Friday, June 12, 2009

My Ideal Gaming Table

Over the last few years I've seen pictures of several 'ultimate' gaming tables. I can appreciate the pimped-out gadgetry of those things, but my idea of a perfect game table is coming from a totally different angle. So today I thought I'd share my thoughts on this subject.

First of all, my table would be circular, not rectangular. I think King Arthur was right on the money in this regard. From a practical matter the rectangular table can obscure your view of some of the people sometimes. And it's easier to trick the players into thinking they're your equal if you're not at the head of the table. But seriously, I'm one of those old-fashioned DM's of the Judge Dredd school ("I am the law!") but I also believe that everyone at the table deserves the same courtesy and consideration. A round table de-emphasizes the DM-player power relationship in favor of a more egalitarian mood.

Also, the tabletop would totally have this totally rad magickal okkult symbol on it:



There'd be a chair at each corner of this unicursal septagram, for seven spaces at the game table. Six players is pretty close to an ideal for me. Three or fewer players feels inadequate, like I'm running half a game. Four or five feels like a full table. Six is where it really gets interesting, because at six players it's usually clear that I don't have any real ability to predict what the group is going to do. At that size of a group I'm slightly out of my league and have to work a lot harder.

To me one of the best parts of DMing is that you get a chance to build all sorts of fun static pieces like monsters, dungeons, wilderness environs and then you let players loose on them to see what happens. Usually it involves watching your toys getting broken, but hopefully the players do an interesting job of wrecking your precious creations. A few more players than you can safely handle adds a little extra frisson.

Also, I just like the idea of having a game table with a spooky-looking symbol on the table.

Another element of my gaming table goes back to my ridiculous pet theory on the origin and relevance of RPGs. It might have been over at the Forge where I first heard it explicitly claimed that role-playing taps into the storytelling circuit of the brain that's been present in humanity since cavemen sat around bullshitting about the giant mammoths that got away.

I don't dig on the notions of "storytelling" and "narrativism" in terms of RPG theory and design, but I think there's some truth to this premise. And that's why when playing a game that did not require a board or display, I'd put some fire in the center of the table. Sitting around staring into the fire and chewing the fat is becoming something of a lost art in modern technological societies. Instead we either sit in front of the TV and let it do all the talking or hang out together someplace without the soothing benefits of watching the flames dance.

Now, I know that if I put a candle or something like that in the center of the table every single session I'd eventually set something on fire, like a charsheet or my sleeve. To avoid that possibility I'd use a substitute that happens to be one of the greatest inventions of all time:


Lava lamps are pure distilled awesome. I never did drugs in college. I didn't need them to enter interesting altered states as staring at my lava lamp achieved the same effect on the cheap and without any biological side effects. But even if you aren't as susceptible to lamp-induced hypnosis as I am, the lava lamp produces intricate patterns of light in much the same way as a crackling fire. Think of the lava lamp as updated game equipment the way modern plastic polyhedrons are updates of dice carved out of bones.

So there you have it. My ideal gaming table: circular, with a strange seven sided star on the surface and a lava lamp in the middle.

14 comments:

  1. "To me one of the best parts of DMing is that you get a chance to build all sorts of fun static pieces like monsters, dungeons, wilderness environs and then you let players loose on them to see what happens. Usually it involves watching your toys getting broken, but hopefully the players do an interesting job of wrecking your precious creations."

    I don't think I've ever seen the reason I love DM/GM/Keeper-ing put into words so perfectly as this!

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  2. I saw the headline and thought "oh no, not another high tech computer game table...blah"

    But this is exactly the sort of thing I'd do! I love the lava lamp idea too. Awesome!

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  3. If I may nitpick for a moment...

    The proper plural is "polyhedra".

    (/pedantic)

    That said, I find your ideas for a gaming table awesome. However, how will you represent the occult intertwining of forces while still having enough playable space? A pane of glass over the tabletop, perhaps?

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  4. There is something to this.

    (Also, it isn't wholly incompatible with some of the gadgety stuffs...)

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  5. KaosInc11:13 AM

    Way to make me rethink my gaming table when Ive almost finish building it!

    Seriously though I like the picture that brings to my mind. Even though my table has to be rectangular to suit my tabletop wargaming tendancies too, I think Im going to incorporate the "round the fire" feeling whenever I can, especially when I run games that without mini's.

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  6. We ALWAYS supplement our D&D games with a lava lamp.

    It's really funny that someone else has converged on this as well.

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  7. Anonymous12:55 PM

    "Lava lamps are pure distilled awesome."

    and you just shoved 10 pounds of sweetness into a 5 pound bag.

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  8. I once did a detailed list of everything my ideal gaming table would have, but the main feature I can remember is: lower than table-level drink holders to minimize book-damaging spills.

    This mainly tells you what had been going on in the preceding months :)

    (Oh, and mine was hexagonal, because at the time I'd decided that I never-ever wanted more than 5 players in a campaign again) :)

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  9. Now I really want a lava lamp!

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  10. Circular, yes. Also just for pragmatic reasons of being able to reach the middle from every seat.

    I think there are two kinds of storytelling. One is where you tell everyone, "And then Ulysses went into the spooooky cave," and if you're good at it then people feel like they're they're in that cave too, but their experience is still filtered through Ulysses.

    Then there's another kind of storytelling that might probably be called lying! It's not Ulysses in the spooky cave, it's you. YOU did this, YOU did that. That's more primal and it's not the same as the storyteller pausing to take suggestions from the audience on what Ulysses did next, or going around the table making up stories about Ulysses.

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  11. I build furniture for fun, and sale, and a gaming table is on my list. It'll be solid wood, maybe inlaid, or decorated. But I have no interest in doo-dads, or gimicky stuff stuck on it. The less technology in evidence during the game, the better. I like the idea of fire to reinforce the feeling of an adventure though, that's a good one. Maybe a small beaten copper fire-bowl inset in the center.
    I have to say I like a rectangular table, with the DM at the head better than a circular one. I can't afford any sense of egalatarianism in my game. My players see it a weakness they can use to their advantage.

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  12. Anonymous10:42 PM

    "I know that if I put a candle or something like that in the center of the table every single session I'd eventually set something on fire, like a charsheet or my sleeve."

    Now that makes me think that a real fire in the middle of the table would be cool. When a PC gets killed, the DM would snatch the charsheet from the player and toss it into the fire.

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  13. When a PC gets killed, the DM would snatch the charsheet from the player and toss it into the fire.

    I once played with a DM who enforced burned character sheets as a campaign rule. Really. Sad but true. Something to do with making sure the player didn't "cheat" by taking it to another DM's campaign. He'd pull out an ashtray anytime a PC died, and burn the character sheet on the spot (and retained them between sessions to prevent sly copying).

    I played with another who had a similarly-reasoned rule, but without the flames: he just collected all killed characters, hole punched them, and put them into his three ring "Book of the Dead," which he felt was an emblem of his DMing prowess.

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  14. Hmmm, round eh? I got a 'D' in shop I think I'm stuck with slightly trapazoidal.

    Sorry to stray off topic... But the book of the dead idea is great. When future characters commune with dead, visit the underground/vahalla/whatever who else they gonna meet?

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