How long did your RotRL Campaign last?


Rise of the Runelords


So we started plating RotRL campaign back in 2012 I believe. We game on every 4th Saturday of the month from 4pm till midnight. Most sessions start between 4:30-5pm once every arrives and we do a recap of last session.

Currently they are in the 5th module, Sins of the Savours.
They are in the Runforge and have finished 2 of the sins sections and working on their 3rd.

This group is very heavy into role playing and tactics. They could spend 30 minutes coming up with a plan for combat prior to the encounter starting.

I could easily see this campaign running well into late 2016, maybe 2017 with their pace and based on the content left in the book.

Just this past weekend they only did 2 encounters. They finished up in the Shimmering Veils, and then started on the area of Lust after reading the journal.


Mine lasted about... 9 to 10 months? But I was able to game far more often than you (though for shorter periods).

I remember Book 5 taking the longest to get through. Book 6 isn't that long unless your party spends a lot of time exploring Xin-Shalast.


Meeting every week, we managed to finish RotRL in a year. This was with 6 hour sessions each week (with more than a few weeks skipped due to real life interference). And as Zhangar said, Book 5 is in many ways the longest. It takes some time to get through the Elemental Plane of Dungeon....

Grand Lodge

I ran the game through Roll 20 every Friday for about 10 or 11 months. I'm pretty sure that my near obsessive preparation, down to making individual token actions for almost all NPC's had something to do with it getting done a little faster than I thought.

Five does take a long time in fact... as you progress in the adventure as a whole the later books take more time.

You have to do more preparation to assure that your NPC's are ready to face the player threat and there are in general a lot more abilities and spells to be familiar with / look up etc... than the earlier books.

I think in comparison Book 1 took us less than a month and Book 6 took nearly three.


We started in September 2009, and they just hit Xin-Shalast last session....

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

We've been playing roughly two years, and the PCs are currently working on some sidetreks before starting Book 5 proper. I'm also trying to get them to finish cleaning out the Black Tower as well - they skipped that side of things completely.


We are almost finished with Book 4 and we're almost at two years. We play most Wednesdays but not all - for instance we haven't played in a month but other times we can go several in a row. We've played somewhere around 45 times. Each session is 4-6 hours of sometimes diligent focus and sometimes not so diligent focus.


2 Years in March, mostly newer players, almost done with Book 2 (A hell of a lot of sidequests) the group averages 6-8 players typically.

Play fortnightly, for about 3/3.5 hours in the evening.


We've been playing for about 2 years, every other week for about 4 hours via Roll20 and we're nearing the end of Book 5. Though we did take a 6 month break after book 4 to play a different campaign with one of my players as DM because I didn't have the necessary free time to do game prep because of work stuff. We started back up again this August but I decided to convert the game over to 5E to alleviate some of the headaches of high-level PF play. Which actually requires me to spend MORE time in prep, but it makes the actual sessions run much smoother.

Also, I have 6 players (so I was already having to make changes to the encounters to take into account the PCs additional firepower.)


Kalshane wrote:

We've been playing for about 2 years, every other week for about 4 hours via Roll20 and we're nearing the end of Book 5. Though we did take a 6 month break after book 4 to play a different campaign with one of my players as DM because I didn't have the necessary free time to do game prep because of work stuff. We started back up again this August but I decided to convert the game over to 5E to alleviate some of the headaches of high-level PF play. Which actually requires me to spend MORE time in prep, but it makes the actual sessions run much smoother.

Also, I have 6 players (so I was already having to make changes to the encounters to take into account the PCs additional firepower.)

Yeah, I've got 5 players, and the Barbarian and Ranger have ridiculous hits and damage

The Ranger is usually minimum +26 to hit. So unless they have AC higher than 28, he is usually hitting with all his 5 attacks.
The Barbarian also is criticalling with either 15 or 17 on the die and usually backs it up. And minimum damage is 50-60 before he rolls his dice.

So I bump the creatures AC by 1, I max out hitpoints. But all this usually do is drag the encounter longer, because Barbarian AC is like 28.
And his HP is over 150
But he doesn't worry because Cleric will heal him during combat.


We are roughly halfway through book 5 (could be more or less depending on how many more wings they want to visit), and we began a little more than two years ago (Sept 2013). Sessions last 5-7 hours depending on the pace and the mood, and we meet every other weekish. It's not really that consistent, especially during holiday season, and all told we've probably skipped about 8 months worth of Saturdays.


TwoWolves wrote:


We started in September 2009, and they just hit Xin-Shalast last session....

Wow. How often do you play?

What kind of tracking do you keep for remembering key NPC's and places from previous sessions.


My Runelords game ran from May 2011 through July 2013. We got through Hook Mountain Massacre and then I ran a longish interlude adventure that was 20% homebrew and 80% pieced together from other published adventures. At the conclusion of the interlude, two players resigned and I was feeling burnt out, so we ended it there.

We played weekly on a weeknight, 4 hours per session. My group is chatty and prone to getting side-tracked, so I'd say we probably only got 2-3 hours of actual gaming in per session. We also ended up canceling about one game out of four due to scheduling issues, so I'd say we got in about maybe 35-40 game sessions per year.


joep wrote:
TwoWolves wrote:


We started in September 2009, and they just hit Xin-Shalast last session....

Wow. How often do you play?

What kind of tracking do you keep for remembering key NPC's and places from previous sessions.

We mostly live hours apart, and can only meet 3-6 times a year. This year was particularly bad, as we went from the end of January to late Septermber between sessions due to constant scheduling conflicts.

We use HeroLab and save the characters in a shared Dropbox folder. Myself (the GM) and one of the other players keep detailed notes during play, and I send out recap emails before a session.


Took about six to seven months, playing every week for 5-6 hours per session. Didn't miss many sessions (maybe 2 or 3 total) and there wasn't much side tracking or lengthy discussions. Book 5 was a bit of a problem as the party went straight for the info (by pure dumb luck) and had to trudge through the rest of the book to get enough xp to "move on". They by-passed much of the "filler" in book 6.

Spoiler:
When you put a raised highway that leads straight to the BBEG, expect the PCs to drive right past and ignore any off ramps.

The final battle was pretty epic, though.


My group started in early 2013, and finished just a few weeks ago. So about 2 and a half years, playing as often as real life would allow.


Mike J wrote:

Took about six to seven months, playing every week for 5-6 hours per session. Didn't miss many sessions (maybe 2 or 3 total) and there wasn't much side tracking or lengthy discussions. Book 5 was a bit of a problem as the party went straight for the info (by pure dumb luck) and had to trudge through the rest of the book to get enough xp to "move on". They by-passed much of the "filler" in book 6.

** spoiler omitted **

The final battle was pretty epic, though.

This is part of the reason we agreed to ditch XP altogether and hand out levels upon reaching certain plot points. My group only hit 3 wings of Runeforge and immediately split, and this was after I made the place inescapable via any means other than the one in Wrath. They'll probaby try to run straight up the mountain, but that occluding field will likely send them back to the lower city for a while.


We have 29 playing sessions so far, and are just about finished with Hook Mountain Massacre. First session was in July ´13, so once a month on average, with about 6-7 hours each session.


TwoWolves wrote:
Mike J wrote:

Took about six to seven months, playing every week for 5-6 hours per session. Didn't miss many sessions (maybe 2 or 3 total) and there wasn't much side tracking or lengthy discussions. Book 5 was a bit of a problem as the party went straight for the info (by pure dumb luck) and had to trudge through the rest of the book to get enough xp to "move on". They by-passed much of the "filler" in book 6.

** spoiler omitted **

The final battle was pretty epic, though.

This is part of the reason we agreed to ditch XP altogether and hand out levels upon reaching certain plot points. My group only hit 3 wings of Runeforge and immediately split, and this was after I made the place inescapable via any means other than the one in Wrath. They'll probaby try to run straight up the mountain, but that occluding field will likely send them back to the lower city for a while.

I've since ditched XP too. And I really didn't mind the book 6 by-pass. At that point in any adventure, it is "go time". I find it anticlimactic to wander around exploring and taking in the local flavor when the BBEG must die. But that's just me.


Mike J wrote:


I've since ditched XP too. And I really didn't mind the book 6 by-pass. At that point in any adventure, it is "go time". I find it anticlimactic to wander around exploring and taking in the local flavor when the BBEG must die. But that's just me.

Yeah, we also have ditched the XP. I basically just send out an email when I feel they need to level up.

But my party is one to 2 level's lower than what they should be in RotRL at times because there are 5 in the party.

They make encounters look like a joke at times, walking over everything. They are very strategic in their combat and scout ahead with arcane eye.

I've got to boost the BG's AC by 1, and the BBEG by 2 sometimes. I max their HP. Even with DR the party has no problems.
SR was a problem until the got Piercing Metamagic Rod and Dweomer's Essence.
The rod makes the SR -5, and the Dweomer gives them +5 vs SR
So in essence if BBEG has SR of 24, it's now 14

Scarab Sages

We are currently on session 72, starting in January, and entering the final book. We started back in November of 2012. There was about a six month break due to my working/college schedule.

I completely dumped XP. I just throw what I feel is appropriate at them, double the treasure (9 players), and level them up when the modules recommend. Makes it MUCH easier.

Liberty's Edge

Started mine back in 2011, and we are just getting ready to finish book 3. Though, we usually only average twice a year.


I don't remember when exactly we started, but it has probably been 2-2.5 years, just started book 4. Though, we do take breaks between books to let someone else GM.

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