How long did it take to run?

By tehjburz, in Adventure: Operation – Shell Game

To anyone who has run the module:

How long did it take to run?

I'm looking at it and it looks to me like I could squeeze it into one session, but I'm not sure. It looks like the length of the module could be tailored pretty easily by lengthening or shortening the final scene.

Any feedback on length (or the module itself) is appreciated.

The latest Order 66 podcast mentioned this adventure was 14 pages long and involved a Rebel team undergoing a mission into Imperial space.

They haven't said anything about how long it takes but assume that might come up in the next two episodes since they're focused on the new Beta.

It took us 2.5 hours of gameplay to get through Act I, but my players apparently like to explore :) a LOT.

Well hope to see this for myself especially as I'm curious at what they found so interesting that they had to go exploring! ;)

I think if the PCs have more than a couple fights the GM would be justified in saying "you're overwhelmed" and end it. Keeping it to under 4 hours should be fairly easy assuming the group stays focused on the game rather than surfing the internet.

A friend of mine pretty much ran just Act II for us, and that took over three hours. We skipped over Act 1 as this was a one-shot, and a lot of that Act really didn't serve any purpose for a one-shot, as it read more like elements for a GM to use in establishing a campaign for their players.

Granted, a lot of our time was spent hashing out various ideas and schemes, though we did at one point split up to try and cover more things. The GM did tone down one of the encounters (I think it was the checkpoints) as she felt that 10 guards was too excessive for a bunch of freshly-made PCs, particularly as one failed Deception check would largely wind up with us being slaughtered simply through the vagaries of the random number gods. She also decided that we'd done such an excellent job ensuring that the Imps would be nearly helpless in trying to stop us once we absconded with the prototype that she didn't really bother with the starship combat, as we'd also managed to jimmy the communications system so that they wouldn't be able to notify the TIE squadron that was out on maneuvers that they needed to get back to base ASAP, on top of a host of other things that metaphorically left the Imps with their boxers up over their heads.

A friend of mine pretty much ran just Act II for us, and that took over three hours. We skipped over Act 1 as this was a one-shot, and a lot of that Act really didn't serve any purpose for a one-shot, as it read more like elements for a GM to use in establishing a campaign for their players.

Granted, a lot of our time was spent hashing out various ideas and schemes, though we did at one point split up to try and cover more things. The GM did tone down one of the encounters (I think it was the checkpoints) as she felt that 10 guards was too excessive for a bunch of freshly-made PCs, particularly as one failed Deception check would largely wind up with us being slaughtered simply through the vagaries of the random number gods. She also decided that we'd done such an excellent job ensuring that the Imps would be nearly helpless in trying to stop us once we absconded with the prototype that she didn't really bother with the starship combat, as we'd also managed to jimmy the communications system so that they wouldn't be able to notify the TIE squadron that was out on maneuvers that they needed to get back to base ASAP, on top of a host of other things that metaphorically left the Imps with their boxers up over their heads.

The first and last act can be really quick, the part you did is 90% of it.

The guards at the checkpoints (unless our GM changed it, I haven't looked) are minions. A single stab of the spy's vibroknife can kill two of them. The saboteur's frag grenades can potentially kill them all. If they get a volley off they can potentially do a lot of damage, but they also die so easily they can end up being no threat, so it may be very swingy if the PCs don't prepare the field ahead of time.

I got my group through in about 8 hours total. They're not big explorers, but are quite paranoid, and interacted with the station staff a lot.

My group played it in about 4 hours. In Act 1 they were able to talk the rebel leader into giving them a couple frag grenades. In Act 2 they did a good job getting things set up so that there wouldn't be much of a fight after they got off the station. The blew a deception check trying to get to their final goal. The extra grenades they got in Act 1 really helped deal with the aftermath of the blown roll; IOW fighting minions. I didn't bother fighting out the space battle since they had prepared well enough that it was going to be an easy matter for them to get away.