why 4 hours?

Hi all! I'm new to this hobby and haven't had much exposure, mostly due to lack of time. I've noticed that most games are around 4 hours long, which completely boggles my mind. I'm beginning to think that maybe this isn't something I should pursue due to the amount of time and dedication it takes to play. I love the concept of tabletop RPGs and the freedom it gives the players, but I don't think I can handle a 4 hour long session. Also, I'm not sure if I'm missing something in the rulebooks, but I don't recall seeing a time requirement for play sessions. Does anyone know why the sessions are so long?

That is just about how long most sessions last it is not a rule, some of my sessions for my sunday game have started at 1pm and didn't end till about 10pm so a nine hour long session. That is not common though. I think part of it is the amount of time and energy the DM puts into the game, I would be disappointed with a short 2 hour long session after spending more than that setting everything up. Also you have to think of the game, for D&D as an example a given adventure should have about five encounters or so in it, that takes some time.

When you gather a mid- to large-sized party (5+ players and a GM), it can be difficult to get a lot done in a short amount of time. It's even harder to make sure each player gets a chance to contribute to the narrative in a meaningful way, and with combat in a lot of systems taking a long time you can find yourself spending an hour or two between finding the town in the mysterious woods and arriving at the dungeon (what with some players wanting to go shopping for supplies, some talking to NPCs, some trying to burn down the barn for no apparent reason, etc.). That said, there are some systems specifically designed for quicker play. I haven't tried any of them myself, so I can't make a recommendation, but I imagine someone will come along and drop some suggestions. Oh! And welcome to the community/hobby!

Cool, thanks! Just seems like a lot of time to just sit down and play. Don't people lose focus after about 2 hours? I'm pretty sure my brain would turn to mush after 4 hours.

Since playing an RPG is an inherently social activity, there's a certain amount of chatting and catching up that goes along with each session. In my experience you typically lose 5 to 10 minutes from people being late, 10 to 15 minutes of pre-game socialization and then five minutes acting as a recap of what's happened in the last few sessions. That's about half an hour gone before the dice even hit the table. If you're only playing for an hour or two hours, that cuts out half or a quarter of your time. In my experience, having a session for three hours allows you to get plenty of gaming in while accounting for the socialization aspect and wrapping it up before people's attention spans wane. Recently, there was a thread in the LFG forum where people were gauging interest for a group playing two hours at a go - that's something you might wish to pursue. I know of people who used to play during lunch breaks in spans of 30 minutes to an hour, so it is possible to game in shorter periods of time if you'd like. Putting an RPG session in to the context of other hobbies, it isn't that bad necessarily. A round of golf takes over 3 hours. Watching a football game, baseball game or NASCAR race takes 3 to 4 hours. I'd be pissed if I didn't get more than two hours in fishing.

Thanks for the new perspective! I played in a group and everyone was always late by like an hour (time zone issues) and I just didn't have that kind of time to waste sitting around not playing. I lasted maybe 4 game session before I told the GM that this wasn't working out for me. Now, I'll be honest with you ... I'm not going to give up watching a 3 - 3.5 hour football game on Saturday ... LOL

4 hours is a reasonable amount of time which developed, and at game tournaments the schedule fits in 3 blocks of these 4-hour time-periods starting in the morning, everyone starting their games at the same time. But university students were often NOT reasonable. They might go late-night from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. or whatever it is they choose, depending on how much they really want to achieve in a session. The players must sacrifice live pizza to the Game Master (Dungeon Master, Referee, Narrator, whatever the term is in that game) if it goes that long. I suggest it's pretty easy-going and RPGs are conversational in their play, less strenuous than board-games since we won't even ask you to roll dice or draw a card that often! 4 hours is nothing! (but get in your jogging and exercise some other time in some other way. Seriously.)

My face-to-face sessions last from 10:00 am to almost 5:00 pm with a break for lunch. We have a fixed finishing time because we play at a library in a meeting room accessible only to the staff on a Saturday. One of my players works at the library and books the room. We have to have the room tidy and clear out before the library closes.

Hi Michael! Nice to see new people give RPGs a try. From what I can see of people playing RPGs besides those that were already mentioned is because people just want to keep playing. Like most things when people are having fun they don't want to stop so games keep on going. All of my sessions I GM are "scheduled" for 3 hours....I think I've kept to that only a few times lol. I am very interested in this 2 hour gaming though. People get in and play an encounter or 2 and wait till next week. That sounds very fun! GM and players though will have to be organized and all agree with the time so it starts and ends promtly.

Michael V. said: Cool, thanks! Just seems like a lot of time to just sit down and play. Don't people lose focus after about 2 hours? I'm pretty sure my brain would turn to mush after 4 hours. Yes, people's brains turn to mush. That's why we take breaks during the session. =) The campaign I run on Fridays has 3 hours allotted (including starting late and breaks), although sometimes we go over a bit. My in-person game has on occasion run from ~6pm to ~4am, although it should be noted we weren't gaming the entire time.

We have been running a five hour game for a long time, 19 years, just moved to Roll20, I like the interface so much I have added two more campaigns. It does take awhile to get anything done in D&D, especially with a large group. Dylan G.'s group sounds like my players, the "burn the barn down for no apparent reason" actually happened about ten years ago in a game. My typical 5-6 player sessions often run past the end time, I set the limit of "when my voice starts to actually hurt" as an absolute limit.

3 to 4 hours is all the time I can carve out of my schedule.

Most of my offline groups are 4 hours. Enough time for a decent scenario or part 1 of a two part, but time left so it doesn't kill the whole day. When I play a very good strategy game, I'll play at a friend's house for 8 hours. Online here my first session I ran of One Ring RPG the players like it so much we played for 9 hours. But most of my games run for 4 hours. A narrative game like fiasco can be done in an hour or hour and a half. A tactical plus RP game like D&D 3.5 can be two one hour fights plus two hours of Roleplaying. Battletech takes typically an hour per 2 battlemechs involved, so that's a decent four hours if you play fast. A game of Twilight Imperium, or Battlestar Galactica can take a good 12 hours for the former, 6 hours for the latter if you roleplay out the rounds of challenges. I have wargames here that take over 100 hours to play.. you set it up and play once a week for 5 to 6 hours a day for 5 to 6 months. There are games that can be played in two hours, just not a lot here, but definitely possible. I just ran a James Bond RPG session that ran 3.5 hours. We stopped early because so much had happened, I wanted a chance to catch up with all the things the players did to the storyline. They made friends of enemies and enemies of friends, lots of new ways to spin things out. Good luck.

If you said, "Let's play a game of Monopoly, it will only take 3-4 hours!" Then I would say "No, that takes too long for a game." But if you said, "Let's play D&D for 4 hours on Roll 20!" Then I would say, "YES!!!"

RPGs, at least the way I view them, should mostly be a social activity, not an actual "game". So you need those 3-4 hours to actually "get something" out of them. With the catching up that happens before the session, the getting of food/drinks, wrapping up the game... you waste a good 20-40 minutes, which is a small amount of time if your games last for 4-6 hours but a huge amount of time. Think of the time you go out with friends to do whatever, do you ever only spend 1-1:40 hours doing that ? I would guess closer to 2:30-5 hours, it's the same with RPGs.

Maybe it''s not the norm, but there probably are things you do for 4 hours at a time - Watching football, fishing, long bike rides, car trips, plopped in front of the TV each night, skiiing. Another reason it tends to be longer might be the effort it takes to get a game started. You've got to gather several adults, they've had to travel, you have to prep and get out materials. All of that work might not be worth it to just play for an hour. That being said, there's no reason you have to play that long.

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