How "Table-Top" is Your Game?

[mistergone]

How much do gridmaps, hexmaps, minis, terrain, and scenery come into play in your games? What do you use, if anything? Just a gridmap and dry-erase markers? Does every player have a mini? Just use extra dice? Counters? Do you use them all the time, or rarely, say only for the big battles? Is it an added plus or an extra burden to lug all that gear around? Or do you just hate anything outside of your imagination? I wanna know.

 

[d4]

grid map and dry erase for the battle map.

every player now has an unpainted metal miniature, and the DM uses dice for monsters.

we use it for every battle.

i think it's a huge plus -- d20 combat is too hard to adjudicate without a visual representation of what's going on.

 

[Dextolen]

We use large 1" graph pads and colored markers. Black for walls, brown for objects (I started doing this after the first time the group encountered animated furniture), blue for water, etc.

Everyone uses a mini. I use a mix of minis and counters for the bad guys. We have a few templates for common spell effects, too.

 

[MerricB]

Table? We don't even have a table.

Well, not for Sunday sessions. We use the floor instead. On Fridays, there's a table.

I use miniatures on very rare occasions. When I do, we use the grid out of the back of the DMG (or from the Adventure game) and I use glass beads and/or pens to indicate the walls.

Cheers!

 

[pogre]

I have players claim I am out to destroy their imaginations - and they love it. Minis and scenery for everything of course.

I exaggerate, but I do like having things represented on the table during an encounter. Exchanges at a tavern or poitical stuff is different naturally.

 

[talinthas]

my table consists of a three foot by four foot plank of plywood on top of two cardboard boxes =)
my grid is the mat that was included in the introductory D&D orange box set thing when 3e came out.

good times =)

I'm tempted to get some of those fiery dragon counters, but i have no idea what they look like, or what's actually in them, and they arent 3.5 compliant anyway.

 

[MerricB]

I exaggerate, but I do like having things represented on the table during an encounter. Exchanges at a tavern or poitical stuff is different naturally.

Yes, in those cases nothing more than a full set will do - converting your living room into a tavern with extras and everything.

Cheers!

 

[ForceUser]

For descriptive purposes we have a dry erase whiteboard. We use this to draw out topographical maps, or regions too large to fit on the battlemat.

My battlemat is one of those Chessex wet-erase jobs, and I doodle on it all the time, making things such as rivers and building interiors. We also have dominos, which we use for doors and such, and 1-inch square wooden blocks from a hobby store. We have over two hundred of these blocks, and we use them to represent walls, bridges, trees, boulders and all sorts of terrain obstacles. They are really quite handy. We like our props for two reasons: one, it takes only a couple of minutes to set up a wide array of battlefields, and two, when the game is over they pack away easily in a large plastic box that goes in the hall closet.

 

[the Jester]

We use battlemaps, minis and terrain features. We also use whatever sorts of improvisational stuff we can come up with (the bong is a great 15x15 monster, a stuffed animal might represent a huge statue a la the 1

 

[Crothian]

we sit around the floora and on couches, as the DM I like to stand and wonder the room. we don't use any minis or things of that nature. I imagine if we have to I'll pull out my Fiery Dragon counters