RPGNow

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Results Are In - Average RPG Session Among Respondents Just Over 4 Hours

My totally unscientific poll was conducted over G+ and my blog, and I received responses via the G+ thread, the blog post comments section and via email.

48 Different game sessions / campaigns were indicated, with either average length of game session indicated or a range of times. If someone stated that included dinner / meal break, I knocked off 30 minutes unless they indicate otherwise. If someone offered a range, I used the average. If someone offered a huge range, but stated it was usually on the lower end, I added an hour to the low end and used that number.

The average comes out to 4.16 hours, or roughly 4hrs, 10 minutes per session.

I stand by this survey, as it was at least as scientific as anything WotC runs on their site (although I will admit they do get a larger sampling and neither survey is all that scientific).

It looks like 4hrs is still the length of the average RPG session. After bullshitting and snack gathering, I'd guess most gamers get in just about 3 1/2 hrs of gaming per session.

I don't think I have enough data to definitively say that online sessions are shorter or longer than face to face sessions (as not everyone indicated whether the sessions were in person or online). My gut tells me online sessions are shorter on average, but that will have to wait for another poll.

Thanks to everyone for their input :)

1 comment:

  1. "After bullshitting and snack gathering, I'd guess most gamers get in just about 3 1/2 hrs of gaming per session."

    We'd be lucky to get in an hour per 3 hours of bullshitting and eating, but that's just because RPG night doubled as get together night for people who otherwise rarely got together.

    Online sessions are much shorter, I think because the eating/bullshitting ratio was much, much less (mostly because Skype overtalking makes having an actual conversation impossible) and we'd get a satisfying amount of play in a couple of hours.

    Basically, I think the average session length is whatever length it takes to actually play for about an hour and a half.

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