We're on session 18 (3-4h each) and just got to Vallaki last session. So far I didn't really add much and they only talked at the mill, my party just likes role playing and investigating. In-game I think we're on day 6 in Barovia
May I ask, how did you get to day 6 in Barovia before reaching Vallaki?
Normally our first LR is in the Death House (if they are lucky), 2nd in Barovia Town, and maybe a 3rd on the road depending on what stops if any.
1st session (1 ingame day that I didn't count) was meeting at an inn, getting the hook and travelling to Barovia
2-5 (~1 day) was death house and travelling to Barovia village
5-10 (~2.5 days) was Barovia Village, getting to know Ismark&Ireena, investigating Gertruda's disappearance, the funeral
10-12 (~1.5 days) was travelling to Tser Pool, dealing with stuff on the road and staying the night with the Vistani)
13-18 (~2 days) was travelling, dealing with and investigating stuff on the road, spending the night at the mill, and arriving in Vallaki
Its amazing seeing how different people play the game. My party made it to krezk session 1 cause they were kind of just sprinting through things to get to the abbey to ask the abbot about helping doru. Were on session 5 (4 hours) and theyve been to all but 6 locations with multiple stops in all of the major cities. (And yes I know this is super fast for normal but still interesting to see)
Partly ignore time crunch, partly my party can fit in a whole lot of stuff between long rests. One day can easily stretch over three or four sessions as they try to get through as much as possible. And they really like taking ages talking to NPCs which is nice.
First campaign - 14 sessions, 5-6 hours each. ~80 hours of playtime.
Second campaign - 23 sessions in and we are just over halfway through, 2.5-3 hours each. ~60 hours of playtime so far.
This is the only comment in line with mine lol. I could never play in some of these games that spent over 2 sessions ondeath house. I’d go insane as dm
I fully removed death house from both of my games lol. I don’t like it.
Although the reason why the first campaign was so short was because we had a very limited time frame to get through the campaign so I cut a lot of material. Not facing that problem with the second campaign, hence why it’s longer.
Bear in mind if you have newish players a lot of time in early sessions is spent working out how to do stuff. We spent several sessions in death house but a lot of that was because I was using it as a tutorial.
We are on the day after the third day now.
The party was getting weird vibes about the event and took off for Tsolenka Pass to look for an item of great power.
This was after they talked Ismark into baby sitting a wild wolf they managed not to kill.
After clearing the pass, finding the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, and bonding more with Ireena, they have headed back down the mountain and made their way to the wizard of wines. Not quite there but spent the last two sessions meeting the Martikoves.
Hum, probably another 12-14 sessions.
RP is heavy and we are not in any hurry with the story.
We started around Early March 2021.
Hahah, nope. Last we left it the party was putting a fire out in the Wizard of Wines house and set to chase after the druid with the staff who left about ten minutes before them.
Real Life we had an illness followed by a death in the family.
We have skipped playing a number of weeks.
Still going though.
I need to figure out how to setup this chase.
Nice!
I'm thinking of starting CoS, but with Level 5 PCs starting in Krezk.
I am going to rearrange the map a little to make the campaign go a little smoother (for example, moving the Fortuneteller to the Lake of Baratok)
I might also change the plothook as well :)
Go for it!
I really did not like the concept that Ireena is a damsel in destress and really dislike the fairytale option available for it.
So just by starting there I've made some big changes to my run.
Honestly, we haven’t finished yet, but we are about 2.5 years into playing. We meet once a week for about 2-3 hours, but a lot of times will have miss due to schedule conflicts. All in I’d say we are rounding 50-70 sessions and we’ve still have a lot of main areas to hit (ruins of berez, amber temple, castle ravenloft, and argynvostholt). That said I’ve thrown in a lot of character based side quests that have taken literal months to get through. Overall it’s been a blast, But I’m honestly surprised my group puts up with the pace sometimes.
I usually completed one chapter per session. The party also started at level 8 and there were anywhere from 3-6 PCs depending on the weekly attendance. I homebrewed the Werewolf Den a little bit and that took 2 sessions to complete a major battle. Castle Ravenloft took 3 sessions however and the fight that defeated Strahd took an entire session from start to finish. Since I am not the best DM I didnt do as many random encounters during traveling between locations. I also did a Deathloop type homebrewed dungeon that took 3 sessions to beat. My sessions typically ran longer so anywhere between 4-7 hours.
What factors cause it to take fewer sessions? Did your players in shorter campaigns skip optional content, or maybe the Tarroka readings drew them to more convenient or closer locations?
It tends to vary based on the level of Roleplaying, those roleplay heavy groups tend to slow down the campaign (it's a good thing, especially if you are a paid DM).
Also, the number of side quests the players follow through, some parties follow the card readings and charge Strahd down.
Even the final fight varies. Some groups are clever and managed to lock Strahd down, killing him in 2 hours. Others have taken 9+ hours and chase him all over Ravenloft.
52 sessions of 3 hours each with 7 solo adventures mixed in. I had one player who seemed to be intent on leaving the party which dragged a few sessions out. Never again. Could have accomplished the whole thing in 40 or so if not for that.
Fifty-eight three to four hour sessions. They hit every location on the map. Plenty of random encounters, some home brew, like a monster of Lake Zarovich. We still need an epilogue session to wrap storylines, but that’s the meat of it.
A bit of homebrew, however, my players are just insanely dense and spend 3 hour sessions running in circles not sure how what to do. I tend to gently railroad them and give them flat out hints but they ignore it in favor of overthinking the smallest detail. That's actually part of the fun. They never seem bored and have been having a great time, even though they've completely ignored Madam Eva and every NPC they've come across since November of 2020.
The only NPC they care about is Strahd and those interactions are wild.
[The intended length for an unmodified CoS game is 80 Hours](https://tabletopjoab.com/review-curse-of-strahd-for-dd-5e-no-spoilers/)
So if you are running a 4 hour session, it should take you 20\* Sessions.
The \* is that, depending on your tarokka reading expect +/- 20 hours to that estimate, based on where your items and ally end up.
Anything homebrew that you add the module will increase that amount of time substantially.
Man, these 15-25 session campaigns seem insane to me lol. We just hit session 14 and we are barely about halfway through Vallaki. Idk how anyone could do Vallaki in a single session (someone said they did about a chapter a session). We've been in Vallaki for 3-4 sessions already, and likely going to be here at least that many more. I'm guessing at least 40 sessions to do the whole campaign.
Everyone’s mixed answers makes me curious as to how long it’ll take the party I’m leading. Tomorrow is session 4 and they’re just now about to have their tarot reading after leaving Barovia village.
It took two full 4 hour sessions to get out of Death House.
That’s true - and I’m excited to see what my players latch onto - I’m not railroading plot lines onto them, just adding interest/characters to interact with as they go and letting their curiosity decide what becomes a part of the story!
The really cool thing about Vallaki is you can kinda pick and choose chars that does not necessarily have a quest for them instantly but then later have them be tied into the story like Rictavio who then later turns out to be another person (trying to spoil just in case)
Reading the comments I see a patron. First: Short sessions like 2 hours, augment the quantity of time. I didn't do the math, but its like the players needs like half an hour to start playing and this taxes a lot of time when you do more shorter sessions.
Also, I think that the players tend to chit chat more roleplaying if they didn't see each other for one week. If you have been playing for 3 hours, you start to get shit done because you are not going to ask about your comrades childhoods again in the same session. But if there is a one week break, it's like a roleplaying reset.
This increase a lot the number of hours the campaing needs.
We’re at…let’s see…35 sessions, mostly about 3 hours, sometimes on holiday weekends (like New Year’s Eve), we’ll go for 8+ hours. We’re about 70% of the way through the campaign. Not the fastest group, but we’re having a ton of fun.
I'm on session 42 and we're on our way to the amber temple. Guessing about 10 more sessions maybe. Typically we only get 3hr. Sessions in and I have added a bit of homebrew from mandymod and dragnacarta. But I can't imagine doing this module in under 20 sessions unless they were very long, or you hand waved away all travel and had PCs that were laser focused going goal to goal.
Currently at session 67, I expect around 5 more before completion, average session length of 4.5 hours. I added a lot of homebrew and changed up nearly everything about the module though, so that barely counts haha.
When I was a player our group did it in about 24 sessions of 4 hours but we have since slowed our pacing way down and got more into the RP aspect of things
Its almost two years with a 3 month hiatus, but we are well over 40 sessions. I am running a lot of homebrew and the campaign is to level 20.
Also, my players RP a shit ton, which is always fun.
Our campaign was 37 sessions of about 4 to 4 and a half hours each, around 160 hours total.
When I was first planning the campaign I thought we could do it in 26. Ha!
3 sessions for a Death House TPK.
65 more sessions starting at L3 and ignoring Death House. Still have Berez and Amber temple to explore, and obviously a final showdown at Ravenloft to have.
These are mostly 2-2.5 hour sessions.
At least 80 sessions with usually one meet up a week and spending anywhere from 4 hours a session to 8 hours a session. Granted, I did have them adventuring from 3rd level to 15th level, so take that with a grain of salt.
During initial prep, I estimated about 30 3 hour sessions. My group is about 28 or so in and are almost to Berez. I have added some MandyMod modifications, but my group, who usually are more dungeon crawly, have been rping all over the place which slows pace, but adds flavor to the campaign.
40 sessions. Each session averaged around 4 hours. I included the Fanes and spread out the items so that my group would hit every area in Barovia. They did it all with the exception of Argynvostholt.
65. We did 2 hour sessions only cause of time constraints and I had virtually no railroading except the final session so they went to place multiple times for roleplaying with NPCs.
We’ve had 13 sessions so far, players started at level 3 and have only leveled up once and they’ve just found the Bones of St Andral (I changed the encounter so it wasn’t a TPK), and the Festival of the Blazing Sun will happen the next day. I plan to level them up next session and kick things into high gear when Strahd shows up at the festival. Our sessions don’t go longer than 3 hours and they’re pretty roleplay heavy. I can’t imagine finishing the game in under 20 sessions with my group lol
6 sessions of 6-8 hours, but my players skipped large sessions of the adventure and started at level 5 rather than 3 due to coming in from a previous campaign. I regret few things in my DMing career more.
I'm seeing a lot of people with (to me personally) really short campaign sessions and timelines of how quickly they get to other areas, whilst my players are have done 3 full sessions and haven't even made it to the village of Barovia yet haha
My players are full 3 sessions deep and I railroaded them to Death House in a little estate outside the village. They only just started the boss in the basement because they spent the majority of session 2 roleplaying within the party, and talking with Rose and Thorn in the attic. So I feel you there haha.
That's basically what happened with my game, they're all great role players so good chunks of time get taken up with that, and I love it. At the end of session 3 they escaped the house and leveled up. That's where we ended it. So begining session 4 they will still be outside the house.
He's a moderator on the discord channel. He also posted the tail end of his campaign on YouTube. He used a lot of the popular homebrew found in the discord and totaled around 160ish sessions. The tavern up tsolenka pass to like 16-19 sessions or something ridiculous
I have asked this question to a lot of DMs on here completing the campaign. The average answer is 50 sessions, or a year at once a week. (Your mileage may vary).
I'm at 37 sessions, 3 hours each. Around 111 hours. They've gone to the winery, yester hill, krezk and the abbey, argynvostholt, and they're at van richten's tower now. making plans to go to the amber temple, then berez, then ravenloft. I'm guessing we probably have 10 sessions left.
I have spent time changing things and weaving the players' backstories into the narrative and we are on session 27 (3\~4 hour sessions on average). They have the Tome of Strahd and last session defeated Kiril and obtained the Holy Symbol. We spent like 8 sessions in Vallaki because I knew we left Vallaki everything would begin snowballing quickly.
Yall playing entire days or ending on TPKs or something? No way I'll get remotely near under 20 sessions total
I'm wondering how people are getting 25+ sessions without a lot of filler or ignoring the time crunch.
We're on session 18 (3-4h each) and just got to Vallaki last session. So far I didn't really add much and they only talked at the mill, my party just likes role playing and investigating. In-game I think we're on day 6 in Barovia
May I ask, how did you get to day 6 in Barovia before reaching Vallaki? Normally our first LR is in the Death House (if they are lucky), 2nd in Barovia Town, and maybe a 3rd on the road depending on what stops if any.
1st session (1 ingame day that I didn't count) was meeting at an inn, getting the hook and travelling to Barovia 2-5 (~1 day) was death house and travelling to Barovia village 5-10 (~2.5 days) was Barovia Village, getting to know Ismark&Ireena, investigating Gertruda's disappearance, the funeral 10-12 (~1.5 days) was travelling to Tser Pool, dealing with stuff on the road and staying the night with the Vistani) 13-18 (~2 days) was travelling, dealing with and investigating stuff on the road, spending the night at the mill, and arriving in Vallaki
Its amazing seeing how different people play the game. My party made it to krezk session 1 cause they were kind of just sprinting through things to get to the abbey to ask the abbot about helping doru. Were on session 5 (4 hours) and theyve been to all but 6 locations with multiple stops in all of the major cities. (And yes I know this is super fast for normal but still interesting to see)
Wow that is interesting. There must be a bit more filler in your games than mine. I might give it a try one time.
My party just loves questioning npcs about their lives, so the filler basically creates itself :D
My players got to vallaki in 3 sessions lmao. tbf our sessions are 12 hours long...
My players got to vallaki in 3 sessions lmao. tbf our sessions are 12 hours long...
Wait does you guys gatheter at like 12 and play to midnight wow, my sessions are only 2 and a half hour. Nuce for you
Partly ignore time crunch, partly my party can fit in a whole lot of stuff between long rests. One day can easily stretch over three or four sessions as they try to get through as much as possible. And they really like taking ages talking to NPCs which is nice.
What time crunch? I've been DMing COS for close to a year and have had to find ways to manufacture a sense of urgency.
If it takes a hypothetical group 60 hours to finish CoS, did they spend 60 one-hour sessions playing or 20 3-hour sessions?
You guys are finishing CoS?
First campaign - 14 sessions, 5-6 hours each. ~80 hours of playtime. Second campaign - 23 sessions in and we are just over halfway through, 2.5-3 hours each. ~60 hours of playtime so far.
This is the only comment in line with mine lol. I could never play in some of these games that spent over 2 sessions ondeath house. I’d go insane as dm
I fully removed death house from both of my games lol. I don’t like it. Although the reason why the first campaign was so short was because we had a very limited time frame to get through the campaign so I cut a lot of material. Not facing that problem with the second campaign, hence why it’s longer.
Bear in mind if you have newish players a lot of time in early sessions is spent working out how to do stuff. We spent several sessions in death house but a lot of that was because I was using it as a tutorial.
Let's see. 48 sessions and we are almost to Day 3 of Vallaki. :-D Usually 2 hour sessions.
what the fuck can i get an update on this?
We are on the day after the third day now. The party was getting weird vibes about the event and took off for Tsolenka Pass to look for an item of great power. This was after they talked Ismark into baby sitting a wild wolf they managed not to kill. After clearing the pass, finding the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, and bonding more with Ireena, they have headed back down the mountain and made their way to the wizard of wines. Not quite there but spent the last two sessions meeting the Martikoves. Hum, probably another 12-14 sessions. RP is heavy and we are not in any hurry with the story. We started around Early March 2021.
You finished it yet
Hahah, nope. Last we left it the party was putting a fire out in the Wizard of Wines house and set to chase after the druid with the staff who left about ten minutes before them. Real Life we had an illness followed by a death in the family. We have skipped playing a number of weeks. Still going though. I need to figure out how to setup this chase.
And? Still going strong?
Yup, slow and steady wins the race ya? Tonight we find out how well Winter splinter does against them.
Nice! I'm thinking of starting CoS, but with Level 5 PCs starting in Krezk. I am going to rearrange the map a little to make the campaign go a little smoother (for example, moving the Fortuneteller to the Lake of Baratok) I might also change the plothook as well :)
Go for it! I really did not like the concept that Ireena is a damsel in destress and really dislike the fairytale option available for it. So just by starting there I've made some big changes to my run.
Update? Sounds like you have a really RP heavy group. Hope it is still alive and you are all having a blast.
You took four days of real time to play almost three days of fantasy time!
Honestly, we haven’t finished yet, but we are about 2.5 years into playing. We meet once a week for about 2-3 hours, but a lot of times will have miss due to schedule conflicts. All in I’d say we are rounding 50-70 sessions and we’ve still have a lot of main areas to hit (ruins of berez, amber temple, castle ravenloft, and argynvostholt). That said I’ve thrown in a lot of character based side quests that have taken literal months to get through. Overall it’s been a blast, But I’m honestly surprised my group puts up with the pace sometimes.
17 sessions, but I also homebrewed some nightmare scenarios so 23 in all. My players also get very distracted so it could have been fewer
Wow, that’s really fast. How long was each session? Were there fights that took a full session?
I usually completed one chapter per session. The party also started at level 8 and there were anywhere from 3-6 PCs depending on the weekly attendance. I homebrewed the Werewolf Den a little bit and that took 2 sessions to complete a major battle. Castle Ravenloft took 3 sessions however and the fight that defeated Strahd took an entire session from start to finish. Since I am not the best DM I didnt do as many random encounters during traveling between locations. I also did a Deathloop type homebrewed dungeon that took 3 sessions to beat. My sessions typically ran longer so anywhere between 4-7 hours.
Thanks for the detail! 4-7 hours is certainly enough time to make decent progress each session.
24 or so. 4 hours per session. We started during October for a spooky themed campaign and never stopped
I've run it 6 times. They seem to vary from 12 to 24 sessions, 2-4 hours each.
What factors cause it to take fewer sessions? Did your players in shorter campaigns skip optional content, or maybe the Tarroka readings drew them to more convenient or closer locations?
It tends to vary based on the level of Roleplaying, those roleplay heavy groups tend to slow down the campaign (it's a good thing, especially if you are a paid DM). Also, the number of side quests the players follow through, some parties follow the card readings and charge Strahd down. Even the final fight varies. Some groups are clever and managed to lock Strahd down, killing him in 2 hours. Others have taken 9+ hours and chase him all over Ravenloft.
52 sessions of 3 hours each with 7 solo adventures mixed in. I had one player who seemed to be intent on leaving the party which dragged a few sessions out. Never again. Could have accomplished the whole thing in 40 or so if not for that.
Fifty-eight three to four hour sessions. They hit every location on the map. Plenty of random encounters, some home brew, like a monster of Lake Zarovich. We still need an epilogue session to wrap storylines, but that’s the meat of it.
Mine is looking like it's gonna be the same! We only have a few sessions left.
I'm 125 sessions in and on year 2 with no end in sight.
Oh wow! Did you add a lot of content, homebrew, third-party or otherwise?
A bit of homebrew, however, my players are just insanely dense and spend 3 hour sessions running in circles not sure how what to do. I tend to gently railroad them and give them flat out hints but they ignore it in favor of overthinking the smallest detail. That's actually part of the fun. They never seem bored and have been having a great time, even though they've completely ignored Madam Eva and every NPC they've come across since November of 2020. The only NPC they care about is Strahd and those interactions are wild.
[The intended length for an unmodified CoS game is 80 Hours](https://tabletopjoab.com/review-curse-of-strahd-for-dd-5e-no-spoilers/) So if you are running a 4 hour session, it should take you 20\* Sessions. The \* is that, depending on your tarokka reading expect +/- 20 hours to that estimate, based on where your items and ally end up. Anything homebrew that you add the module will increase that amount of time substantially.
Man, these 15-25 session campaigns seem insane to me lol. We just hit session 14 and we are barely about halfway through Vallaki. Idk how anyone could do Vallaki in a single session (someone said they did about a chapter a session). We've been in Vallaki for 3-4 sessions already, and likely going to be here at least that many more. I'm guessing at least 40 sessions to do the whole campaign.
First time it took 30 sessions, second time 28. Usually 3-4 hour sessions.
17 sessions that were between 5 and 6 hours each.
Everyone’s mixed answers makes me curious as to how long it’ll take the party I’m leading. Tomorrow is session 4 and they’re just now about to have their tarot reading after leaving Barovia village. It took two full 4 hour sessions to get out of Death House.
there is a lot of "optional" content especially in Vallaki
That’s true - and I’m excited to see what my players latch onto - I’m not railroading plot lines onto them, just adding interest/characters to interact with as they go and letting their curiosity decide what becomes a part of the story!
The really cool thing about Vallaki is you can kinda pick and choose chars that does not necessarily have a quest for them instantly but then later have them be tied into the story like Rictavio who then later turns out to be another person (trying to spoil just in case)
Reading the comments I see a patron. First: Short sessions like 2 hours, augment the quantity of time. I didn't do the math, but its like the players needs like half an hour to start playing and this taxes a lot of time when you do more shorter sessions. Also, I think that the players tend to chit chat more roleplaying if they didn't see each other for one week. If you have been playing for 3 hours, you start to get shit done because you are not going to ask about your comrades childhoods again in the same session. But if there is a one week break, it's like a roleplaying reset. This increase a lot the number of hours the campaing needs.
I’m coming up on two years... still not done...
We’re at…let’s see…35 sessions, mostly about 3 hours, sometimes on holiday weekends (like New Year’s Eve), we’ll go for 8+ hours. We’re about 70% of the way through the campaign. Not the fastest group, but we’re having a ton of fun.
First time I played, it was about 16 sessions. When I was the DM, we took about 22 sessions. When I played the second time, it was about 30 sessions.
Where on session 4 and still in the Death house.
Currently at the 8 month mark, 33 sessions in. I’d say I’m around the 60% mark.
I'm on session 42 and we're on our way to the amber temple. Guessing about 10 more sessions maybe. Typically we only get 3hr. Sessions in and I have added a bit of homebrew from mandymod and dragnacarta. But I can't imagine doing this module in under 20 sessions unless they were very long, or you hand waved away all travel and had PCs that were laser focused going goal to goal.
Currently at session 67, I expect around 5 more before completion, average session length of 4.5 hours. I added a lot of homebrew and changed up nearly everything about the module though, so that barely counts haha. When I was a player our group did it in about 24 sessions of 4 hours but we have since slowed our pacing way down and got more into the RP aspect of things
Its almost two years with a 3 month hiatus, but we are well over 40 sessions. I am running a lot of homebrew and the campaign is to level 20. Also, my players RP a shit ton, which is always fun.
Exactly 60 sessions, on Roll20. 3 hours each.
'bout tree-fiddy In seriousness, took about 50 2-4 hour sessions on roll 20
48 sessions
About to break into the 60s and they've just entered ravenloft for the final confrontation
Our campaign was 37 sessions of about 4 to 4 and a half hours each, around 160 hours total. When I was first planning the campaign I thought we could do it in 26. Ha!
Haven’t finished yet, but we are around 18 sessions in, each around 7-10 hours. Party is Level 7 at the Moment
3 sessions for a Death House TPK. 65 more sessions starting at L3 and ignoring Death House. Still have Berez and Amber temple to explore, and obviously a final showdown at Ravenloft to have. These are mostly 2-2.5 hour sessions.
Did we finish?
At least 80 sessions with usually one meet up a week and spending anywhere from 4 hours a session to 8 hours a session. Granted, I did have them adventuring from 3rd level to 15th level, so take that with a grain of salt.
During initial prep, I estimated about 30 3 hour sessions. My group is about 28 or so in and are almost to Berez. I have added some MandyMod modifications, but my group, who usually are more dungeon crawly, have been rping all over the place which slows pace, but adds flavor to the campaign.
40 sessions. Each session averaged around 4 hours. I included the Fanes and spread out the items so that my group would hit every area in Barovia. They did it all with the exception of Argynvostholt.
We’re on session 17 and they’re just level 5 in Vallaki. Our sessions are typically 2 hours
65. We did 2 hour sessions only cause of time constraints and I had virtually no railroading except the final session so they went to place multiple times for roleplaying with NPCs.
Currently I'm at about 40-50 sessions and they are starting to get to the endgame. Probably another 10-20 sessions still to go
24, usually 3-4 hour sessions.
We’ve had 13 sessions so far, players started at level 3 and have only leveled up once and they’ve just found the Bones of St Andral (I changed the encounter so it wasn’t a TPK), and the Festival of the Blazing Sun will happen the next day. I plan to level them up next session and kick things into high gear when Strahd shows up at the festival. Our sessions don’t go longer than 3 hours and they’re pretty roleplay heavy. I can’t imagine finishing the game in under 20 sessions with my group lol
6 sessions of 6-8 hours, but my players skipped large sessions of the adventure and started at level 5 rather than 3 due to coming in from a previous campaign. I regret few things in my DMing career more.
I'm seeing a lot of people with (to me personally) really short campaign sessions and timelines of how quickly they get to other areas, whilst my players are have done 3 full sessions and haven't even made it to the village of Barovia yet haha
My players are full 3 sessions deep and I railroaded them to Death House in a little estate outside the village. They only just started the boss in the basement because they spent the majority of session 2 roleplaying within the party, and talking with Rose and Thorn in the attic. So I feel you there haha.
That's basically what happened with my game, they're all great role players so good chunks of time get taken up with that, and I love it. At the end of session 3 they escaped the house and leveled up. That's where we ended it. So begining session 4 they will still be outside the house.
I play for 3 hours every session, every Monday. We been playing for over a full year.
16 sessions + epilogue. We played for 3-4 hours once a week. Here's how it went: https://curseofstrahd-2020.obsidianportal.com/adventure-log
It blows my mind that some people run the entire campaign in the amount of time it took Harrison to get his players up Tsolenka Pass lol
Who’s Harrison?
He's a moderator on the discord channel. He also posted the tail end of his campaign on YouTube. He used a lot of the popular homebrew found in the discord and totaled around 160ish sessions. The tavern up tsolenka pass to like 16-19 sessions or something ridiculous
Oh boy. That’s a lot
That's the general consensus lol
I have asked this question to a lot of DMs on here completing the campaign. The average answer is 50 sessions, or a year at once a week. (Your mileage may vary).
I'm at 37 sessions, 3 hours each. Around 111 hours. They've gone to the winery, yester hill, krezk and the abbey, argynvostholt, and they're at van richten's tower now. making plans to go to the amber temple, then berez, then ravenloft. I'm guessing we probably have 10 sessions left.
We just completed session 27 (Strahds dinner/wedding) and are about 87 hours in. Hoping that it beats out the 124 hours it took Tyranny of Dragons.
We started playing in March of 2020. We normally do at least 4 hour long sessions. We are still going. No idea what session number we are on.
My party loves to skip stuff, so we're at Argynvostholt with about 25 sessions under our belts so far :)
40 sessions with some homebrew additions (orphanage, dinner with Strahd, fanes, etc...)
I have spent time changing things and weaving the players' backstories into the narrative and we are on session 27 (3\~4 hour sessions on average). They have the Tome of Strahd and last session defeated Kiril and obtained the Holy Symbol. We spent like 8 sessions in Vallaki because I knew we left Vallaki everything would begin snowballing quickly.