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So, this may be in the wrong forum, and if it is, I'm sure a friendly moderator will get it where it needs to be!
Being a man in my mid twenties, with no wife or kids, I am looking at getting my own apartment, but finding the dining room spaces in my area and price range too small for having a table of seven people sit comfortably for hours and explore mystical lands and such. Therefore, my solution has been to find an apartment with a second bedroom for the purposes of making my own GAMING ROOM!
This is a room that will essentially be housing a large table for my groups to game in. While the large hardwood table and chairs are a must, I pose the question to you, mighty PATHFINDERS, what would you put in a gaming room?
An espresso machine.
Also bookshelves to keep all gaming materials (and emergency boardgames) within easy reach.
Maybe some maps and/or posters of fantasy art on the walls and ceiling.
A small refrigerator for handy beverages (think of one kids use in college dorm rooms).
A case to hold miniatures, at need.
Convenient garbage can (s).
A good sound system for the gaming music.
My brother-in-law builds gaming tables with recessed play surfaces and standard table covers (i.e. use it as a dining room table, remove cover to play something you've already set up) that are designed to be disassembled with a hammer when you're ready to move. This might fit the limited dining room spaces you've been seeing, although it will work just fine in a dedicated room as well.
Beyond that, for a bedroom-sized space, make sure that there's a ceiling fan installed at a bare minimum. Most apartment bedrooms are rather stuffy after 30 minutes with 5+ people in them, so having built in air movement is essential. Box fans do not cut it and will have the painful downside of moving paper that a ceiling fan is less liable to do.
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A monkey Butler to assist,
Storage to hold relevant resources
A weapon of some sort to beat unruly players
Maybe a secondary surface to put other non-game related things that are still nice to have at hand (pizza, donuts, piles of pesh, whatever floats your boat).
Oh, and if your group uses lots of tablets or devices at the table, an easily accessible powerbar or something so charging doesn't require awkward gymnastics over each other (Acrobatics DC 30)
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I actually already undertook a similar project over a year ago and I can tell you what I got that worked out well and some things that did not.
- A high quality table. This is actually really important because that's the focus of the room. In my case, I had a friend make a custom table that had a recess in it for a plasma TV that is hooked up to a computer. My original plan was to have it act like a virtual play map for miniature play, but this ended up working out poorly due to the fact that the glass I had to protect the TV displaced the miniatures too much and nobody cold tell what square they were really on. We ended up moving fully to virtual tokens using Roll20 and that has worked out extremely well because it also allows us to easily integrate in remote players (for example, one of our players is a cool guy we met at GenCon this year who lives 3 states away).
- A high quality wide angle web cam. I mounted it to one of the book shelves and it allows a view of the whole play area for people who are remoting in.
- A USB speaker phone. Also for remote players. Works great.
- A WiiMote white board system mounted to the ceiling. I got this so that players could control their tokens without a laptop using IR wands, but it ended up being more trouble then it was worth.
- Bar stools. I ended up getting 8 cheap bar stools; however, in retrospect, I wish I hadn't cheeped out on these because they are somewhat uncomfortable and the bolts are prone to loosening.
- A ton of bookcases. I have 2 large ones and 1 small one and they are filled up already.
- A dorm fridge. Good for beer and soda.
- A water cooler. We drink a ton of water plus the hot water function is great for coffees and teas.
- Small bin storage. I ended up screwing 4 hardware bin organizers together in order to hold small game pieces like coins or dice. It ended up working out great.
- A portable white board. I thought this was going to be super useful but it ended up being pretty superfluous. YMMV
- A SONOS speaker. I want to use this for background music but I haven't DMed since I got it so I haven't really had a chance to use it for that purpose and our current DM isn't really interested in using it.
- Art pieces. I had some Pathfinder lithographs that I framed and hung up with some other fantasy-ish art I found at a big box store.
- A window AC unit. Getting 7 people with laptops and a big TV in a room creates a lot of heat, especially in the summer. I tried using fans but it was simply too much heat.
So hopefully that gave you some ideas for your own room as well as some idea of pitfalls to avoid.
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The awesomeness known as Sultan Gaming Table
Geek Chic stuff seems so overpriced, unfortunately. Honestly those Hammered Game Tables mentioned upthread seems pretty interesting at, like, 10% of the price.
A fellow gamer had office chairs for his gaming table. I have two chairs I bought at World Market that are nicely padded and comfortable. There is one for the GM and one for me as Host. The rest are regular dining room chairs with high backs. You may want to invest in cushions for the wooden chairs.
Just my 2 cp.
Assuming you already have a table and chairs, I suggest
Garbage can
Bookshelves
A white erase board or battle mat
Sound system (can be as simple as a typical cd player/radio combo, but if you can get one with a usb port that's even better
Notepads for players
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In reference to the trash can go for a kitchen sized one, not the office sized. Unless you get multiple office sized ones. You will need room for 2-litre bottles and numerous Mountain Dew cans.
EDIT: Definitely use big trash bags.
A white erase board or battle mat
So this. Wall mounted magnetic white board. Dry (or wet!) erase battle mat is also great.
Also to agree with the above, comfy chairs. Comfy seats = happier gamers.
- A high quality table. This is actually really important because that's the focus of the room. In my case, I had a friend make a custom table that had a recess in it for a plasma TV that is hooked up to a computer. My original plan was to have it act like a virtual play map for miniature play, but this ended up working out poorly due to the fact that the glass I had to protect the TV displaced the miniatures too much and nobody cold tell what square they were really on. We ended up moving fully to virtual tokens using Roll20 and that has worked out extremely well because it also allows us to easily integrate in remote players (for example, one of our players is a cool guy we met at GenCon this year who lives 3 states away).
Do you have a picture of the table? I'm going to build one, too, and looking at different designs.
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Do you have a picture of the table? I'm going to build one, too, and looking at different designs.
- A high quality table. This is actually really important because that's the focus of the room. In my case, I had a friend make a custom table that had a recess in it for a plasma TV that is hooked up to a computer. My original plan was to have it act like a virtual play map for miniature play, but this ended up working out poorly due to the fact that the glass I had to protect the TV displaced the miniatures too much and nobody cold tell what square they were really on. We ended up moving fully to virtual tokens using Roll20 and that has worked out extremely well because it also allows us to easily integrate in remote players (for example, one of our players is a cool guy we met at GenCon this year who lives 3 states away).
Here's an album on the whole room. If you need more details then PM me.
http://imgur.com/a/EDzKj
Thank you!
I seriously considered doing this, but unfortunately rental prices here precluded me from getting a 2 bedroom place on my own. Maybe in a year or two once I've cleared my loans, though I'm more likely to just start saving for a deposit on my own house and keep making do with my one bedroom place.
Anyway, good luck with it, and know that I am jealous of your freedom to do this.