can you run a game in 3 hours

[zebaroth]

can you run a game in 3 hours manly the arrowdown adventure from 1st edition

[imajica]

It'd be a bit rushed, but yes. Assuming you had pregenerated characters and didn't have to do too much rules explaining.

[Pertwee]

At Gencon 2010, I ran an impromptu demo in an hour and a half, and that was with explaining the rules. And with no pre-planned adventure. So definitely, yes.

[garethl]

I believe we played Arrowdown in just over 4 hours. The first two-hour session was our first session of DW:AiTaS ever and we needed to learn the rules and all that. It was slow, all we "achieved" in that session: we walked from one scene to the other. The second session however: we flew through the rest of the adventure. So I think it can be done in three hours, remind the players of the option to spend a SP for a hint and don't let them waste too much time in one location.

Edit: We used the pregens from the box set.

[Siskoid]

Three hours or so is about the length of any Doctor Who session I've run. The trick is to not overprepare. Set the situation up, have key encounters/information ready, and let the characters do their thing. Boffinery and Story Points can throw a wrench into many of your plans anyway.

[stahlman]

My introductory Scenario: The Village ran in 3 hours

[zepo]

It should not be a problem to run a game at any (reasonable) length of time (from about 30 minutes to however long you want to go). Most convention game slots are 4 hours long (with 30 minutes for ramp up and ramp down, that leaves an average of 3 and a half hours of actual game time).

3 hours should be fine, but do not be afraid to skip some of the detail, or help the players along by giving them awareness rolls if they are getting a bit stuck.

[olegrand]

Judging from my actual play experience, 3.30 / 4.00 does seem to be "standard duration" for most of the DWAITAS scenarios I've run so far, but I'm running a solo campaign (with a single player), which somewhat limits the amount of discussion-before-decision scenes (but I'd say this is more or less counterbalanced by a solid amount of in-character conversations with NPCs, including occasional romantic encounters etc). Some episodes have been played with a second, "guest star" player and these episodes tend to be slightly longer - I'd say more in the league of 4.00 to 4.30. That being said, the longest episodes I've run were solo stories, with the longest one being approx. 5.45 or so. It involved some very important character decisions and campaign-affecting choices.

All other things being equal, I'd say that the main factor here is exposition: longer episodes are usually longer because they have a longer exposition scene (or series of scenes). The longer it takes to "set the scene" and get the story rolling, the longer the session - but once the story is launched, the action does tend to follow the same overall time pattern. I think this is because most Dwaitas GMs try to emulate the pacing and style of the TV show - and here we fall back on the old "new Who vs. classic Who debate". Scenarios which more or less try to emulate the feel and pace of a new Who, less-than-one-hour episode tend to last 3 hours or slightly more, while scenarios which follow a longer, four-act structure like many classic Who stories (which had a total duration of 1.30 or so) or which are closer to the new Who specials, tend to be closer to the 4.30 / 5.00 duration. So, in short: Dwaitas scenarios seem to have a "time coefficient" of x3 or so. ;D