How Much Will You Carry to a Game?

[Mark]

Forked from: Carry Cases?

I carry about 25 books with me (yes I use them all, maybe not all in 1 session, but you never know what you need).

Good god! No one else is commenting on this - is this a common amount of books that people carry around to their games?! Can you just photocopy some of the most relevant pages from your travelling game library to make your load smaller, maybe?

What is the maximum amount of stuff, books and otherwise, you will carry to your games? Details? What are some of the more unusual items? Don't forget the snacks!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Snacks go into the car ahead of time.

Bookwise? One of my friends from the old school days, Mike Quon, would carry a moving box of 2nd ed stuff with him. God bless that man. If it don't fit in my backpack, I'm not bringing it. That limits it to about... six books including screen, various Paizo maps, and dice. Now I will carry a small box of plastic minis with me, but that's about it. When it becomes more work to carry the load so to speak, then it's too much work and the game needs to be at my house.

 

[The Shaman]

I prefer to carry as little as possible - a rule book, character sheets, dice, and maybe some minis, not even enough to fill a backpack or messenger bag . . .


. . . unless I'm playing Traveller, in which case there's one messenger bag for the books, another for the binders of copied articles and the deckplans, boxes of minis, and ten boxes of Dwarven Forge terrain.

 

[Wormwood]

Assuming 4e:

As DM, I bring a DM screen, the MM and a printout of the adventure.

As a player, I just bring my character sheet and the PHB (on the off chance we level).

Plus beer in both cases, of course.

 

[Edheldur]

3.5 Core books, one 3 ring-binder with campaign and session notes, 4 or 5 dice sets, a measuring tape and 2 small cases of 1 inch poker chips.

I might also pack some other book at the request of a player who doesn't own it and wants to check it out, but that's it.

 

[Sammael]

I usually carry 3-5 books/magazines, dice, paper, campaign notes in a binder, minis which I expect to use, and pencils. The most I've carried was about 10 books, I think - and after that I ruled that all character generation must take place at my home.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

The maximum I'm willing to carry to a game session is 4 hardcover rulebooks, my binder with D&D stuff, the current adventure, a plastic box with only the minis and dungeon tiles I need that night, pencils and dice and some snacks.

 

[Dragon Snack]

I could fit 8 books in my backpack, so that's what I usually carried.

One of my players was kind of fanatical about bringing his books. He would bring a backpack AND a hockey bag full of books. Not sure how many that was, but between that and the 2 cases of minis he would usually make 2-3 trips back and forth from the car. It still wasn't all his books (or minis) though - and we still would usually need to use something he owned, but didn't bring.

I've also played with people that won't even bring one book with them to game. It takes all kinds I guess...

 

[RedSwan78]

Snacks go into the car ahead of time.

If it don't fit in my backpack, I'm not bringing it.

^ This.

I'll bring what fits in a normal backpack, and if I grab some food out, carry that in my hand. I think that's a reasonable amount of stuff to bring. Other then that, we should be playing at someone's house that has the other books we need, or someone else can bring them.

 

[malraux]

As a player in 4e: normally the PHB and AV, character sheet and power cards, bag of dice, container of condition trackers. Though I'll probably move to just the character sheet and power cards, dice and condition trackers, because I just don't use the books enough to justify carrying them.

Since I DM at my house, obviously I don't carry stuff. But if I were to travel: 3e EtCRavenloft module, I6 module, three ring binder with my conversion notes, MM, container of figs, travel case of my modular terrain, probably laptop to reference stuff online, any possible props that might be needed.