Now I’m married with 2.4 and although we now have more square-footage we actually have less clear floor. So the table remains folded away, the mapping mats in storeage, and we all sit around on chairs, rolling dice on our laps or small folding tray tables. The book shelves groan above my desk, which sits in the corner of the living room.

However we still game twice weekly; typically two separate campaigns, one run by myself and the other by my wife.

We don’t actually own a set of the 3.5 d20 rules so we’re somewhat dependent upon the SRD. For Traveller we often turn to travellermap.com which we’ve discovered we can get through our phones, turning them into convincing props.

There are books on either side of my Rolemaster screen. Behind my screen, aside from my notes is my Campaign Coins treasury. My GameMastery Combat Tracker is on top of one of the book stacks until call into action. My cell phone is right there, for tracking the time (its on vibrate or silent).

At a small side table at elbow’s length, I have my box of minis, unused Tact-Tiles, and box o’ props.

In our next campaign, I’d like to start using my laptop more and incorporate a project for the art and maps I have on there, and we’ll see how that changes the layout.

Martin: Your group is tidier than mine.

I tend to have my books out in front of me, and sometimes (when I do run D&D) I have the minis I’ll be using out in front of me as well as foreshadowing – other times I have them in my bag as a surprise to bring out later.

I used to buy into the fortress of solitude deal, but not really anymore. I haven’t even had a screen in years at this point. Occasionally I’ll roll behind my hand or a book for something, but if its a system where the dice can actually add drama to a situation, I let them do their job.

I’m kind of old school with my setup, but it works well for me. Behind my 4-panel Mage screen I have:

- Dice tray
- Dice
- My watch (for tracking our progress)
- The session we’re playing
- Blank notebook for (wait for it…) notes

To one side of me is my iPod, plugged into a set of speakers, with playlists for the chronicle theme, ambient BG, sinister scenes and combat. I usually weight down the cord with a couple of books I expect to use during the game.

To the other side I keep the core nWoD book and core Mage book.

On the floor sits my master binder for the chronicle (NPCs, locations, backstory, PCs with backgrounds, etc.), the huge binder that holds all our past sessions with notes plus whatever other books I think I’ll need (at a minimum, the travel guide for Las Vegas, where the game is set, and a pocket map).

I’ve got a couple of pictures online of my setup, actually (NERD LEVEL ORANGE! AWHOOGAH!):

Part of my GMing setup
A wider view

I DONT like it when books / charts / tables / sheets / etc take away from a game.

Rule-heavy games like D&D can definitely use one (especially with Excel character sheets), but light systems like Savage Worlds don’t really need a laptop.

I bought a second monitor for my PC, so I can have my chat window and IM screens on one side, and the campaign’s Obsidian Portal (and the hypertext d20 SRD and Excel initiative track, when necessary) on the left. I also have a binder crammed with printouts from the campaign website in case I can’t access it during the game.

My desk is too small for much more than one open rulebook, a small box for die-rolling, a pad of scratch paper for tracking HP, and my snacks.

I keep a small stack of rulebooks on the floor, propped against the computer for quick reference. Everything else is on a shelf just one chair-slide away…

The personal kobold assistant sounds good, but why not a gnome? ; )

I agree with lordvreeg, though; I always feel unprepared, no matter how much prep I do.

And I still have my 1st Edition screen for the same reason; I might make a 4E screen with that art on the front…

If I had a laptop I’d definitely use it. I’d love to be able to pull up any one of the many, many, many tables that I’d like to have handy at will, especially since I don’t have a GM screen at the present moment (well, not in actual screen form.) Besides, it would be much easier to take notes on a laptop.

Right now? Steno notebook for notes, clipboard/binder for tables and important rules. We try to have all of the rulebooks handy, because I’m trying to learn them well enough to not need the rulebooks but I’m not quite there yet. I have a whiteboard I’d like to use for maps, but I really can’t, because it’s too big for our current setup.