After you’ve picked your game, wrote your adventure, and gathered your players there’s one more important choice to make. Where do you sit at your table? It’s different for every gaming group and its highly dependent on how many players you have, but choosing the right chair can effect the way your game runs.
If your table is too big you might find yourself too far from the map, but if you sit to close some of your players might have the same problem. Maybe you sit far away so that you can dictate your movements to the players and force them to move the minis that will ultimately doom them.
So, how about it guys? Do you move around your table during the game? Are you stationary? Do you change the chair you’re at every game? What’s your choice and why?
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Since this is the first time we’ve tried to do an opinion post I wanted to start things off.
I personally try not to sit during the game if I can help it. It makes role playing a lot more interesting and helps keep me focused on the game. When the PC can feel the breath of the big bad on the back of their neck I tend to just breathe on the back of their neck. I think it helps with the immersion, but maybe I’m just a creeper.
It depends what game we’re doing – I’ve sat on lawn chairs, dining room chairs, and a handful of times on a futon that was currently in use as a bed. Playing in someone’s home is different than playing in public too – my GM tended to wander a little bit less when we were in public, but it also helped keep us free of distractions. The study hall type chairs helped too. Kept us focused and sometimes it helped keep us from nodding off if the game ran too long. When I’m playing, I tend to stay seated, unless it’s for food, or I’m far from the map. Or if the map is big. When there’s no map I tend to be more mobile, usually because it’s more role play and I can, but also because it means we’re split up.
GM’s tend to wander more than players, I think. It’s easier for them to keep track of what’s going on with all of us, especially when the games got big or we were split up. It does sort of help with immersion if you’re pulled aside or the party has been split again and now there’s trouble. It helps, and it’s always really gotten the point across if we’ve done bad or the NPC’s just a creeper. Usually with us, it’s both.
I like to take a seat at the head of the table, but if I can control the space as much as I like I go for a T shaped set of tables, with myself at the bottom of the T. But then, once I get the game going, It’s rare for me to stay sat down for long. I like to move around and act things out, taking the time to come to players when it’s needed. It’s also rare that I use maps, so that’s not really a concern
My relatively small group of 4 players and I sit around a rectangular table, one person at each head, two at one side and me at the other. It allows me to easily look each person in the eye, and gives me plenty of elbow room for all the extra paraphernalia.