Why I don't play 55 session campaigns

I knows many of those of you who read this blog also read Grognardia. Perhaps that mean you have followed the adventures of James' groups in Dwimmermount. Then you have probably also noted that they have played at least 55 sessions in that campaign. I don't play games like that.

Tonight we had another session of 7th Sea, and we managed to play (I think) roughly 2 or maybe 2 and a half hours. This is how much time we have available after working, grabbing a bite, all assembling at my friends and just chat a bit before playing. Now, if you want to feel like you are not playing a online ply by post game where a single fight can go on for weeks, you want to focus. That focus means you want to have everything happen at a somewhat accelerated pace.

Imagine you roll up a character, and decide that his motivating factor is to find the one armed man who murdered his father. If that is not something that will just fade away, you will have to make sure it happens to play a part in a fairly short time, in game. This is just an artifact of the slow pace of our game. If two months have to pass in game before that plot start to develop, it will mean maybe 150 sessions. 150 weekly sessions mean everyone will have forgotten that part, and the player will fell like the GM ignored his interesting story hook.

I'm not sure I like this, but the alternatives are not that many when you have at most 3 hours a week to set aside for a game. Anyway. That is the reason there wont be any session report from our 55th session if this game. I'm guesstimating 5-10 sessions more and then it will be a new game.