I'm running a campaign for about two years (around one session a month) and I'm unhappy with the pace of events. In those two years we covered not even two months of game time with single session advancing the clock by only few days. I see multiple problems with that
- The sessions are uneven, sometimes we hit high point, but sometimes we slog without a payout
- Players are not getting their moments in spotlight every session as slow flow of events means that it is hard to significantly vary them. So if the session is all-talking then it is hard to throw in some combat that is matching the plot, and the other way round.
- I'm not able to introduce big changes in the game world I would like to - as those need a time to play out
I think the core of the problem is that we are playing out every awake moment of the characters - there are no visible scenes, only continuous flow of character actions and world reactions.
It may be also aggravated by the fact that I to not to limit character possible actions while having multiple active NPC working against (and sometimes with) them (and each other) - so the players may feel that they are constantly fighting on multiple fronts and try to cram as much actions as possible in available time.
I would like to cover more "game time" each session and be able to focus on selected scenes giving every player his moment in spotlight. At the same time I would not like to reduce player freedom to much by arbitrarily deciding what is skipped and what is played.
Our sessions take on average 6-8 hours so they are not short. I'm running Birthright so the game is much more plotting and scheming heavy than usual D&D.
As for my players - they are usually content with sessions, but sometimes they complain that we did not get much done in a session, or that that they were anxious to hit some milestone that we did not manage to reach before time ran out, or that there was not much for their character in the specific session.