About ... your table

[eris404]

We rotate game locations (4 places), so each place has a different set up.

At one place we use the living room and sit in various couches and chair. There are two coffee tables and tv trays to use for books, dice rolling, mats etc. This is comfortable, but maybe a little too comfortable and relaxed - we have players that tend to fall asleep.

At another, we use the DM's living room and the DM sets up a long folding table and folding chairs there. Not a bad set up, but we tend to fight over who gets the really good chair.

At two other places, we use the dining room equipped with a formal dining table and chairs. Unfortunately, dining room chairs tend not to be comfortable for sitting in for longer than an hour or so at a time. I really like our dining room table though - it comes from Room & Board and is a metal base with a granite top. It's large enough that we can seat 8 people around it with no problem.

 

[The_Warlock]

Pool....Table

My game space is a finished basement - central to the action is a slightly smaller than regulation pool table, three chessex megamats cover the entire surface from edge to edge. At one end, a fold-out wooden kitchen table abuts the pool table, half of which is devoted to continued player space, and half of which if my DM's Only zone. Various maps and fantasy and sci-fi art bedeck the walls, and wall mounted lights given an even lighting distribution to the whole area. Several breakfast bar type wrought iron chairs surround the side of the pool table on the side that leads to the cellar stairs, and a couch and loveseat with a 4' square chess top table between them face the pool table's other side. My area on the foldout table includes a computer with access to my RPG file server, three small bookcases full of my most relevant gaming supplies, and hanging on the wall a 4' x 6' green chalkboard which I liberated from the trash of my college alma mater when they were upgrading their classrooms to whiteboards. A router/switch allows my players with laptops to plug in as necessary, and I maintain a bin of carboard and cardstock tokens for minis use on the battlemat. The rest of the cellar area bears shelving for additional fantasy and sci-fi books, games, RPGs, miniatures, and gaming magazines. The 7 to 8 players can generally fit in the room comfortably, and keep their stuff on the table unless a major combat ensues, in which case the battle mats are covered with colored ink and miniatures as battle devolves into a running bet on what will kill the gnome first.

The One Warlock

 

[maddman75]

Our game takes place pretty much over the host's whole house. The dining room is the place with the big 3' x 6' table - though with seven players it doesn't feel all that big. This is also the room where all the rulebooks are located. We generally use this room for the big fights that require minis.

The living room is where the main game takes place, usually with players grabbing a spot of couch, chair, or carpet with me standing up in the middle talking to everyone. Folks generally only have a d20 on them for a quick skill check, but anything that comes up requiring more dice we go off to the Big Table for.

The porch is big enough for 2-3 people to sit comfortably. Its also the place to smoke - while most of our group smokes, our hosts do have a new baby so all our fouled air stays out there. Its also a handy enough place to pull someone aside for a quick conference.

I generally run by fool head off between groups of players. There's no real order to anything, for the most part they'll talk, make plans, and role play while waiting for a turn at the DM's ear, and splitups are rather common. Its total chaos, and I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[Laurel]

One place to hold them all

Well, not sure of the exact dimentions but the group I with has a circular coffee table of which we gather round. The coffee table in the center we try to keep clear but for the mat and our mini's set-up. The DMdoes a good job with maps and drawing rooms on the spot.
There are couches, floor space, and chairs so everyone easily gets to pick thier own style and distance from the board. This also allows some like me to get lots of floor space and spread everything out in an easy to find manner... well, easy for me to find.
Unfortunately, it does kind of force our DM to sit in a chair so we can't look at bad guy stats, his journal, notebook or what page he is flipping to in the monster manual

We play at the same place which tends to make it easy for planing, but beware the dice bane, shark! Shark is the name of a cat obsessed with dice and has to be watched carefully and has been seen stealing d20's.

For lighting and mood setting we have at least one laptop with music going pretty much constantly (everything from old Zelda music to recent movies) and several floor lamps for illumination.

 

[Arnwyn]

I would like to know under which conditions of playing you, I want to speak about the material and items (table(s), chairs, lights, dice, others).

I am particularly interested by the characteristics of... your table(its dimensions, for how much players, mats, etc.).

Table: Pool table (8' x 4'), with (wood) cover tabletop. Easily holds 6 players and 1 DM with ample room for two mid-to-large size battlemats, drinks, character sheets, and dice-throwing. DM has two additional tables (coffee tables, one on each side) for DM books. Behind DM, along the wall, is basement library (includes game books).
Chairs: 7 short-style bar stools, padded, with backs.
Lights: standard fluorescent (playing area is basement rec room)
Dice: 1 set of dice per player.
Other: home theatre on far side of rec room, includes 2 CD-jukebox components (one 200-disc, one 300-disc) and requisite remote for gaming music.

 

[ledded]

We play in one of our player's basement, which we have totally taken over by now.


We use an old octogonal bumper-pool table with the cover on, a 6' x 3' folding table, and an old rectangular kitchen table. Several players sit around the kitchen table, with the GM at the head, while a couple usually sit on the couch that is against the wall by the table. One or two may sit at the closest end of the folding table. There is a space between the 'players table' and the pool table/folding table to be able to walk between them, and those two are usually mostly reserved for us to build miniature setups. We've made shelves in most parts of the rooms to hold miniatures, terrain, books, etc, and we have a custom made battleboard that has grass printed on one side and stone on another that can cover both the octoganol bumper-pool table and most of the longer folding table, and I'm working up another set that has water and sand. The battleboards have a grid printed onto them also to make things go a bit quicker. There's a small dorm frig down there to hold drinks and whatnot. We have flourescent lighting which bugs me, but it's better than nothing.

We have a computer and a stereo which we use for playing music and ambient sounds/sound effects CD's that the GM uses for setting mood.

There are some pics in my miniatures thread from our various games if you'd like to check it out, the link is in my sig.

 

[RFisher]

You enter an average sized, suburban dining room from the south. There are two windows on the east wall. The room is lit by three incandescent bulbs attached to a wildly spinning ceiling fan. (A fourth bulb remains unlit.)

In the center of the room stands a wooden table surrounded by four chairs.

A china cabinet, the china clearly visible through the glass of its doors, stands on the north wall. To either side of it are additional chairs, presumably for use when a leaf is added to the table.

In the northwest corner is a large computer armoire.

In the center of the table there are four 10"×8" sheets of laminated paper marked with 1" grids. These are paper clipped together. A partial floorplan has been drawn upon these with the nearby dry-erase markers. Several paper minis stand upright in small binder clips with the handles removed. The minis sway slightly in the breeze from the fan above. About the minis sit numerous counters from the c. 2000 D&D Adventure Game.

Before each chair are spread various dice, papers, binders, folders, clipboards, pencils, calculators, game books, &c.

A small dog, appearantly a cross between a miniature poodle & a teacup chihuahua, is here & barking at you.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

Another "table? what table?" reporting in.

We play in a living room. Typically whoever's running the game sits on a cushion at the coffee table, facing the big L-shaped sectional sofa. Books and notes tend to be piled to either side of the GM, and dice tend to be rolled on the coffee table. If the GM uses a laptop, it's on the coffee table too. We have two whiteboards (one small, one larger) if the GM wants to use it to sketch out an area, but most of our GMs usually just scrawl it on some paper and either pass it around or hold it up so players can crowd around and look at it.

We have three players who typically use the sofa, one at each corner; they roll dice on books set on the cushion next to them (or in the case of one player, on a lap-desk). They usually just put food on the coffee table, if they use it at all.

Just off the outside edge of the couch and coffee table is where another player sits on the floor. A few feet to his left is where I usually sit, on a cushion or sprawled out on the floor, with a dining room table just behind me. Though actually, I get up and move around a lot.

Light is provided by a big window and (as evening approaches) by three or four lamps around the room.


One of our regular GMs keeps complaining that he wants to sit around a table and use a nifty GM screen, but three of our players (including me) just mock him for it. Lounging around the room like that is more comfortable than jamming the six of us around a table, plus it saves our friends the trouble of having to clear off that table in the first place. Since we don't use mats or miniatures for any games, there really isn't anything we need a table for.

--
and i'm really bad at sitting in chairs like a normal person anyway
ryan

 

[pogre]

A 4' by 8' table. Miniatures case directly behind my DM chair. Two large standing sets of drawers with mastermaze and hirst arts dungeon rooms next to that. Office chairs around the table for comfort. Lighting provided by two ceiling fans centered over the two halves of the table. Great situation for gaming thanks to our host!

 

[Hypersmurf]

You enter an average sized, suburban dining room from the south. There are two windows on the east wall. The room is lit by three incandescent bulbs attached to a wildly spinning ceiling fan. (A fourth bulb remains unlit.)

In the center of the room stands a wooden table surrounded by four chairs.

A china cabinet, the china clearly visible through the glass of its doors, stands on the north wall. To either side of it are additional chairs, presumably for use when a leaf is added to the table.

In the northwest corner is a large computer armoire.

In the center of the table there are four 10"×8" sheets of laminated paper marked with 1" grids. These are paper clipped together. A partial floorplan has been drawn upon these with the nearby dry-erase markers. Several paper minis stand upright in small binder clips with the handles removed. The minis sway slightly in the breeze from the fan above. About the minis sit numerous counters from the c. 2000 D&D Adventure Game.

Before each chair are spread various dice, papers, binders, folders, clipboards, pencils, calculators, game books, &c.

A small dog, appearantly a cross between a miniature poodle & a teacup chihuahua, is here & barking at you.

> examine dog

> get dog

> open cabinet

> open armoire

> get minis

-Hyp.