And if anyone ever turned off the heat and had fans blowing in the middle of Winter, just in order to simulate the climate conditions in an RPG, I’d go have a pizza where it was a nice 70 degrees and forget all about the game. There is such a thing as too much realism!

@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – That would be an awesome setup. I could see it working well with a dice dispenser belt, ala the coin dispenser belts. Oh, why can’t the future be here now!

@Swordgleam – Notes are not optimal for secret conversations. We’ve taken to using text messages, and used to have multiple laptops (BAD IDEA) to pass info.

@Scott Martin – I turned off the heat in my apartment and threw on some fans, in the middle of winter, for a game that was set in a cold climate. Made the players really understand that it wasn’t so easy to go climbing up this sheer cliff willy nilly in the cold weather.

@DNAphil – Table or no table will really depend on the sort of game you are running. Some games it will work better for, some it will really hinder play.

@Tommi – An American student flat is by no means big. A french student’s flat is even smaller. I can’t begin to guess how a Finnish flat would compare.

After 3.0 came out, we all moved back to the table, where we play to this day. My game room has enough room for a table and chairs, but not for enough couches for a whole group.

Having played at the table so long, I am starting to long for playing away from a table.

Now that it’s occured to me, I’ve been playing around with the idea of doing something like that. Face-to-face gaming is fantastic, of course, but every once in a while, for certain scenarios, it could be cool. Have a ‘Charlie’s Angels’ sort of vibe going on.

OTOH, we just bought a massive coffee table for the two-sofa-sectional we have. I may just take the opportunity to use it as a gaming table.

Though I’m wondering why everyone would be standing off around something for a social interaction. What would the focus of attention (ie, the reason for getting up and moving to another spot) be? A puzzle, perhaps?

Getting up and walking around can contribute to the distraction fac . . . ooh shiny, what was that?

@xero – I’ve always preferred low tables so that the minis are seen in a kind of birds eye view way.

@Matthew J. Neagley –
What are you talking about? I don’t see any typo!! Can’t wait to see the rebuttal tomorrow, just based on the tags .

@JackSmithIV – Table-less play works really well for props and the like. A great thing that I once implemented (aside from the giant chess set) was an old action figure playset. I think it was batman … maybe? Its size compared to the mini size was excellent. Gave it some incredible depth. Another interesting idea is to use jenga blocks for mapping. I bought some jenga blocks (and later cut some much cheaper wood pieces myself), spray painted them gray, and then did some lines across them in black to make stone walls that I could build on-the-fly dungeons out of.

I’m always trying to add more, however. I use music in all my campaigns, and sometimes for a deep cavern-crawl or casting a ritual in an old cellar, we’ll light the room with candles. I suppose it’s just the tradition of it, really . I’ve been thinking about some away-from-the-table gaming, though. Just waiting for the right device in order to do it. There are alot of good ideas being thrown around here, though, and I’ll probably keep checking back.

I’ll admit, despite my love affair with tables, the rest of my group prefers table-less play, for many of the reasons you give above. In my mind, it’s one of those “try both ways, see what works for you” things, or at least one of those “different approaches in different circumstances” things.

I wasn’t sure if it was going to work when we tried it, but everyone seems to love it so it’s here to stay.