This is part 1 of a planned 3 part posting.
A good gaming area is made of four fundamentals: space, comfort, access and environmental control. My best gaming area was in an old office building at a large conference table with nice comfortable office chairs. That was 1993 in Colorado Springs and I’m along way from that. My current gaming area doubles as a dining room. While it has seen more slain kobolds than slain chickens, it functions as a dining room far better than functioning as a gaming area. Here are some photos:
You might recognize this as a table ready to play A2: Kobold’s Lair: Outside from The Keep on the Shadowfell. Notice that everything looks so organized and there is tabletop visible. Also notice that all the dice are still in the bowl and there are no players around the table.
Space
Using 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons as the model game, the required space to run a game has exploded. The minimum requirements include one set of dice, one set of core rule books, a battle map, miniatures, character sheets and pencils. My 4e games are a little larger. I use 2 Players Handbooks, a set of dice for each player, character sheets with cut out power cards (Kiznet’s), and a large Chessex battle map. My group size if 6 (including me) but has been as large 7 or 8. That is a lot of real estate.
Players need room to spread out. They need to be able to put drinks down without fear of it being easily knocked over. They need to be able to open of the PHB without covering other players character sheets. The DM needs a screen. I would like a laptop at the table. With my small dining room table, I have stopped using a DM’s Screen and my laptop sits on a TV tray. Round trackers, character splat sheets, and various stat blocks get all mixed up. It has forced me to be slightly more organized in my game prep but ultimately it makes gaming a bit uncomfortable.
Comfort
Dining takes about an hour. Gaming considerably longer. These wooden chairs are painful on the back and butt. My players are all very polite about it but I can tell about 90 minutes into the game they aren’t comfortable. I feel like the strict parent yelling “please keep all four legs of the chair on the floor”.
Lack of comfort impacts focus level. Once the players start getting uncomfortable the start to fidget. They start to think about doing something that isn’t in these chairs. In my group of young men sometimes things get a little too LARPy with the combat “examples”.
Access
A good gaming area needs easy access to items: Drinks, snacks, research books, and bathrooms. This is one area my gaming area does pretty well. Just on the other side of the doorway behind the DM’s chair is a fridge and lots of counter space for snacks and just off camera to the right is a drink cooler full of soda, water and juice. My space constraints means I can’t have snacks at the table and players need to get up to get a handful of chips but they don’t need to leave the area of effect of spoken word.
You don’t want players having to take side adventures to go get a Coke or a cut of pizza. One of the players will inevitably get up to get a snack just moments before the tension level rises. Even worse, they will want a slice of pizza just before their turn in a round of combat.
I’ll leave bathroom access for another post about gaming etiquette. I think it is sufficient to say that access is important
Environmental Control
While heat control is important, that not what I’m talking about. On the hierarchy of needs for gamers heating is fundamental. A good gaming area needs to have control over the environmental surroundings. Items like extraneous noise and foot traffic around the gaming area. Depending on the night this is hit or miss in my gaming area. If other family members are around they have to go in and out the front door and that means walking right passed us. The kitchen can sometimes be a high traffic area. That drink cooler I mentioned as being so great for access to drinks? It is loud and a problem for environmental control.
Nothing more distracting and mood breaking than when everyone is whispiering because the NPC is whispering about how there is a scary monster in the other room. One of the players is whispering his actions and the cooler turns on and no one can hear him. Everyone if forced to talk loud to be heard. Or imaging a session and someone puts on Lord of the Rings on the TV in the other room. As soon as Balrog enters players are going to start making mention of it. Or worse, comparing the boring moment your session just happens to be in with the excitement of Gandalf’s “You shall not pass!” Good luck competing with one of the masters.
My gaming area needs a little work but that’s sort of the point of this series of posts. I’ve got some home improvements coming up and will get to rebuild a room. That room will be my new gaming area. I think it is important to point of the flaws in my current situation before I start thinking about great improvements. What sort of flaws do you have in your gaming environment?
