D&D 5E What's Your Table Look Like?

[Tony Vargas]

I don't mean your actual table, but rather whether you use a mat or not?

Heh, I was gonna say "classic mid-century, moderate-poor condition."

Yes, typically use a frayed-around-the-creases poster map, or a Paizo flip-mat. Don't often use a Chessex battlemat because they flip-mats are more convenient to tuck into a bag with the books, and there's a /lot/ of 'em, so you can have somewhat appropriate, nicely drawn, terrain without resorting to markers.

Do you use miniatures, tokens, or even spare change?

Minatures for PC & allies, tokens for enemies/monsters. Reduces confusion. Plus, I've got all these monster tokens from old Encounters and Lair Assault sets, and the MV. And some of my players like to paint minis.

Do you go full on theater of the mind?

For simple/unimportant combats, downtime, and social/interaction encounters.

 

[DM Howard]

I can't get my players to use computers. They are mostly computer professionals who hate using computers.

So we still use floorplans and miniatures.

I'm a Help Desk Technician, so I can totally understand where your players are coming from. I still prefer physical books for RPGs and for reading, and I am not a personal fan of virtual tabletops because I spend at least eight hours every day staring at a screen and my eyes need a rest.

Heh, I was gonna say "classic mid-century, moderate-poor condition."

Yes, typically use a frayed-around-the-creases poster map, or a Paizo flip-mat. Don't often use a Chessex battlemat because they flip-mats are more convenient to tuck into a bag with the books, and there's a /lot/ of 'em, so you can have somewhat appropriate, nicely drawn, terrain without resorting to markers.

Ha! Nice.

Interesting, do you find yourself constrained by your use of flipmats, or is it simply a matter of "Eh, this one will work well enough"?

 

[ccs]

At the local shop I use an 8x4 (?) Chessex mat. Minitures & terrain are kept in a locked cabinet.
Players generally furnish thier own character minis.
Games run using a mix of minis, tokens, rough sketches, TotM, etc.

Games at my buddies house run the same - except the table/mat is only about 1/2 the size & there's no need to clean things up each session.

 

[collin]

I use a mixture of Chessex Mats with wet-erase markers, D&D Terrain tiles, miniatures (either purchased for RPG playing or ripped from the awful, awful, awful Magic: The Gathering wargame), and Chessex die boxes for flying creatures.

We pretty much use the same set-up. We have a large Chessex wet-erase mat and terrain tiles with miniatures. We like visuals, and it helps particularly when cover, moving through/around other characters, etc. comes into play.

 

[Jer]

Even if we're playing a game that doesn't need a grid, my players like miniatures. So if we're gridless I use a large dry erase board and draw rough terrain on it. I use it for 13A and for 5e, even though both games are really more theater of the mind in how the rules get applied, my players like having the visuals available (heck even for true narrative games - like Monster of the Week - they chafe at the idea of not having miniatures).

But lately I've been thinking that my 5e tables would benefit from adding back some grid play to them. One of the tables is going to be starting in on Undermountain in the next session and I think the kids in that group would benefit from the structure of a grid. So I may be breaking out my dungeon tiles and using those in the near future...

 

[Oofta]

I have multiple flip-mats so if I have a pre-planned encounter I can draw it out ahead of time with wet erase. Most encounters are more on-the fly and I use dry erase or blocks that I made out of air dry modeling clay.

I use a combination of minis, both plastic and old school painted metal minis along with a random assortment from bag-o-zombies, plastic spiders and cheap dinosaur minis.

I also made some 1-inch square wooden tokens out of wood that I painted a variety of colors to indicate ongoing effects such as fire and persistent spell area effects.

Last, but not least I use the rings from various soft drinks for things like hunter's mark and ongoing conditions.

 

[jgsugden]

I have a lot of toys.

I have dozens of Vinyl mats to use for water, snow, forest, grass, desert, etc... encounters. I have things to place on them for encounters as well, including trees, rocks, hills, castles, ships, docks, etc...

I have a lot of Dwarven Forge and other terrain that I can use to build dungeons.

I also have hundreds of 2D laminated maps that I have collecte over the years that have a huge spectrum of designs on them.

When we play, I go with about 1/3 theater of the mind and 2/3 miniatures combat.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[StormbringerAUS]

For combat mostly mats with figurines for the characters and occasionally the main enemies but generally tokens (we use to use M&Ms or nuts with whoever getting the kill getting to eat them). One of the players cut us some thin dowel of various lengths that we can use for walls etc - often just scatter 6 sided dice for trees/rocks etc. Occasionally theatre of the mind is used but generally breaks down into arguments such as, my character was no where near that one.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Powerpoint on a 55" wall-mounted TV (I guess that is not really on the table, though, huh???) is our virtual table-top for explorations and the "big stuff", otherwise theater of mind for random encounters and smaller battles. We once used hand-drawn maps on grids with minis, but those days have been gone for a while.