I've seen a few references here and elsewhere to "the average RPG campaign lasts X sessions."

Is this a hypothesis, an observation, a wild ass guess, or did somebody actually do some data collection?  Because if it's actual science, I'd like to know more.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884803I've seen a few references here and elsewhere to "the average RPG campaign lasts X sessions."

Is this a hypothesis, an observation, a wild ass guess, or did somebody actually do some data collection?  Because if it's actual science, I'd like to know more.

The only people who actually would have done any collection other than in a sample size too small to count, would have been 2e Era TSR, WotC or Paizo.

The common definition of a defined campaign these days seems to be create and sell something to give a GM enough adventures to get players from starting level to ending level in 10-20 adventures so people who play one or two times a month can finish in a year or less.

The market survey I know of that is available online is by Wizards of the Coast released in 2000.

https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/wotcdemo.html

Quote from: ptingler;884817The market survey I know of that is available online is by Wizards of the Coast released in 2000.

https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/wotcdemo.html

The problem with any survey is "who are you surveying"?  You could make a survey as comprehensive as possible along cultural, geographic, ethnic, economic, gender, linguistic, whatever lines, but it still comes down to "people who play WotC games".   There's a couple out there that don't.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884819The problem with any survey is "who are you surveying"?  You could make a survey as comprehensive as possible along cultural, geographic, ethnic, economic, gender, linguistic, whatever lines, but it still comes down to "people who play WotC games".   There's a couple out there that don't.

It wasn't just for WotC/D&D, it was an industry market survey that they did.

From the info:

For the purpose of the 1999 study, the following methodology was employed:

A two phase approach was used to determine information about trading card
games (TCGs), role playing games (RPGs) and miniatures wargames (MWG) in the
general US population between the ages of 12 and 35. For the rest of this
document, this group is referred to as "the marketplace" or "the market", or
"the consumers".

Information from more than 65,000 people was gathered from a questionnaire
sent to more than 20,000 households via a post card survey. This survey was
used as a "screener" to create a general profile of the game playing
population in the target age range, for the purposes of extrapolating trends
to the general population.

This "screener" accurately represents the US population as a whole; it is a
snapshot of the entire nation and is used to extrapolate trends from more
focused surveys to the larger market.

Quote from: ptingler;884817The market survey I know of that is available online is by Wizards of the Coast released in 2000.

https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/wotcdemo.html

Yep. According to WoTC in 2000 the typical campaign duration fitted into an academic year, which seems short to me. My own experience in the post-2000/3e D&D era is that a 'successful' campaign is one that runs around 35 sessions over a bit less than 2 years, but that quite a few end at around half that, 18-20 sessions. Of my campaigns currently running, one is 94 sessions so far over 5 years, another online one 66 sessions over just a year, and I have a weekly campaign that's probably at around 45 sessions now, but more typically one that ended last year was 34 sessions over 21 months. From what I've seen at the London D&D Meetup that last one looks pretty typical.

Never trust market surveys.

To answer Gronan's question though.

Mearls and I think Crawford believe this. Despite evidence to the contrary. Ive heard other designers claim that too back in the 90s. Theres never been any proof that these claims are valid outside a small slice of the gaming community.

Campaigns last as long as they last. That could be one day, week, month, year, decade, century, whatever. Considering the probable number of bad DMs or bad players killing sessions, of course some are going to end abruptly.

I've been a player in a campaign that fell apart about 4 sessions in when the DM and a player started fighting. And I am currently still in a Spelljammer campaign thats been running since 2008. Thats right. Its been going 8 years running now. And the last Star Frontiers campaign I DMed ran about 2 years.

Quote from: ptingler;884822It wasn't just for WotC/D&D, it was an industry market survey that they did.

From the info:

For the purpose of the 1999 study, the following methodology was employed:

A two phase approach was used to determine information about trading card
games (TCGs), role playing games (RPGs) and miniatures wargames (MWG) in the
general US population between the ages of 12 and 35. For the rest of this
document, this group is referred to as "the marketplace" or "the market", or
"the consumers".

Information from more than 65,000 people was gathered from a questionnaire
sent to more than 20,000 households via a post card survey. This survey was
used as a "screener" to create a general profile of the game playing
population in the target age range, for the purposes of extrapolating trends
to the general population.

This "screener" accurately represents the US population as a whole; it is a
snapshot of the entire nation and is used to extrapolate trends from more
focused surveys to the larger market.

Well, how did they get the addresses to send?  Did they ask White Wolf, Pinnacle, I.C.E., SJG, GW, GDW, for some form of subscriber list?  Where did they get their gamers from?

What the general consensus definition of a 'campaign'? Extended series of games featuring the same setting and characters and some sort of overarching goal?

A lot of the face-to-face games I've played in that weren't one-shots have just gone on and on, usually till some RL thing interfered and the Players changed... or some new game came out and it just gets dropped. Until then they tend to just putter around aimlessly. Few of them had extended goals or most saw the original PCs shift out of game for whatever reason.
Contrasting with that, all the online campaigns I've been in have been of relatively short duration, ~6months or so, with much more focus on a particular goal. Probably because there's a lot more churn among the Players.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884836Well, how did they get the addresses to send?  Did they ask White Wolf, Pinnacle, I.C.E., SJG, GW, GDW, for some form of subscriber list?  Where did they get their gamers from?

Read the link. See if it answers your questions. If it doesn't ask Ryan Dancey.

Quote from: Omega;884824Mearls and I think Crawford believe this. Despite evidence to the contrary.

Please say more about this.  Where do they say they believe it?  What is the evidence to the contrary other than anecdote?

During and right after NEXT's playtesting I believe it was Mearls made some posts about the expected game length. Which was expected to be just about a school year.

Heres part of one commentary. Mores scattered all over the place.

QuoteI believe that's what's really happening to tabletop roleplaying, is that it used to be a hobby of not playing the game you want to play. And there are so many games now that you can play to fill all those hours of gaming, you can actually game now, and that what's happening is that RPGs needed that time, we, a GM or DM needed that time to create the adventure or create a campaign, a player needed that time to create a character, allocate skill ranks and come up with a background, and come up, you know, write out your three-page essay on who your character was before the campaign. That time is getting devoured, that time essentially I think is gone, that you could play stuff that lets you then eventually play a game or you can just play a game. And people are just playing games now.

And what we're really doing with D&D Next is we're really looking at thriving and surviving in that type of market. If you've playtested the game, you see we've run much simpler with the mechanics, things move much faster when you play... one of our very early things was was to say, look, I was playing Mass Effect 1 or 2 at the time. I can complete a mission in Mass Effect in about an hour and a half. So why can't I complete an adventure in D&D in that time? Why does it take me 4, 8, 12 hours just to get from page one of the adventure to the end? I mean, yeah, you can have huge epic adventures but I can't do it in less than four hours.

Evidence contrary is any given recounting of campaigns lasting years and years.

Holy fuck, is that his writing?  If that's speech transliterated that's OK, but anybody over the age of 12 who writes that incoherently should be whacked with a ruler.

If I had to guess I'd say that the massive number of still-born campaigns that last less than three months drag down the averages.

Right off the top, I'm not impressed with the methodology of a survey that apparently ignored gamers over the age of 35.  This was far less of an attempt to discern how gamers played and what they thought than to find those things out about D&D players who were members of the demographic to which WotC wanted to market.