever gone was 12 hours (1800 - 1600) for the epic battle at the end of the campaign... things started getting kind of silly towards the end, and my voice was hoarse. Normal sessions typically run ~4-6 hours.

I'm currently running two campaigns that both started in the fall of 2007, though they've dropped from weekly to bi-weekly.

DM Raven
2008-09-24, 12:34 PM
Hmmm...I didn't even consider campaign length...

My longest campaign was five years back when I lived in NY, it ran from when I was 13 to when I was 18 with the same group of players and characters. (weekly games)

Recently, my campaigns have been lasting around 2 to 3 years (weekly game) sorta depending on storyline and everyone's ability to actually play.

My worlds are my own creation and each is fairly old. My most recent (Gaian) is probably my oldest running on 8 years of age now. I started it at the beginning of 3rd and kept it running into 3.5 and now into 4th...

1976?! 0.o Crazy...that game is older than me!

Gorbash
2008-09-24, 12:47 PM
Problem is, people start getting tired after 6 hours or so, and their concentration starts failling, so for the sake of the quality of the game, we usually play 5-6 hours (not including an hour before the game because people are always late and like to chit chat a bit), with occasional 8 when we haven't played for long.

RTGoodman
2008-09-24, 01:09 PM
My longest CAMPAIGN I've been in I think only lasted about 6 months - it's a shame that every group I end up gaming with falls apart after that much time because of drama, relationships, and various sorts of in-fighting, and then takes about 3-6 months to recover and start playing again. :smallannoyed:

The longest SESSION I've been a part of is a little harder. Back when my group didn't have their significant others and such we played once a week or every other week, but we got in a lot of playing - usually our sessions were from about 5:00pm to 8:00am, depending on how tired people got, so that's about 14-15 hours. Man, those were the days. Now we're lucky to get in a two hour session every other MONTH. :smallfrown:

Zeful
2008-09-24, 01:36 PM
I've tried organizing a 7 hour game (roughly 10pm-5am) but everybody smoked and would run away at the first smoke break.

comicshorse
2008-09-24, 06:32 PM
Are normal games are 4-6 hours. I'm astonished to discover people regularly run 10-12 hour games as 11 hours is about the longest session I've ever been in.

Friend of mine ran a Warhammer campaign for 8 years. It only ended because he moved a way and we still talk about finishing off the unresolved plot points some day

Draig
2008-09-24, 07:31 PM
THe longest campaign i ever was in roughly lasted a week. We had 3 dm's who would tag team out after a certain amount of time, as well as well over 8 people in the party, so at times my friends would be like "Ok my character finds an inn and goes to sleep..." and then would proceed to pass out on the floor.


Summer D&D sessions.... my ANTI-LIFE

Lupy
2008-09-24, 09:20 PM
Hmm... Earlier this year ((Before May.)) I would go from 7-11pm on Saturday, and then 8am-1pm Sunday. The Campaign went from Jan 1st of 08 to Mid July of the same year, best Star Wars SAGA campaign ever... And I used all my ideas when I dmed it... Haven't been able to improv since...

skywalker
2008-09-24, 09:35 PM
My longest CAMPAIGN I've been in I think only lasted about 6 months - it's a shame that every group I end up gaming with falls apart after that much time because of drama, relationships, and various sorts of in-fighting, and then takes about 3-6 months to recover and start playing again. :smallannoyed:

This happened to my longest running campaign, from May 06 to about... July 07, altho the last few sessions were marred by ex-SO tension, as well as me wanting to punch the DM in the face...

The longest session I've ever been a part of was also my first experience role-playing, we started the whole endeavor at 6PM, and went till 6AM, then got up at about 11 and played till 4... I miss high school haha.

Justin_Bacon
2008-09-25, 01:29 AM
Problem is, people start getting tired after 6 hours or so, and their concentration starts failling, so for the sake of the quality of the game, we usually play 5-6 hours (not including an hour before the game because people are always late and like to chit chat a bit), with occasional 8 when we haven't played for long.

Dinner break. We frequently start playing at noon and play until we get hungry for dinner (6-8 hours). Then we'll stand up from the table, go to a different room, and eat dinner there (usually pizza delivery; sometimes Chinese food). The dinner break lasts just 15-45 minutes, but it re-energizes us and re-focuses us. We'll then push on for another 4-5 hours.

Dr Bwaa
2008-09-25, 06:06 PM
I've never really considered running a game for as long as some of these (looking at you, Charity...). However, my friends and have, several times, had 72-hour remain-awake-athons; this was before we played a lot of D&D though. Hmm, perhaps this winter break I'll break my record (currently stands as an 11-hour (two-PC!) session made up on the spot by the best DM I know. Level 15 bard and rogue, investigating thievery and vandalism at an artifice headquarters in Lantan. Good times).

Reinboom
2008-09-25, 06:25 PM
I used to do regular 12-16 hour games, mostly 3.5, rifts, deadlands (savage worlds), or something else. As I don't have the time anymore for that, I usually see 5-6 hours of gameplay now (and sadly, just 3.5 and 4e).
I think the longest session I've ever been in was about 4 years ago, though, I don't have an exact time on how long it was. I went over to the friends house to DM (2e), planning on being back by the next day. My mother called me the day after I was supposed to be back to check if I was dead or not, in the middle of that same game. So, it was at least... 36 hours? I believe.

RandomNPC
2008-09-25, 07:06 PM
longest game was going to be from 8AM to 9PM but nobody showed up untill 5PM usually its about 4 hours but i've run a few six hour games. (i'm dissapointed in myself, not only for admitting that, but for it being true as well.)

longest campaign was four years, and we're picking that game back up after we conclude the story we're in. the great part? only about five seconds will have passed from when we set the game down to when the inevidables teleport in and ruin the supposedly happy ending. (the epic save the world inevidables)

nargbop
2008-09-26, 12:19 AM
Dear powers-that-be, you folks have stamina. Then again, I've never started playing before 6 PM after a full day of work... I've never been able to play beyond 4 AM, because we all start making silly decisions. Especially the DM ; making silly decisions about whether to allow the players to sell Florida wetlands to thoughtless aristocrats (yes, "Florida" - it's south of New Thunderspire) .

JupiterPaladin
2008-09-26, 12:28 AM
The first campaign I DM'ed was started by another DM but I took it over 15 years ago and we still have that campaign every so often. Each session is 12+ hours too, so either way, call me a die hard DM :smallbiggrin:

Icewalker
2008-09-26, 12:30 AM
Well, in a sit down session, about 7 hours, maybe 8.

However I go to a year-long campaign that a guy runs as his job. 4 hour session every two weeks for 9 months.

Justin_Bacon
2008-09-26, 05:45 AM
However I go to a year-long campaign that a guy runs as his job. 4 hour session every two weeks for 9 months.

Runs as his job?

Tormsskull
2008-09-26, 05:58 AM
Longest session I ever played was somewhere in the vicinity of 18 hours. 6 PM ish until 12:00 the next day. Could be give or take a few hours on either end.

Saph
2008-09-26, 06:36 AM
Our current World's Largest Dungeon campaign has been running for a bit over 2 years. They started at 1st-level, I joined at 3rd-level, and we're 15th-level now.

I have to say, a really long-running game that goes well is more fun than anything else. One-offs just feel completely tame in comparison.

- Saph

Ogh_the_Second
2008-09-26, 07:16 AM
I think my longest "non-stop" session is not that spectacular - about 12 or 15hours, maybe.

However, my main current group every now and then rents a cabin for a long weekend. In that case, we play for three days - but with stops for food and (admittedly not too much) sleep.

This campaign has been running since 2000, I think, and we're at lvl 8 (bi-weekly sessions). The campaign is supposed to get us to lvl 20, so we've still got some adventuring to do (and about 10 more years to finish it, I guess). In fact, our campaign is a sort of continuation from a previous one (same DM, other players) started somewhere in the early '90s.

The longest campaign I've seen finished was a rather extended version of the classic Dragonlance story, with enough extra sidelines to stretch it to 12 or 13 years (weekly sessions).

Dausuul
2008-09-26, 07:43 AM
Hey all, just curious how long everyone's longest game lasted...as a player or DM.

My personal best is a 17 hour straight game I DMed back in college. I started at 7pm the night before and we ended the next day at 12pm in the afternoon. (We all got lunch after the game)

Funny that. The longest gaming session I ever played in was a 17-hour straight game back in college... although I think mine started at noon on Saturday and carried on until 5 AM.

You didn't go to Purdue, did you? :)

Charity
2008-09-26, 09:35 AM
Our current World's Largest Dungeon campaign has been running for a bit over 2 years. They started at 1st-level, I joined at 3rd-level, and we're 15th-level now.

I have to say, a really long-running game that goes well is more fun than anything else. One-offs just feel completely tame in comparison.

- Saph

I quite aggree. OK no more pretend fainting in shock
I have only really ever played in long term campaigns. If we were looking for just an evenings entertainment we'd always play boardgames... in fact, until I came here it never occured to me that anyone would play for just a session or two, I guess I assumed every one else played the way I did/do... which plainly was never likely to be the case.

The longest campain was either one while I was at school, that was epic, 12 PC's and a proffesional DM, that went on for 2 or 3 years, we played 2 campains so it's difficult to recall how long each one lasted. Or it is the one I have recently finished running, that has been going for a couple of few years now.
Anyhow the only one offs I've played in were at cons, and they have all been pretty unfulfilling to be honest.

The_Werebear
2008-09-26, 10:04 AM
In terms of pure length, the best I have been able to do is 8-12 hours. Our average length is 4-5, sometimes shorter because we have a few flaky players who don't quite have the stamina of true nerds at rolling dice for hours.

As for total time, most campaigns I am in run about six months before everyone agrees we're too powerful and turn our characters over as NPCs. In continuous campaign setting, we have gone through two characters in one DM's campaign setting and are starting our thirds. Another six month one is on hiatus due to missing players. My summer one is still going; it's only been six months in realtime, but I ran four or five sessions a week because it was summer and there wasn't much else to do. I figure that translates to about a year realtime.

valadil
2008-09-26, 10:19 AM
The longest session I've played in was 14 hours. I still haven't figured out how the GM kept up his enthusiasm for that long.

The longest campaign I was in started in high school and ended a month ago. That makes it around 8 years long, though we played sparingly at best for the last couple years of it. My gnome was the only character to make it from start to finish, and he still has his original familiar and riding dog.

Meat Shield
2008-09-26, 10:37 AM
Personal record? 72 hours. It was a MARATHON. We played three different games, and rounded out the weekend with a rousing game of Paranoia (after 2.5 days awake, Paranoia is quite hilarious. No one remembered ANYTHING the next several days though).

Paranoia, AFTER 2 1/2 days without sleep?!?!?!?!

Wow.

Just, wow.

That beggars (and buggers) the imagination.