The Ultimate Gaming Table

August 15, 2004 10:30 AM

The Ultimate Gaming Table. While looking around the webernets to find a replacement for my living room table, I stumbled across this. Breathtaking in scope and purpose; I salute this person's nerdly vision and dedication.
posted by majcher (13 comments total)

wow. that's very cool.
posted by Stynxno at 10:51 AM on August 15, 2004

That is awesome - I only had the ghetto version with my group.
(green felt with hexes, on a card table sticky with coke)

I like the sphere messaging system.
posted by milovoo at 11:32 AM on August 15, 2004

I haven't gamed in several decades. Is it necessary to be hidden from one another visually? This whole arrangement looks kinda cubcile-ish.
posted by scarabic at 11:34 AM on August 15, 2004

Holy crap that thing is huge.

very innovative. I'd say it brings me back to my old gaming days, but I never went that deep into yonder realm...

I mean, the dining room table always suited us fine.
guess we were real amateurs.
posted by Busithoth at 11:41 AM on August 15, 2004

That's the one thing I though made it suck - it's all too enclosed - and it looks too high - though there aren't any people in the pictures for scale. Can users see more than the eyes and tops of heads of their fellow gamers?

However nerdish, rpg-ing is about human interaction, and this looks like it gets in the way.

Still - the GM station - drool - world domination (albeit made-up non-existent world domination) beckons.

If only the top was a little lower. And it had a better stain-job.

Pretty impressive, nonetheless.
posted by Blue Stone at 11:41 AM on August 15, 2004

no
posted by lazy-ville at 11:57 AM on August 15, 2004

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!

You certainly wouldn't need this for a game of TFOS. I mean, how are you supposed to throw dice and cheetos and popcorn at your fellow players?

Erm, not that I'd know anything about that. *cough*
posted by loquacious at 12:23 PM on August 15, 2004

It's a bit too cluttered for my taste. The message sphere system, while neat, would no doubt encourage excessive note passing between player and GM, slowing things down as he had to stop to reply to each one (in writing, of course).

My ideal set-up would be a low coffee table surrounded by couches with a separate chair at the head for the GM, and possibly a screen if he needed it. In fact, we used this set-up in my last D&D game for about a year with seven people, and it worked out just fine.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 1:21 PM on August 15, 2004

I fear what this guy would do with the multiview table from Siggraph.
posted by effugas at 1:54 PM on August 15, 2004

I fear what this guy would do with the multiview table from Siggraph.

eheheheheheh.. That is awesome.
posted by SiW at 2:41 PM on August 15, 2004

It's a bit too cluttered for my taste. The message sphere system, while neat, would no doubt encourage excessive note passing between player and GM, slowing things down as he had to stop to reply to each one (in writing, of course).

Actually since the spheres are right next to the miniatures storage area, I thought one use might be to roll the appropriate miniature to the right player for setting them up on the table, admittedly that's probably not easier than standing up and putting it on the table yourself, and could cause a group of excessively lazy gamers to become fused with their chairs.
posted by milovoo at 3:44 PM on August 15, 2004

My thought was also that the table top ends up too high. You want to be able to see down on to your miniture grid. I find a regular kitchen height table to be best. Better if it has a piece of glass on top so you can write notes and temporary maps and diagrams on it with non permanent markers.
posted by Mitheral at 9:40 AM on August 16, 2004

whoa. from the size of that thing, for a second i was thinking foosball + bumper pool + card table with drink holders + air hockey, all on one table! beep beep beep!
posted by mrgrimm at 11:01 AM on August 16, 2004