Best Gaming room and Game table setups!

[DungeonKeeperUK]

Worst Gameing Place?

On a basic point first, I agree a table to play round is always in my experience best..

But I have to say about my worst place to play in, many years ago in my teens we couldn't find any parent willing to let us into a room for the night to have a game... and thus we ended up in a 10'x10' leaking shed in a thunderstorm with barelwy enough room for the 5 of us to stand let alone play.... funnily enough it turned out to be a pretty good game, but we still didn't use that venue again......

 

[Dalenthas]

Could it be that the games I play in/DM always suck because there's no table and people get confused? Is it possible that the lack of a focal point of attention is the cause of my group's suckiness? Nay, I say they'd suck anyway, but a table certainly couldn't hurt... as long as it was clear to start with....

 

[Ycore Rixle]

As long as you have room for a large enough table, I'd go for the table with a grid under plexiglass. By large enough, I mean room for a large central map, any battle maps, character sheets, reference books, and handouts. I have never been able to fit all that on a table, but that's mostly because I've never had a big enough table.

Above all, just do what your group is most comfortbale with.

Not to hijack the thread, but the 'Worst Gaming Room' post made me think of the worst place I ever played D&D... twenty years ago in the back of my parents' station wagon on a long road trip. No dice, so we just asked the people in the front seats for random numbers.

 

[Grim]

Lets see...

Our gaming room has:

A Big Table

A Battlemat BattleMap

A bunch of boxes of random minis, but we mostly only use minis for big badguys and the PCs.
A box of mini stands (the little plastic squares and circles) with different colored dots on them, so a combat with Goblins, orcs, and minotaurs just has the PCs, and some red, green, and blue squares.

A DMs screen

Plenty of dice (everyone brings theres)

Plenty of Soda (we should get a cooler, but we are too lazy) When the cans are empty, we stack them on the table or the battlemat in cool patterns. The DM sometimes uses them as dungeon features (collumns, walls, Stonehenge) or as minis for big monsters (The Mountain Dew Green Dragon, The Sprite Blue dragon, The Coke Red Dragon...)

A Kitchen in the next room, with snack breaks every hour...

And a bunch of really comfy, but still upright chairs.

And Good Lighting with a dimmer switch.

Sometimes we play music, but its not usually Classical. Its usually Nirvana or Creed. Heavy metal really gets us in the mood for Hack-n-Slash

 

[Altalazar]

I custom built my house around my study (computer room) and gaming/rec room (both in my finished basement). Ok, not quite, but close.

The rec room is in a finished walkout basement. 30x15 feet or so. I got two 3 foot by about 9 foot tables with folding legs from Office max, and put them together, so they are about 6 feet by 9 feet combined. Then there is a grid map (an old one) that overhead markers work quite well on. There is room all the way around the table to seat six plus the GM at one end. Lots of rooms for character sheets, with the grid map in the middle. I keep three DM screens plus my dice plus a gun case full of miniatures at my end when I DM.

Simple, cheap (except for the house part) and the tables can have their legs folded up and then be slid along the wall in the unfinished basement. Of course, since I moved in and got them, this has never happened... heh.

 

[Warrior Poet]

I always thought a nice luxury would be one of those blueprint/map filing cabinets often found in the offices of architects: numerous drawers, stores a good-sized map flat, integral dust covers, drawers slide out easily, multiple drawers for various organization schemes ...

... have a board or surface nearby for affixing maps; when done, slide the map back into the protected drawer.

Warrior Poet

 

[FoxWander]

*cough* BUMP!

Well not really. My wife and I discussed this idea today and came up with what might be a workable plan.

- large rectangular table, say 4' x 6'. Big enough for at least 6 people with the DM at one end. Gives plenty of room for books, dice and character sheets. And munchies of course. I'd like to drill out cup holders to prevent spilled drinks. I'd also add a felt die-rolling area in the middle so all die rolls can be seen by the dm. (Random thought: maybe instead of a rectangular table an octoganal poker table would be better. You know one of the specialized "poker" tables, with felt troughs for chips. You could keep dice organized)

- At the DM's end...
-- bookshelves for gaming references
-- a seperate desk for notes and the laptop
-- a whiteboard easel with grid and magnetized creature counters for mapping

- laptop has...
-- mp3's for background music and combat tracks
-- pics of the monsters, much better than fumbling a description
-- Ideally I'd hook it into a big screen TV as a second monitor and use some app to do the mapping on that. But we don't have the $$$ for that. Sigh.

For combat on the whiteboard easel we came up with an odd idea that might actually work. First off, the reason we thought an easel would be better is cause drawing maps on a battle mat on a big table gets awkward. With an easel right next to the DM drawing is easy. But how do the players move their counters you ask? Enter our odd idea- The Initiative Laser Pointer! Seriously, a decent laser pointer that can shot an arrow instead of just a dot. The players stay in their seats and pass the pointer to whoever's initiative turn it is. They use it to point out on the easel where their character moves, using the arrow to clarify the facing. We think it could work, and it could organize combat. If you don't have the pointer its not your turn so keep quiet. What do you think?

We're also leaning towards starting a group snack fund. I'm not sure I like the idea of fines to keep it stocked though. Besides physical punishment for bad puns and out of game references are so much more fullfilling. (A "Yo-yo Koosh of Smiting" to the head does wonders) We'll probably get a mini fridge too.

Anyway. See I told you it wasn't a shameless bump. Please keep the ideas coming. And thanks to those who have already contributed.

 

[FoxWander]

Oh yeah, one more thing. Well two actually.

I want one of those multiple roll-down map things for campaign world maps. You know, the kind in the front of the class in elementary school. There was a world map and a US map (for us Americans) and the screen for movies. I figure I can make one with a rack of several pull-down window shades. Just fix the map on the pulled down shade and roll it up. Cool huh?!

Also, for decoration, we own several assorted medieval weapons and we plan to display them around the room. We'll have decorative swords on plaques on the walls and a weapons rack with the more functional looking ones, axes and pole-arms.

 

[Mungeon Daster]

Headsets

I always liked the idea of having everybody wear headphones and a mic. The DM would then have a switchboard that let him speak to the whole group, or any combination or individual.

Great for those private conversations with that dopperganger that's infiltrated the party

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I always thought a nice luxury would be one of those blueprint/map filing cabinets often found in the offices of architects: numerous drawers, stores a good-sized map flat, integral dust covers, drawers slide out easily, multiple drawers for various organization schemes ...

You can get those fairly cheap at Ikea, if there's one in your area (if not you can probably get them online). I've often thought the same thing, especially if you make lots of maps or use the Office Max flipchart grid pads to draw battlemat information.

I'd vote for a decent sized table, with a few end tables set to the sides to allow people to put books and chips and such without cluttering the main table, which shuld be clear except for battlemat, character sheets and PHB's.