Do you sit at a table in the kitchen? Balance stuff on your laps sitting casually in the living room? Hang out in the back room of FLGS or pub? Or, does the GM sit on a separate table altogether? So you use a GMs screen? Is it at your house; the GM's house and what do you eat? Do you like your set up?

We play once a week at my place, with a pool of about seven potential players in total, with actual numbers varying from the occasional two up to the very occasional eight. We sit round a large rectangular table in the kitchen, and I usually cook something one-pot in the oven. Brave players will volunteer to make tea for everyone throughout the evening, and we play for 4-5 hours. Of the seven of us, three are regular GMs, two occasional GMs and the other either once or never.  The GM usually sits at the short end of the table. Some GMs are protective of their notes (if there are any for the game we playing), others don't care. We rarely use a screen. We play a wide mixture of games, and do a lot playtesting; last week it was the final playtest of Mutant City Blues, this week a Purist Trail of Cthulhu adventure.

A different group, with one player in common, plays for a full day three to four times a year - my reconstituted original AD&D game group, two of whom have not played for over 15 years. They are all high level, absolutely focussed with little chit-chat, and a lot of adrenalin. I can throw anything at them without concerning myself with their ability to survive. We move the table upstairs to keep away from wandering children. For legacy reasons (they used to cheat like bastards) we roll in an ancient wooden box we call "control" which I made in woodwork aged twelve. It has a No Die zone, because it's the only area of the box I can't see and they used to aim for it to irritate me. If it lands in the zone, I can either make them roll again or accept the roll, sight unseen. The lunch is usually sumptuous.

I've played in peoples' living rooms a couple of times with people on the floor, on sofas or even on beds. I don't enjoy that at all.

My tabletop role-playing has become somewhat erratic, but here's the current plan.

Once a week, Friday night, 3-4 get together.  We play in my dining room around the same table.  We start about 9:30 PM and play 'till about 1 AM.  We usually provide snacks of some sort and/or someone brings some.  I always have soda, coffee, tea and other drinks available.  I GM, currently, and cover my notes but don't use a screen.  I roll in the open but don't always declare what every roll is for.  We do use a hex map and markers and often use minis.  

I like our set up.  It has to be my house as I (we, my wife also plays) have two kids.  

I have played many other places.  Living rooms I don't like much as I really prefer a big table.  University conferance rooms were great (back in the day).  Big table, comfy chairs and a blackboard.  Outdoors can be problematic with wind.  Tables in open places (such as a Student Union) can be very distracting.

We play at my buddy's house, around his kitchen table on Thursday nights from 8 to 11pm, although we can go til midnight when his school has a snow day (like tonight).

Nowadays, my gaming tends to be brief and sporadic, but here's how we used to do it for years and years back in the day--

Once or twice a month we'd meet for a 12-hour session and play an adventure right the hell through from start to finish. The group would convene in various living rooms (one of which conveniently equipped with professional-grade bar), and roughly one pack of cigs and a sixpack or two would be consumed by each attendee. This lent the evening a specific dynamic.

The zenith of hammeredness / spirited roleplaying would be reached halfway through around midnight. Things would decline after that, only to pick up again for the end boss fight and a two-hour post mortem during which there would be much of either mirth or yelling, depending on who died / betrayed whom and how ingeniously. Eventually, sobriety would be restored, and one would drive home in full daylight.

Around a big, heavy dining room table.

Seanchai

Around a table, with everyone paying attention to the game and each other. That means no doodling, reading, playing computer games or anything else while the game is in progress. No alcohol either, that can wait til after since I don't do long sessions (2-3 hours usually).

Quote from: SeanchaiAround a big, heavy dining room table.

Same here.

QuoteKiero wrote:
No alcohol either, that can wait til after since I don't do long sessions (2-3 hours usually).

There's alcohol, smokes during the session (4-6 hours)....you know, Death Trap Dungeon...

Regards,
David R

Quote from: KieroAround a table, with everyone paying attention to the game and each other. That means no doodling, reading, playing computer games or anything else while the game is in progress. No alcohol either, that can wait til after since I don't do long sessions (2-3 hours usually).

Same here, though I do have long sessions - from 2-11 with a break for supper. We usually supply supper - my wife and I are both excellent cooks, and love to come up with different dishes, and our players are mostly kids.

-clash

We usually play in the front room of my apartment.  I have a large circular table.  One person sits on the love seat and uses the coffee table.  Two players sit on the couch and use the circular table.  I sit at the other end of the circular table on a folding chair.  The table has plenty of room on it.  I'm in a position that is close enough to the players for everyone to be engaged, but far enough away that I don't have to use a screen to cover my notes and maps.  It works well.

We usually make a food run during a break.  Pizza is the most common food and sometimes we just eat it at the restaraunt and chit chat about the game.  Sometimes we get take and bake from Papa Murphys.  We have gone out for Mexican food (California has the best) or sandwhiches and such.  People sometimes bring their own snacks and drinks as well.  Last game we had a gaming potlock that was really good.  I cooked BBQ meatballs in the crockpot and everyone else brought something to share.  We stuffed ourselves silly...

We average two sessions a month.  I'd like to play more often but we just don't have the time for it.  Two of us are full time college students and one of the guys has two kids.  This grouped formed up in September after meeting up at the local meetup group in Fresno a few times.  I just completed the first installment of my Saga Edition Star Wars campaign.  It was great fun.  We are going to try Primetime Adventures in the near future.  We are currently taking a break due to vacations, and other family events taking up the rest of this month.

Once a week, alternating games, alternating GM's at alternating locations. Group consists of my wife and I, and up to five friends (though usually only a core of three play regularly). Typically it is a Friday night, post work game (6pm to 11pm or so). Sometimes it is a long form Saturday game (starting from 2pm til late)

We typically barbeque a lot of meat and eat with salad and bread rolls. Otherwise we get pizza or fish and chips. There is always plenty of beer and spirits, snacks are light on the Friday night because we usually fill up at dinner. We typically finish with a coffee (because we are all getting old and struggle with late nights).

We always play at a large table, and right now in the heart of summer, it has to be under an air conditioner. I wish for a bigger table and have dreams of making my own perfect gaming table .. and yet I never get enough time to hit the woodwork.

We play a mixture of games. D&D, various flavours of Star Wars, old FASA stuff, etc. Currently we are playing through a homebrew system, Star Wars and the occasional Rolemaster game.

We boardgame when a big game of cricket or rugby league or rugby is on, that way we can be social, drink, game AND watch the big game.

Quote from: David RThere's alcohol, smokes during the session (4-6 hours)....you know, Death Trap Dungeon...

Regards,
David R

No smoking in my house. But then I don't actually know any smokers well enough to have them over, so...There was one friend a while back who was almost outraged that I refused to let her smoke in my car. Especially once she realised I wasn't joking.

Table in the kitchen. 5 players 8pm - 12 once a week.

I don't hide my notes cos I rarely refer to them once the game is running I tend to adlib maps, minor npcs and shit like that. My notes will be the major NPCs and the plot drawn out as a flow chart and some sort of master overall map of the town, country, kingdom or whatever and I have usually given that to the players by the end of the first session.
I tend to have a laptop to hand and any rules books are stacked some place.
I have a dice box that has all the peices from a warrior knights game some place in case we need to lay out a tactical map for a fight.  

In 4 hours we find you need a bottle of red wine and about 4 cups of tea and 2 packets of biscuits.

Around a table. For games involving minatures, we've a large sheet of wood that we can put over the round table to make a bigger playing area. We play from 8.30ish to 11 (my endurance for GM has dropped way down, probably 'cos I'm running three games a week at the moment, plus one of the players has to leave at 11 sharp).

My living room, which consists of a very fluffy couch, a table and 4 chairs and 'the GM chair', my recliner. From the recliner, the GM for the night can use the nearby coffee table for notes.

Players (usually 3, soon to be more though) find themselves on the floor, on the couch or at the table. We rarely use a GM screen. I tend to keep notes and NPC stats in a folder until I need to refer to them.

Our games usually take place on fridays (weekly), 7pm to midnight. We eat together beforehand or order pizza. I make espressos for those who are caffeine-inclined.

We play an interesting mix of games, usually with systems adapted to a particular setting or homebrewed.

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On monday nights, I go play at a friend's house. The GM gets the kitchen table, the rest of us, the L-shaped couch. No need for a GM screen but one of us uses it more for a reference than anything else.

We play AD&D, Star Wars and more 'D20' games. I bring in Amber, L5R, Ex Machina...

Usually play from 7-11pm.

We play weekly at my place, at the moment on Mondays.

Each of us brings some munchies, one player bringing sweet stuff, another some chips, another some dips, and another some drinks - as host, it's most convenient for me to supply dinner.

We play in the kitchen, I used to sit just wherever, now I sit near a power point as I've got the laptop and haven't got over the novelty of being able to choose music tracks, show images of the NPCs and scenes, and so on.

People arrive 6:45-7:15pm, we eat dinner pretty quickly and catch up on each-other's non-gaming lives, there's some character sheet housekeeping as someone collects the dirty dishes and puts out new dishes for all the munchies and drinks, then I as GM ask one of the players to summarise last week's session. This usually turns into a discussion among the players about "what do we do next?" So it's a gradual start to the game from 7:30-7:45pm.

We play straight through, after 10pm I start looking for an appropriate moment to stop the session, trying to work it so that about 3 sessions in 4 there'll be a satisfying sense of completion (eg they just slew a giant), and the other 1 session ends on a cliffhanger or a new Big Question - some NPC has a sword to a PC's throat, or something surprising was just revealed.

About every fourth session is an alternate, where we play some other game, watch a couple of DVDs, or whatever. This helps everyone keep fresh and keen, and gives people a chance to do a bloodless coup if they're not enjoying the campaign, "hey, that different thing we played was pretty good, maybe we could play that for a bit and just... postpone that other one?" Our next alternate is the Geektogether.

I try to run closed-ended campaigns of 8-16 sessions. I find that it helps gives things a good pace (since I want to see X, Y and Z happen, it motivates me to keep the players moving), to give players a happy sense of completion after the campaign, and also to make players more reliable and regular. It's like how if you know a weekly tv series has just 12 episodes, you're more likely to either watch none of them or make sure you see them all, than you are to watch regularly some show that's on every week forever. That's why there are heaps of Star Trek episodes I never saw but I saw every one of Firefly

After each campaign, I rotate one or two players out of the group and put some new ones in; the ones I put out I link to new groups and anyway they can come back next time. This rotation also helps keep things fresh, and expands everyone's game circle, making it more likely they can always get the sort of game and group they want. Thus the only people I've gamed with in the last couple of years who now have no groups are those who fail to reply to emails and return phone calls. That's only 3 out of 24 or so, though - most aren't so lazy.