I run a lot of campaigns, I generally aim for 2-3 years fortnightly, which is actually around 35-50 sessions typically. My longest campaign Loudwater ran 5.5 years, 4e D&D from 1st to 29th level over 103 sessions. My current 5e Varisia campaign will be similar number of sessions (so far 53 with a couple side sessions) but is weekly so about half the time. My new 4e Nentir Vale game is planned to be fortnightly over about 50 sessions, 2-2.5 years. My week-old White Star game is a Play By Post so doesn't have sessions, but my previous PBEMs tended to run a couple years if successful, so similar sort of duration.
And my online Wilderlands text-chat game is an endless multi-group sandbox that's been running since early 2015 in its current 5e form, with hundreds of sessions. My Classic D&D Karameikos game ran a couple years weekly. Curse of the Crimson Throne (prequel to Varisia) using Pathfinder was 34 sessions fortnightly over about 21 months, and that was also typical for several 3e campaigns I ran ca 2000-2010.

I've also run some ca 12-13 session mini-campaigns, but not recently - I generally find RPGs are much more satisfying with longer term play, and it's worth taking the time to develop a campaign format that will support campaign play.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;975369Is that the stupid kobold "Dragon Trainer" in that one asinine module?  My players promptly dubbed him "Jar Jar Binks."  We got about halfway through "Sunless Citadel" when we decided en masse it was shit.

I'm running it now, about 1/3 through it. What did your group hate about it?

Recent gaming....

- a two year face-to-face AD&D campaign (28 sessions) from Sept. 2011 - Sept. 2013
- a six-month G+ AS&SH campaign (10 sessions) from Aug. 2014 - Feb. 2015
- from March 2016-current, 22 AS&SH convention games at Gary Con, NTPRG Con and GameHole

For me, the biggest difference between 2011 and now is that my son's almost six years old now, so I spend more time with him. Doesn't leave much time for committing to regular, frequent face-to-face gaming. I still enjoy the hobby though, so I run lots of games in March at Gary Con, June at NTRPG Con and November at GameHole. It's easier to find one whole weekend a few times a year than one whole day/evening every week. Once he's old enough to play, I'll probably resurrect my face-to-face efforts though.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;975369Is that the stupid kobold "Dragon Trainer" in that one asinine module?  My players promptly dubbed him "Jar Jar Binks."  We got about halfway through "Sunless Citadel" when we decided en masse it was shit.

Yip. That's the one. Later in the series there's an encounter where a demon or devil, heck if I can remember which, that was made to run away in order for the plot to continue. Pretty bad writing as my party kicked that thing's ass. I ran the whole series as I was working 75 hour weeks at the time and didn't have time to sleep and eat, much less write a campaign.

In theory I prefer long-term campaigns and campaigns set in a long-standing world. I've run campaign worlds for 10+ years, longest active playing character about 9 years. However I have been chosing to work on other projects. If pen & paper RPG was still my main gaming groove, I'd be running long-term games mostly, I think. I really like the long-term continuity of world, even if players and PCs come and go. Also I've played in several multi-year campaigns (up to about 7 years) run by friends.

I've run several shorter campaigns, and played in many shorter campaigns, that last a year or less. I think they're interesting to create and run, and to test out ideas that I'm not sure I want in the larger/longer campaigns. But for me they tend not to be so satisfying one way or another. Either I don't develop them to my own satisfaction, or I develop them too much for something that's not getting much use, or I or the players don't end up wanting to play it for very long, or we'd rather shift to the long-term game, or whatever.

I also run shorter experiments, single or a few sessions, to try stuff out, for a change, etc. That seems to work better than the shorter campaigns  for me, because I know there's no point in me devoting too much effort, or being disappointed in the level of effort.

Shorter campaigns due to everyone's limited time. One offs can be tremendous fun, particularly in a system like CoC.

One of my best campaigns only ran about three or four months because half the players were in the Coast Guard and got reassigned to the East Coast. It was a really fun FASA Star Trek game using 2nd edition rules and a starship combat variant we found online. It was set during and after the 3rd season of Star Trek but they never interacted with anyone from.the show as the U.S.S. I-Forget-The-Name was exploring in a whole other direction. We packed a lot of fun into that time.

I've also run a few one-shot Ghostbusters games just for laughs and fun and that's just as satisfying for me.

Short can be fun, but I much much prefer long form.

Players, characters, they come and go, so to me, campaign means setting, not a particular story/adventure arc. I'm happy to say that I've hosted a couple of three year runs in my setting. I joined a new game last year and after  just under 20 sessions, I feel like we're just getting started.

I've also been playing in my brother's game off and on for 30 years. One city has a map that he drew up in 1983. A LOT has gone down there over the years. It's been a great investment of our time.

Nearly every game I've been in was planned as a long campaign but got cut short for all the reasons games get cut short.

I think that my Roman Call of Cthulhu campaign ran for a year and a half, every other week, and might have continued except that the players balked unexpectedly at a couple of story threads and left me rather perplexed.  

In the case of a Call of Cthulhu campaign, it can go on as long as there is a fortean story to tell, which may take one, two or many episodes.  I was definitely working to a plan, at least hypothesizing that the bad guys had a plan, which the players could intercept at many points.

The campaigns I run (if they don't fizzle after a few sessions) usually last around 50 or 60 sessions before they reach a natural conclusion.

Quote from: wombat1;975813I think that my Roman Call of Cthulhu campaign ran for a year and a half, every other week, and might have continued except that the players balked unexpectedly at a couple of story threads and left me rather perplexed.  

In the case of a Call of Cthulhu campaign, it can go on as long as there is a fortean story to tell, which may take one, two or many episodes.  I was definitely working to a plan, at least hypothesizing that the bad guys had a plan, which the players could intercept at many points.

So what did they balk at? I'm very curious.  

I've always wanted to play Call of Cthulhu but never found anyone else into it.

I've been in a Spelljammer campaign over 8 years now. A 5e campaign about 3 or so. And another 5e one thats been going since January.

Before that were a long Star Frontiers campaign I GMed and a long Spelljammer one.

My longest has been a Champions campaign that lasted 5 years of weekly sessions set in a 22-year old campaign world.

Most of my campaigns last a couple years each.  Campaigns that last less than a year I usually consider to be unsuccessful.

I have the benefit of having a group that has been mostly the same for 31 years.