QOTW#7 - Do you tabletop at a table?

[Onix]

When you're playing your game du'jur with your crew, do you gather round the kitchen table, or do you have another favored venue?

For me, we've tried gaming in the living room but everyone has a hard time focusing. It's too laid back for us, the space between each other isn't right for conversation in all directions, there's not a good place to roll the dice. . . It just never worked out for us.

[catty_big]

The GM of my S1889 campaign runs the game at his house, but has converted the front room into a gaming room, no doubt to avoid the pitfalls you refer to. When we arrive, we hang around in the living room for a bit, then go into the game room, then when we have a tea break we adjourn to the kitchen for OOC nattering, thus ensuring that at the gaming table we're all (more or less) IC.

[kumakami]

I have gamed in many a venue...I am not picky

[madunkieg]

Yes, we use a table, but the table is in a university cafeteria. I'd like to shift to a table in a game store. Most of my roleplaying games have been played at tables. We used a living room once, but even there we made use of the coffee table.

Tables are useful things. They provide a place to place characters and computers, roll dice and deal cards. They also allow everyone a place to gather and socialize.

[Abstract Machine]

Tables do encourage focus & in quite a subtle way. Players tend to relax into the game rather than direct their chatter away from it.

I’ve run sessions from armchairs in the dark, a la the Psychodrama section in the appendix of De Profundis. This can work very nicely in an established game – but it is a far more fragile set-up. Any interruption can break the spell.

[vulpinoid]

In the past, I've played at tables, sitting around in lounge chairs, beanbags, around a campfire...all sorts of places.

Our current group pretty much only plays around our table...to the point that I'll be pulling out the power tools soon to construct a purpose-built gaming table.

On the other hand, I've specifically written "Walkabout" so that it can be played while walking along a path or bush track.

[kylesgames]

[Rob Lang]

My players lounge on black leather sofas around a low ceramic coffee table. I perch upright and alert on a foot stool. Ceiling spots pool them in light. The only "disturbance" is a large Golden Retriever guide dog, otherwise we're left alone.

I don't use music, mostly because I have to concentrate on what the players are saying. Our more recent games have had more talk than fight (not through design) and we never use miniatures. Also, as one of our players is blind, my descriptions have climbed a few notches in detail.

I'd rather have a black marble table in a private library with vaulted ceilings with chandeliers swinging on chains. I'd want the shelves to be filled with a mix of roleplaying games and classics. I want a butler to invisibly refill drinks, provide us with fruit and snacks (detecting automatically sweet or salt).

[vulpinoid]

Apparently there is a group of gamers in Sydney who meet up weekly at one of the old "Gentlemen's Clubs" in the CBD, a big old wood panelled room with luxurious leather chairs...the kind of p,ace that up until recently would have been filled with cognac and cigar smoke.

I always wanted to get along to one of their meetings.

[Rob Lang]