"What is the ideal game length for you?" Topic

How long is a good length for a typical game? What is the longest you'll go for? What is the shortest?

3 hours or so of gaming time. Another hour or so of sit up, tear down and post game talk. Anything much longer is too much like work and I start to lose interest.

Yep, what Doug said above. At my age now I find my head starting to hurt when gaming sessions go on any longer lol. I also like to have a good hour or more just chewing the fat and talking about the hobby, showing off recently painted stuff and talking tactics.

4 hours, which is usually an evening for us. Although, we do now have the luxury of leaving the game in situ until, perhaps, the following week so the game can last longer.

There seems to be an increase in the 'discussion' part of our games now – cowardly hound, I call him (Gazzola)!!

Three to four hours.

2-4 hours is my optimum too!, or a couple of 1 hour games.

Four hours or less for me too. If I play at home the table needs to be cleared off in time for the next meal. If I play away from home I am looking at an hour and a half minimum travel each way.

2 – 4 hours.

three to four hours.

If I am having a good time then the game can last for 5, 6, or even 8 hours and I don't care. If I am not enjoying it then I am ready to call it quits as soon as it is polite to suggest it.
So I guess I am not much help for an "ideal" length.

Depends on who's playing.

3-4 hours, that's not including gab sessions and a meal. If the company's good, then the gab session can be just as long as the game, as far as I'm concerned!

30-60 minutes. Brain damage has left me with a short attention span.

I hold almost all my games at my house or else at "The Weekend" Convention. This is usually on a Saturday or Sunday. I like to start the game at noon but players can come early to sociealize and have some snacks. The game must be completed by 6 pm when dinner will be served in the dining room if the group is six or less, or in the Living room where the war game table will be knocked down in part to form a dinner tale. (My living room is 16' by 30' and the table is 6 x 12 if I need it, so one half the table will be taken down and set up as a long banquet table. So five to six hours.

If was a shorter game or or some of the guests have enjoyed themselves overmuch on my wine celler, we will play a few board games or card games till they are able to drive and if not, we put them up overnight. iwll play

I find that any game that goes more than six hours is no fun and too much of a trial.

Besides, people like to pause and talk and discuss things as well. In all matters the game must not be allowed to infringe on the pleasures of company, discourse, and table.

I like games that resolve quickly and I like to play more than one game in an evening, so my ideal is 45 minutes to 2 hours.

Most of my favorite games (Song of Blades, Mech Attack, Kings of War) resolve in that time frame, allowing the club members to change opponents and play again. I'll go longer for the right game, but after 3 hours I start to wonder if this game is really for me.

For a week night 3 to 4 hours works. We usually have one or two big games on a Saturday and those go for 7 hours or more.

We usually go from 6 to 10pm. The game is already set up and ready to go at 6pm. We may call the game between 9 and 10 if it looks like there is a clear winner.

2-4 hours is good window for me.

4-6 hours usually does it…

4-8 hours

Two hours is usually lots. 2.5 is really my max unless there is some sort of special event.

4-6 hours

Like Otto, I prefer my games to be social occasions, with the game serving as the focal point. (While we enjoy different genres, we have very similar styles of presentation.) As such, anything less than four hours is just not very satisfying. Occasionally a few hardcore gamers will want to play out a game to more than 6 hours, but not much more.

So, four to seven hours for the game itself, not counting the social hours before and after.

Club night 2-3 hrs, a weekend game 2 – 3 days,

Tally Ho!

Three hours is great, two hours OK, four is a little long

The club games are usually 3- 4 hours

That being said, our campaign games are often6 – 8 hours, split over a couple of days

Don't have typical games. Typical lengths for different games:
- Demo .5-1 hour
- Encounter (simple objective) 2 hours
- Adventure (complex objective) 3 hours
- Campaign (usually multipel encounters/adventures) 12+ hours

Minimum probably .5 hours. Would expect replay with minimal set up activity between (could be extensive beforehand).

Maximum single session, 8-12 hours. I'm an old man. I have to take my medications and go to bed.

EDIT -----

Also, when camping, we will play a 8-12 hour game in 1-2 hour snippets over a weekend, interlaced with other activities. Often we will discuss the game while doing other things.

Club night games, a couple of hours. I am usually tired after work.

Weekend games, well, how long have you got? All day is worth making the time for.

About three hours….my days of playing games all weekend, or even for a day, are loooooong gone.

3-4 hours.

2-4 hours for me too. I used to play very long historical Napoleonic games that lasted all day, and took hours to setup. Now, it's nice to have fun with a few friends at one of their homes, or at the local game store.

I don't mind games that run long, depending on why the runtime is the way that it is.

If a game wants my time then it had better be because there are a lot of moving parts to interact with and command decisions to make. So long as those are provided I can keep going for hours and hours, or even do as some have suggested and leave the game set-up to be finished later.

If, however, it only takes its time because of arbitrary complexity in the rules I'm very unlikely to make it past two hours. I don't want to spend half an hour moving figures and three hours looking up charts, modifiers, etc. just to get a result that could be reasonably abstracted anyway.

Two to four hours, or a single evening. Shorter games seem like not enough payout for the effort to set them up, and longer games demand too much time from real life….

One to two hours. I'd rather play two or three faster games than one long one. Also , in my humble opinion, most games that last longer than that do so because they use rules that are more complicated than what I prefer, or simply have an impractical number of units on the table. More figures does not necessarily equal more fun.

A few people mentioned the time of day, that's important!

In the evening it's about 2 hours, I find gaming clubs a bit unsuited to my brain, starting at 7/8pm after a long day I'm a bit frazzled.

Weekend or long lazy days, whenever. I'd rather more games in the time frame than a really drawn out one but sometimes the games that go on for hours and hours with much beer and chatter are the best.

Annie

Two to three hours, maximum, excluding set up and packing away.
Even shorter is also good.

I boardgame more than wargame nowadays, but 2 – 3 hours is a good length; with setup and takedown, it fits nicely in my evening gaming.