Wouldn't it be great if we could insert polls into these? I'd really like that.

Anyhoo, I just wondered how long everyone's encounters generally run. I appreciate that this will vary massively from encounter to encounter, but what would be considered a "standard" one? Alternatively, how long is "too long" - i.e. at what point do players start to get bored of a particular encounter.

Thanks in advance.

4ish. Beyond 6 and I get bored.

God knows.

Some things have moved at a brisk pace, others hit some bumps, others just careened way off course like a llama is driving. People very, so a GM can pace things according to what he knows about the players, but to put any arbitrary deadline on things is asking for a headache.

Anyhoo, I just wondered how long everyone's encounters generally run.

Do you mean only combat encounters? Are you measuring time in rounds? If so, I like to change up the scene before round 5.

Even the movies had fights that only lasted 4 or 5 rounds tops. So yeah, a 20 round dice flinging epic? You're looking at the wrong game engine.

Combat rounds... I reckon 4 tops... but then we have 6 battle droids as 'Security Detail' if it's our own 'turf' i.e. the docking bay we're in.

i think before that 6-7.. no more... spaceship combat - 8 rounds. One was 2 or 3 headhunters designed as an encounter to slow us down, coz I rolled a despair - ship showed on sensors gave the baddies time to fire up engines.

second ship to ship was the troupes Nemesis and they got away - if i'd rolled better we'd have blown him out of the sky

social encounters.... we've had a whole session (1 game night 2-3 hours) of various social encounters.. didn't mind tbh.

After about 3-4 rounds it's time to go to One-Check Combat Resolution... or break out the 'Last Man Standing' ability.

It should feel like the movies; keep everything pacey and moving along swiftly.

Grindy, D&D 4E type combats where the battle is decided halfway, the outcome is known but you have to keep at it just to kill off every bag-of-hit-points on the grid, are to be avoided at all costs.

If a Star Wars game ever feels dull or boring... you're doing it wrong...

I don't feel there is every an easy way to tell if a scene is taking too long. I know there is a really easy way to tell if a scene is getting tedious. Long scenes are perfectly fine if everyone at the table is engaged and interested throughout them. Tedious scenes, identified when a GM notices players developing ADD, should be altered immediately to become more exciting.

In scenes where plot isn't happening, things can get tedious. Now if everyone is okay with certain scenes, and having fun, fine. If a few participants are turning into vegetables, it's time to change the tune and either end the scene and shift to something else, or change the beat and have something different happen. This could be someone stumbles into the scene, utters their last words, and dies. It could be a huge explosion that disrupts the combat enough for one side to disengage. It could be anything, from simple to almost unreasonably drastic, that gets things moving again. Sometimes these may seem like an "And then," moment, but with clever a juxtaposition to previous plot, an inserted event can seem natural.

In my experience, a couple well thought out encounters tend to last a group an entire session. This last go with my first group, for instance, had them in 2 locations and they spent the majority in the second location. At the end it was more cinematic and plot driven and not much time was spent at all there because everyone had to go.