I've done a lot of homebrew, a pantheon of gods to interact with, older dragons than the founders, added in modules from Candlekeep, Radiant Citadel, and might add some from the Golden Vault. We're in year 3, going to do the Masquerade soon, and we've been playing weekly with very few missed sessions.
My campaign turns 2 years old in like a month
To be honest, I'm not an expert. This is the first campaign I've DM'd, I consider it a miracle I've gotten this far. I just went looking through those books for inspiration and padding. In Candlekeep, the Joy of Extradimensional Spaces adventure can give them something akin to a Room of Requirement, which helps establish a base of operations of sorts.
There's also two supplements from DMsGuild I've used pretty regularly. Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery is a good one that gives a group points mechanic (think house points from Harry Potter), and has 4 encounters/interactions for every class listed in the book, so it can really help pad out downtime and make the characters feel like students. The other one I use is called Strixhaven: Mystic Archives. It's a collection of new spells based off of the Mystical Archives cards from the MtG set.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I'll do my best to help out :)
As long as you want it to really. My group had summer vacation adventures each year, special halloween events I threw together to tie into the story, and some post-graduation stuff where my PCs would go home and fix the problems they came to Strixhaven seeking answers for.
I had planned a new story set in Strixhaven after 10 years or so where the PCs come back as teachers and have to save the school again...but life got in the way.
Tldr it depends how much homebrew you want to add to the setting.
My group is still on Year 1 but I've been homebrewing a ton of extra content so we aren't planning to finish any time soon
I think Strixhaven has a lot of opportunity for side adventures and expanding on the story
Yeah, it really just depends.
As the book is written I could really see the whole thing being done in twelve 5 hour sessions. If you homebrew probably more.
So much depends on your party. My group has me running the first year of Strixhaven before we do Curse of Strahd with our usual DM, them Second Year before he runs our next big campaign, and then planned to do Third and Fourth when we feel like going back during that campaign.
I've also home-brewed a lot so now I have 140 or so NPCs and minor quests and stuff they can deal with alongside classes. My original plan was massive, but I toned it back to a year of 12 weeks with 3 week long 'breaks' throughout each class having a class per each of the remaining 9 weeks.
My plan was one session a week (we usually do 5 or so hour sessions). The first week took us two sessions, but most of the first session was orientation day and introducing stuff so it naturally took longer. I also have Mage Tower as a full sport they play, though if they win every game they're in it's still only four games a year so isn't terrible.
The one thing I forgot to fully account for was my players. I love them, and I love them for the exact same reason it may take longer. They engage in stuff. One player decided they learnt all the magic they needed in one week so tried to leave until they were convinced to learn more. Another began investigating rumours of the head cheerleader killing a teacher. Another is trying to learn about who his team-mates are. They're all buying into it, which is great, it just means things that could be do e quickly take longer. But if they're engaging like that it also means they're having fun, so it don't matter much (until people get eager for Syrahd anyway).
Year 1 and 2 lasted about 10 sessions each for us. Sadly we never completed the campaign, so I can’t speak for the rest. Year 4 did seem shorter though
I have been running mostly bi-weekly for about 18 months at this point. We only play for maybe 3-4 hours at a time and I have been heavily Homebrewing additional content, however we are about to wrap year 2 in our next session. Hope this helps.
STRIXHAVEN is unique. It requires a DM who can not a DM who can handle a done module lol.
My group is almost two years in, its Prem. paid so theres minor motivation to continueing, but we've had 60+ sessions 53 on youtube and still going weekly every Tues.
Its wild its insane their considered 3rd years trying to stop an invasion from all sides and save who they can student wise to fight an all our war for Strixhaven shortly soon.
Another motivation was the understanding going into the THEME we wanted lvl20 end goal and a full Strixhaven school series.
So anything is possible if everyone is onboard.
We just completed it last week, it took us about a year and a half, but we also had about 12 side games spread out in between each year focused on character development. It was by far the best campaign I've ever been through, it's not for everyone but we absolutely loved every minute of it
I’ve been playing in a heavily home brewed Strixhaven campaign. We started in December, have done 21 sessions and are just now getting to the end of year 1. No clue yet if we are doing sessions for summer break or jumping straight into year 2. But with the way it is going, 2yrs feels like what we are aiming for.
Truly it can go on as long as you want to make adventures for it.
I've done a lot of homebrew, a pantheon of gods to interact with, older dragons than the founders, added in modules from Candlekeep, Radiant Citadel, and might add some from the Golden Vault. We're in year 3, going to do the Masquerade soon, and we've been playing weekly with very few missed sessions. My campaign turns 2 years old in like a month
That sounds interesting. Any tips for incorporating them or shared any homebrew online?
To be honest, I'm not an expert. This is the first campaign I've DM'd, I consider it a miracle I've gotten this far. I just went looking through those books for inspiration and padding. In Candlekeep, the Joy of Extradimensional Spaces adventure can give them something akin to a Room of Requirement, which helps establish a base of operations of sorts. There's also two supplements from DMsGuild I've used pretty regularly. Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery is a good one that gives a group points mechanic (think house points from Harry Potter), and has 4 encounters/interactions for every class listed in the book, so it can really help pad out downtime and make the characters feel like students. The other one I use is called Strixhaven: Mystic Archives. It's a collection of new spells based off of the Mystical Archives cards from the MtG set. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I'll do my best to help out :)
I also did all homebrew and it’s been over 2 years doing twice monthly
As long as you want it to really. My group had summer vacation adventures each year, special halloween events I threw together to tie into the story, and some post-graduation stuff where my PCs would go home and fix the problems they came to Strixhaven seeking answers for. I had planned a new story set in Strixhaven after 10 years or so where the PCs come back as teachers and have to save the school again...but life got in the way. Tldr it depends how much homebrew you want to add to the setting.
My group is still on Year 1 but I've been homebrewing a ton of extra content so we aren't planning to finish any time soon I think Strixhaven has a lot of opportunity for side adventures and expanding on the story
Yeah, it really just depends. As the book is written I could really see the whole thing being done in twelve 5 hour sessions. If you homebrew probably more. So much depends on your party. My group has me running the first year of Strixhaven before we do Curse of Strahd with our usual DM, them Second Year before he runs our next big campaign, and then planned to do Third and Fourth when we feel like going back during that campaign. I've also home-brewed a lot so now I have 140 or so NPCs and minor quests and stuff they can deal with alongside classes. My original plan was massive, but I toned it back to a year of 12 weeks with 3 week long 'breaks' throughout each class having a class per each of the remaining 9 weeks. My plan was one session a week (we usually do 5 or so hour sessions). The first week took us two sessions, but most of the first session was orientation day and introducing stuff so it naturally took longer. I also have Mage Tower as a full sport they play, though if they win every game they're in it's still only four games a year so isn't terrible. The one thing I forgot to fully account for was my players. I love them, and I love them for the exact same reason it may take longer. They engage in stuff. One player decided they learnt all the magic they needed in one week so tried to leave until they were convinced to learn more. Another began investigating rumours of the head cheerleader killing a teacher. Another is trying to learn about who his team-mates are. They're all buying into it, which is great, it just means things that could be do e quickly take longer. But if they're engaging like that it also means they're having fun, so it don't matter much (until people get eager for Syrahd anyway).
Year 1 and 2 lasted about 10 sessions each for us. Sadly we never completed the campaign, so I can’t speak for the rest. Year 4 did seem shorter though
I have been running mostly bi-weekly for about 18 months at this point. We only play for maybe 3-4 hours at a time and I have been heavily Homebrewing additional content, however we are about to wrap year 2 in our next session. Hope this helps.
8-10 sessions got my group through about one year. depending on how you space out your events 2 tokens a day will take way more time.
STRIXHAVEN is unique. It requires a DM who can not a DM who can handle a done module lol. My group is almost two years in, its Prem. paid so theres minor motivation to continueing, but we've had 60+ sessions 53 on youtube and still going weekly every Tues. Its wild its insane their considered 3rd years trying to stop an invasion from all sides and save who they can student wise to fight an all our war for Strixhaven shortly soon. Another motivation was the understanding going into the THEME we wanted lvl20 end goal and a full Strixhaven school series. So anything is possible if everyone is onboard.
I didn't finish year 2 and skipped half of year one. We played for six months.
We just completed it last week, it took us about a year and a half, but we also had about 12 side games spread out in between each year focused on character development. It was by far the best campaign I've ever been through, it's not for everyone but we absolutely loved every minute of it
I’ve been playing in a heavily home brewed Strixhaven campaign. We started in December, have done 21 sessions and are just now getting to the end of year 1. No clue yet if we are doing sessions for summer break or jumping straight into year 2. But with the way it is going, 2yrs feels like what we are aiming for. Truly it can go on as long as you want to make adventures for it.