If you had thought of it when building the house, you would have just built a proper game room from the start, and still HAVE a garage...
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- The Lone Wolf Development Team
What does your game table look like?
- Thread starter liz
- Start date
If you had thought of it when building the house, you would have just built a proper game room from the start, and still HAVE a garage...
Since they both work for LWD, I'm going to hazard a guess that the answer lies somewhere along the "HEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL YYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" spectrum.
^ This pretty much sums it up.
No, the house was built to pre-existing models, no floor plan changes allowed. Certain options could be done:
AC (which should not be an option in Northern Nevada but.....)
Extra power plugs
Color of carpet
upgraded kitchen appliances
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Our gaming room is the biggest room in the house. It's not quite as big as the garage, but it has all sorts of other advantages. Like being inside. :)
Not for me, thanks. I never want to go back to brushing a foot of snow and scraping a bunch of ice off my car on those winter mornings.
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Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
WARNING APPOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR LONG POST RESPONSE
In another forum that I am a writer & moderator for this similar topic was also discussed. And for the record, I KNOW our room is not a norm.. but even with that it can show those concidering doing a game room the ideas (As Liz pointed out) but also the costs involved. You might be surprised at that. We started off by axing our cable bill (if like most in the country ours exceeded $120 a month just for the BASIC stuff). purchased an antenna and invested in Netflix for a $110 savings amonth(that's $1,300 in a year folks... for TV).
Next we did 99% of the work ourselves (meaning Wife, and other players)
While roominess is helpful, organization is key... ours ended up being 20 x 12, not huge, but functional... Some of the things that help are the rolling Storage and the Shelf & Drawer Storage... the footprint for both is small but the storage is great.
The rolling storage give players a place for drinks, off table books etc. And is short enough that it rolls under table for storage when not in use, yet has 1 large drawer & 4 Small drawers for Binders, dice, etc. We added the cup holders (ebay $1) Total cost for 4 was $188
The Mini Storage and Shelving
is behind the DM station. it runs the width of the room (20') but is only 18" deep.
If you are patient and creative you can cost effectively do a great gaming room.
The rough overall $ cost for ours:
Construction
20' wall- Lumber, sliding French doors, sheetrock, wiring, soundboard, texture, paint ($750)
Furnishings
Old Dining room Table & chairs($125 Goodwill)
Recover / Finish Chairs ($50 material, $30 Polyurethane finish, $20 upholstery nails)
4 Rolling player Storage ($190)
4 Mini Storage Towers ($300)
38"x82" tempered glass top (Free other than cleaning it, was old sliding door)
Molding around glass ($5, was cutoffs from molding department at homedepot that they couldn't sell full lengths) & used left over paint from shelves
Cork board (free used molding, paint and cork floor scraps from flooring supply company throwaway)
Equipment
2 JVC Blackdiamond Flat screen LCD TVS embedded in table ($960)
1 46" Insignia TV behind DM for Player view stuff ($300 Walmart clearance because it had no base)
1 small form factor PC CPU with 32G Ram Dual HDMI ($400)and 4 USB/HDMI converters. ($160)
2 LG 25"ultrawide Monitors ($360 Amazon)
1 Dell S2240 multitouch 21.5" monitor ($250 Amazon)
1 logtech wireless keyboard ($69 newegg)
1 Logtech touchpad ($50) for table
1 Netgear Gigabit 16port Splitter ($69 BestBuy Returned)
12 Cat6 cables ($20 ebay)
6 Fujisu T2220 Tablet PCs ($600)
8 copies of Hero lab ($90) have more but this is just for this room setup
1 copy of Realm works ($50)
2 copy of Battlegrounds Mapprogram ($80 didn't work so abandoned)
1 copy 10 licenses of D20pro ($90) for table mapping
So if I exclude gaming materials I have accumulated thru 30 years of playing ( a VULGAR $ number to be certain)
Our total cost for our game room was approximately:
Building Materials = $750
Furnishings = $720
Equipment = $3429
Total = $4899
Now that's a room, table hardware (pcs) and software to support 10 players & 1 DM.
we have had the room almost 4 yrs. We still add little pieces and this cost was not all in one chunk. Even saying that, our cable cost for the same time period would have been $5200.... so true out of pocket expense was $0 over the time period.
Most don't need (or want 3 TVs in their gaming experience) nor do all utilize Herolab on a tablet PC (most still print copies out). But my players enjoy the added detail the table gives to mapping and having herolab electronically allows for players to update hp, spells, items as they go.... Hopefully one day, Herolab will be "live" and allow for complete integration between the DM and the players for effects, conditions etc... but I know that is way down the road (if ever).
So, in closing, you can have a great table for what your paying in your cable bill.
Being from Texas, we do (contrary to popular belief) get snow, but not to the extent of other places to the north... thankfully!!!
Having property in Maine, and working in Yellowknife Alberta, all are welcome to my portion of the "wonderful white stuff".
http://www.alldeaf.com/showthread.php?t=84773
*Edit* Fix Broken Links
Attachments
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Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
Parody, I noticed your attached links (finally... time for new glasses I guess) and your SPARK listing made me think of this...
http://battlegroundsgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1370&p=17691&hilit=car+wars#p17691
I tried to utilize this software (based out of South America) for a mapping tool, but there are just too many limiting features... the Lead Programmer (heruca) is very helpful, just a one man show... but with your interest, you might look into (and any that like car wars) what he has done with combining his mapping software and Car Wars.
Best Regards
DLG
Sorry to usurp thread Liz....
Sorry to usurp thread Liz....
USURPER!!!!!!
In other news, your links are broken.
I want to see the pictures! 
Thanks, but I have no interest in virtual tabletops and/or playing online. We play at 1.5x scale using Micro Machines and I have drawn counters and maps at that scale in a desktop publishing program. It costs about $10 at Kinko's...err...Fedex Office to have them print a map on their oversize printer and we're good to go.
I've attached a picture of the event we ran at Gen Con this year. At home I try to minimize multiple table issues with boards, but we didn't bring them to Indy.
Next year's going to be interesting, as it's likely a new version of Car Wars will be available (for playtest at least) and we'll see what our group thinks of it. I'm skeptical of what I've seen so far, but I don't think it's fair to judge until we see everything put together. (Just like CW5 never got a fair shot because its design system was never completed.)
MaxSupernova
Well-known member
Awesome.
I got my kids into Car Wars this spring. I have a 3'x4' arena map hanging on the back of my office door right now, but despite 4 attempts, no one has ever started a race and then completed an entire lap.
My kids have a tendency to get very excited about doing crazy stunts at high speed and wiping each other out rather than actually racing....
To pull it back to the topic at hand, though, we play everything on our 10' dining room table and I'm not that interested in computerizing anything either. With 7 of us in the house we just don't have the room to make single-purpose spaces.
We'd game even less than we do now if I had to pull out all the computer equipment and set it up every time.
jkthomsen9
Well-known member
Just saw this Kickstarter and thought of this thread.... I'm not backing but it's interesting.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/beamlabsinc/beam-the-smart-projector-that-fits-in-any-light-so
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/beamlabsinc/beam-the-smart-projector-that-fits-in-any-light-so
You can get nicer projectors for what they're charging you to pre-order one of these. They won't screw into a light socket, but they will have standard inputs and brighter lights.
jkthomsen9
Well-known member
If/When I redo my system in the future I think I am going to build a system with a flat screen in the table. I got my first projector in 2003 after seeing an article on d20srd.com. Got a better HD one a few years ago. They completely changed the gaming experience. I can not draw, I screw up stick figures. With the projectors my players saw the dungeon in the high quality art that paizo has always put out.
The downside of projectors are they put out a LOT of heat. Put ten people and a projector in a room and it is going to get warm. The bulbs are expensive and need to be replaced. This has been greatly reduced with LED projectors. Last there are shadows from overhead.
Can someone who has a flat screen under compare pros and cons?
The downside of projectors are they put out a LOT of heat. Put ten people and a projector in a room and it is going to get warm. The bulbs are expensive and need to be replaced. This has been greatly reduced with LED projectors. Last there are shadows from overhead.
Can someone who has a flat screen under compare pros and cons?
Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
Check my earlier research responses on this thread. Like u I chose to switch from projection to embed TV(s)in a table. The biggest plus was being able to play in full lit room without loss of high visibility maps. The big minus for projection is same issue (using in bright lit room) & projection "throw distance" was also an issue for any with low ceilings.(in my situation)
In earlier posts I gave a rough breakdown of the entire cost of our game room install, with some cost saving ideas too.
In earlier posts I gave a rough breakdown of the entire cost of our game room install, with some cost saving ideas too.
Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
Agreed, I would add high lumin & contrast are both essential for good sharp projection. And as Parody points out, for the cost you could get a better, traditional one IMO.
But like AEIOU I would still lean toward a monitor or flatscreen tv since most displays are not "in motion" but static pictures.
I started with a projector as well. It worked good for 2 years or so. I only have 7' ceiling in the basement so getting a short throw projector was a must. Later I added a mirror and got about a 48" size projection. The problem was it was still only a true 720p projector so text could be hard to read in MT. Then we had a grid/pixel thing that showed up, then of course there's the shadows and noise.
Eventually we started getting white pixels (up to a few hundred) so had to replace it. And it was cheaper to go with a TV (you can see my table on page 3).
Be sure to check viewing angle (especially from the bottom of the TV) but mine is perfect, better resolution, brighter, all around better viewing experience...
...except for one problem. Protecting the screen. I went with glass and it would be fine except I have can lights so we have a glare problem depending on where you sit. I'm looking at finding some non-reflecting glass but some $$ are involved.
Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
James brings up some good points, view angle is important especially since you will be viewed from "nonstandard" angles.
I would also add (as noted elsewhere in this thread ) be sure your intended install allows for ventilation based on Tv needs. Some vent thru the front and you will be covering that most likely.
As to glare, it can be a problem, but can also be controlled via lighting. I have found indirect lighting works well.
FYI, the viewing able specs for my TV are: 176° (H) / 176° (V)
So that's pretty dang near flat. And if you go LED tv's, they hardly produce any heat, mine gets to about 90 degrees on the top (screen side). It only consumes 67 watts and it's a older model. Every year they get better/cheaper.
I kinda wish mine would die so I have a reason to put a 4k TV in there!
So that's pretty dang near flat. And if you go LED tv's, they hardly produce any heat, mine gets to about 90 degrees on the top (screen side). It only consumes 67 watts and it's a older model. Every year they get better/cheaper.
I kinda wish mine would die so I have a reason to put a 4k TV in there!