For our 3rd play of Descent, my group decided that the two hero players would get two heroes each (Trenloe, Ispher, Sir Valadir, Bogran)... They were getting lollerstomped with just two heroes. I chose The Black Blade quest. When scanning over the map my D&D sensibilities kicked in and I thought to myself, "This won't even take an hour..."

The game took about 4 or so hours. That is about right for a decent sized dungeon in Descent, yeah?

My question is this... What makes Descent take so long? The closest thing I could guess was that the players turns were soooo long because they were agonizing over every tactical option. Outside of that, I'm not sure.

I ask because when I go to build my own quests... I'd like to build them so they take about two hours (with experienced players) and I don't really want to sacrifice dungeon size for speed. Basically, do tweaks exist that make the game faster without just making tiny maps?

Thanks in advance...

Honestly the one thing I've noticed that lengthens the games is the hero players

I've been guilty of it as a hero as well, where you spend 10 minutes discussing the best order to move 4 plastic figures around a board. If your players are agreeable to it, use a timer for the turns or the rounds. Heroes and OL get a set amount of time each, say four minutes max (four minutes for the heroes total, not each.). Speeds up the game a lot.

We`ve often had the same problem, yet several of our sessions in "journeys in the dark" took as long as 9-10 hours(starting 3 pm ending after midnight). We are often having a meal during our sessions at 6-7 pm, probably consuming 30-60 mins of the total gametime.

As Big Remy says, hero players are the ones "wasting" most of the time. We were thinking of a timer for both OL and heroes(think it was Big Remy recommending me this when I asked at this forum some months ago), but we started with "Road to Legend" and the need for a timer vanished. My experience with timers in descent is nil, but it seems worth a try.

WOndering why your need for a timer vanished in RtL. If anything the players seem to agonize even more over each move as in the campaign it seems to mean even more to win/lose an encounter. I find the short little dungeons in RtL take almost as long as the big ones in Descent or the other expansions. Continual spawning seems to be the factor that delays things the most.

I would love to try something one time. I would like to give the heroes a set amount of time to discuss their plans for the round. Once the first hero starts his turn, no more talking. Otherwise, it seems like each hero's turn is a group effort. "If you just use one fatigue...", "Move here instead...", etc. Let each player play his hero. I wonder how that would work.

It would be interesting to see each player making their own decisions... That said, I think it would be a little rough for my group. They aren't... you know... Tactically-minded. I beat them up a lot.

So does this mean that our games are only going to get shorter when the players get more experienced and thus capable of making tactical decisions faster? (outside of the OL smashing them fairly quickly...)

MacLeod said:

Typically yes, speed tends to come with experience in the game. But setting a hard time, like four minutes works well. You don't get your move in under the time, too bad your turn is forfeit. If you've ever played Blood Bowl (which if you haven't I highly recommend since its more or less free now a days), a turn time limit on a game that involves making separate moves for 11 figures and rolling dice almost each time keeps you on your toes.

I think spawning is another reason why Descent can take longer than expected. Just when the heroes think they have cleared out a room, more monsters appear!

To answer, 3 to 4 hours if you actually are used to the game and if the mission is not that a hard one.

Completely second BigRemy's first post. Heroes talking, talking, talking... man, it takes time.

MacLeod said:

I think you and the other posters have hit the nail on the head. Heroes agonizing over tactical choices and the OL spawning monsters too quickly are the two things that really slow down a level. Experience and familiarity with the rules will speed things up a little bit, but both of these factors are important and hard to trim down too much. The heroes need to play smart to win, so thinking about their actions is important. Likewise, the OL needs him some expendable minions, so spawning is important for his victory.

If you're more interested in the game speed than personal victory, you could hold off on spawning monsters a little. You'd probably be handing the gaem the heroes by doing so, but it would make things somewhat faster. I'm sure this idea won't appeal to all OLs, but I have used it once or twice when it was getting late and I wanted to stop =P

Yes, hero-players take a lot of time...especially if one likes to discuss every move - for hours...and you are not able to stop him...

But: we used to build each discovered area up after opening the door - and we were caught to progress faster in the game when we lay down the whole map, already preparing the monsters.

Additional time we saved when several sortiment boxes were used, further improved this after buying some boxes, where 4 sortiment boxes could be stored, so everything was neatly in its place and easy to take - no minutes passing during the check for a specific item.

And..as we got more and more proficient, we hadn´t to check rules each round...additional game helps also improved the gamespeed...

I don't have a real answer for you but I can say I played recently with 4 players and myself as OL and it took 8 hours. We played the 2nd quest with the two brothers. Minus about 30-45min for dinner.
We've played more than once but I'd say many of the players were still learning.
And yes, my group of heroes definately played as a group. All 4 would talk and decide what each hero should do. And of course one friend argued about every single rule even though he would never take the time to read the manual himself. But it's tough to get players so I bit my tounge

Being pretty new to Descent myself, I started to think we were doing something wrong when playing, because our first game took about 8 hours. Of course, the players were learning still ( I always play the OL and had read the rulebook and errata about 20 times before I even owned the game). We've played about 6 or so games now with the same group, and last night we played for about 9 hours and we finished 2 1/2 games. So, getting a few games under your belt helps tremendously.

Some of the things I noticed that will change the length of the game...

Experience will speed things up the most.

If you are only putting down the revealed parts of the map, you can speed things up by putting down the entire map before playing (the way Descent was intended to be played). I for one, only put down the parts that the heros have revealed because some dungeons are laid out to where if you see the design of the map, you'll know exactly where you have to go first. I'm all about speeding up gameplay, but I won't give on this one.

I also noticed that once heros start accumulating new gear, they tend to have to go through all of their skills and bonuses after every dice roll to count up the range/damage/surges. If you notice this happening, give them all a piece of paper to write down their +range, +damage, and +surge totals that way you can quickly apply it to each roll. Make sure they update it when their gear changes. It may just be my group, but this will help alooooooooooooooooot.

When the heros attack a monster (as long as they make range), just add up the wounds. If it's total is already higher than the monsters health and armor combined, stop there, remove the mob, and move on. No need to add up all the numbers to see that the hero did 14 damage with Pierce 10 when the mob has 4 wounds and no armor.

I haven't implemented the timer for the turns yet, but I kind of like the 5 minute "discussion phase", then the heros act individually with no more input from the other players. This would not only speed things up, but it would keep the most tactical player from controlling every hero and the others just moving pieces as he tells them to.

Separate your chits. This is kind of a no brainer, but I'm sure some people have everything in a big bag or something. Buy a couple Plano tackle box fill ins for $5 and separate all them pieces. Big time saver.

Some other little things you can do are put the door pieces together, get all of the chests, glyphs, runekeys, etc., pulled out prior to the game. If you are revealing the map as players open doors, go ahead and put the pieces together, but keep them in the box, that way you aren't assembling as you go.

There's a handful of other things I can think of, but this post is entirely too long already.

Have fun! Oh, one more tip. Turn the friggin' T.V. off!!! There's always one person who will be more interested in reruns of Scrubs than paying attention on his turn.

Long games, short games, its all about hangin out with the friends:)

However, when we have gone a few hours, we will take digital photos on our phone of each players gear and then take photos of the map. Break down the game and come back to it when we have our next gaming session.

Why didn't I think of that?! For our couple of sessions that we didn't finish a whole run, I was writing things down and sketching a little map for character positions. Pictures on the iPhone....brilliant!

And to make matters worse, I'm a photographer. Apparently an ignorant one.