Respawn Point Farm Gaming Co
(But we're actually a hardwood mushroom farm)
Prototype Gaming Table
For the past few months, I've been working on a gaming table - a table with a TV in the center, to display maps for D&D. There are some on Etsy for a fairly large amount of money, and a few on Craigslist for much. much more.
So I made one out of a 42" plasma TV, with pine frame to support it, and a Lexan top panel to protect the TV from being scratched by the minis. This prototype went through a slew of changes after playtesting - better cable management, better camera mount for Zoom or Discord based games, handles for better portability, etc. The lessons learned from this prototype will shape the design of the next generation of these, the "production" model.
I will be making these with oak frames, with Lexan top sealed at the edges to protect it from spilled drinks or snack debris. At this point I'm using used TVs for cost saving, so each one I make will be custom. I'm making these to be placed on top of a table, though future models will have folding legs.
25 Mar 2021
With the arrival of spring, I've been busy with all the little chores that'll get my farm ready for the growing season and nicer weather. I've been building a greenhouse, an electric fence enclosure for my beehives, and other tasks. So, no carpentry updates for the game table this month.
In this week's game, we were pursuing a wizard through the Fae wilds. Last week, we met up with a small pack of blink dogs and made friends with them. We spotted the wizard crossing this bit of swamp, but when we arrived, a number of giant toads had been drawn by the noise he made...
The blink dogs advanced as a pack, their individual attacks doing little damage but their numbers and teamwork helping them to stay effective. They did much of the fighting while the PCs hung back and used ranged weaponry and spells for fire support. The lizard person, delighted to finally have an aquatic environment, leapt into the swamp and swam away to do something vaguely strategic while abandoning the rest of the party to fight for themselves. The toads, enormous and ravenous but not particularly bright, attacked as individuals and got slaughtered as individuals, until the last few realized that things weren't going their way and fled.
By the end of the fight, the lizard person and the blink dogs had been injured, but everybody else came through the fight with no damage.
24 Feb 2021
Today's adventure involved gelatinous cubes, which proved to be more difficult to make than I'd expected. A friend with a resin printer offered to print some for me, so I bought some transparent resin - and it proved to be far less cooperative than we hoped.
We have gelatine cubes, but I really wasn't satisfied with how they looked, either. I wanted to be able to engulf - the trademark move of the gelatinous cube! And blobs of rubbery goo are solid-ish, so no way to engulf.
So I wound up using plexiglas left over from the newer game table top. A quick trip to the table saw, silicone sealant to glue them together (the tack time makes life easier!) and... cubes!
The plexiglas sides light up from the game table, the effect is refraction of light, not CGI. I need to experiment with color effects to play underneath these cubes, to see how it changes those edges.
26 Jan 2021
After significant back-and-forth with the software developer, the game table is back! Embarrassed as I am to admit it, the software wasn't the problem - one of the changes made in the update wasn't well documented, and left me in the dark. At this point everything is working again - back to working on the wooden case.
I have set up my woodshop in an attached garage, which is a little cramped but the best space left available in my microscopic farmhouse. Lexan is too expensive, unfortunately, for a TV of this size - the prototype was slightly smaller, and I was able to get a piece of scrap Lexan from http:www.oldsoulmotorco.com , a company that belongs to a friend of mine. This TV is too big to get a piece of leftover scrap, so I'd have to buy a sheet of it for this purpose, at around $200.
11 Jan 2021
Software difficulty has been troubling us - the new updates to the software have made it impossible to use. I've been exchanging emails with the developer, who is working on this problem. The past two game sessions have been clumsy jury rigs, with clumsy work-arounds - while I like Dynamic Dungeons and am familiar with it, I'm frustrated with the inability to use it. Most dungeon software is subscription based - $10/month or more - which is prohibitively expensive for me. I'm looking into Foundry VTT, which is another single-purchase dungeon software package with a large following.
Even if I switch to a new kind of software, I plan to keep Patreon-ing Dynamic Dungeons, due to the huge amount of artistic content they provide.
30 Dec 2020
I've taken apart the prototype, and listed the TV free on Craigslist. Plasma is just too damned heavy for a game table that has to be portable - it'll be fine for anybody who wants to stick it to a wall somewhere.
This prototype taught me so many things, it was almost sad to disassemble it. It taught me about Lexan, waterproofing, and furniture. It taught me about feature creep (oh boy, did it ever) and project bloat. It taught me about low-VOC paint, and why it would have been a better idea than the stain I used (which outgassed for several weeks, to the point that my GF didn't want it stored in the house at all!)
It taught me that a hundred pound piece of furniture is a pain in the ass to have to put together and take apart on a weekly basis. And to store, and drag from storage to the living room and back.
It taught me about how TVs respond to heat, and how much room they take in the cab of a pickup.
Much of what it has taught me, is corrected by the LED TV. Much less heavy, when I'm finished with all the various features this will weigh less than half as much as the prototype. The yet-to-be-built case will have wheels if needed, and folding legs - and it already has a storage spot in the house, out of the way but warmer than the woodshop.
29 Dec 2020
Tools are starting to arrive, ready for building the next table. So far the dado set and router guide bushing have arrived, but not the router for that guide NOR the table saw for the dado set!
Ah well. I'm setting up the shop to receive the table saw, and watching a lot of YouTube videos on saw setup, finger joints, and dovetails.
26 Dec 2020
Today I used the LED TV for the first time. As it's still xmas break for many, I wasn't able to get Lexan for this one yet. For this game I used some plexiglass I had lying around, and there's no case - this is just set up atop a folding table for this game. I installed the insulation strip along the edges.
Image quality through the blue plexiglass was meh, but that's mostly the fault of the scratched up, blue-shaded plexiglass. Without it, image quality was fantastic. After two and a half hours of playtesting, it was no warmer than when we had started - unlike the plasma TV, which worked fine but put out some heat.
25 Dec 2020
Merry Whatever.
Now that I have the LED TV, I'm moving out of the prototyping phase. I've learned a lot from this, mostly by having to correct mistakes and oversights in the prototype. The first one is heavy, but as long as you aren't planning to move it around much that isn't a problem. Image quality is good, colors are vivid and sharp. The screen is sufficiently armored against miniatures and crumbs, though a drink spill would still be a problem.
But it's a pain to move around and set up, due to the weight. One person can move it - if they have long arms and a strong back, but it's easier with two people working together. Once it's up on the sawhorses it is stable and ready to play, and has given our D&D5e group hours of fun playtesting it. Controls are accessible from outside the table, and all the various inputs (HDMI, component video, etc) are accessible from underneath.
Rev 1.0 is the next version, with the 47" LED TV and the oak case. With folding legs and all, it should weigh less than 50 lbs, and should be something that one person can set up, take down, and store. The Lexan on the front will have a lip around the edges to save the TV from spilled gamer fuel. The case will need openings to access the controls, and the sensor for the remote control will be visible through the Lexan as well.
I'm awaiting a few more tools, which should be here in the next handful of days. At that point I can start routing the oak and building the case.
23 Dec 2020
Ahh, the joys of Craigslist. I bought a 47" LED TV this morning, big enough to invade my personal space the whole drive home (in a pickup with a bench seat, there's no place to hide from a rectangle that big!)
With the stand removed, this TV weighs a little under 22 lbs. It's too large and awkward for one person to realistically handle, but once the case is built it will be simpler to maneuver around.
Image quality is 1080p, much better than the prototype. It also uses less power (LEDs are more efficient) and thus produces less heat. It was more expensive than the plasma TV, but when I get to the point of production, I'll probably be building it for some $300 Walmart flatscreen, with standardized measurements for the TV. Different sizes and shapes of TV are possible for custom work, in case somebody just can't bear having a game table with less than a 73" screen or something.
The video above is of the prototype, including the layer of Lexan on top. The video on the right is of the LED TV, but does NOT include the Lexan. Picture quality might be effected by that layer, I'm not sure, but the visual difference between the two is distinct!
22 Dec 2020
I think my next upgrade will be an LED tv, as opposed to the plasma one. Plasma is bright, vivid, etc - the quality of the picture is fine. But it's incredibly heavy. The prototype game table is 100 lbs, and does not include legs. For a tv that goes onto a stand or wall hanger, and never has to move, that's not a big deal, but for a table that has to be brought out, set up, then put away - it's a big deal.
The LED tvs I've examined weigh significantly less than half as much as their equivalent plasma brethren. The wood, Lexan, etc add maybe 12-15 lbs, so this could change the table from something that really should have two people to move, into something that's merely awkward for one.
21 Dec 2020
New camera installed, the image quality for remote players is improved but I'll be adjusting ambient lighting and the like to get the best picture quality possible. The cam is a Logitech C920s, and it does a better job displaying the high contrast areas of the plasma TV (no minor challenge, that!) than the previous camera. This isn't a feature that I'll include on every table, as most people prefer to play in person, but one of our players is a hundred miles away and quarantined.
A friend clued me into a source of barn boards, which will be one of the options for future cases if people want it. The next case is already going to be oak, but there will be future ones.
14 Dec 2020
The new drive (M.2 NMVe SSD, with incredible I/O speed) has reduced load times by about 75%!
Maps that took six to ten minutes are now up and running in under two minutes. Editing the maps involved long load times, too, though they were less important as there weren't a pack of gamers waiting impatiently - and those load times are also massively reduced.
This new drive can only be installed in a motherboard with the M.2 socket, but my mobo is modern enough to have one. This drive is as much faster than my older SSDs as those SSDs were faster than spinning platter HDs. When eventually I outgrow this mobo, I'm going to ensure that the next one has at least one M.2 socket, if not several. A 500GB M.2 SSD costs about $52 on Amazon right now, and Moore's Law tells us they're only going to get cheaper as time passes.
At this point, I'm satisfied with the performance of all the hardware of the game table. Image quality is fantastic for the people in the room, and adequate for the remote viewers (a new webcam will eventually improve this). Load speeds are down to the point that they're acceptable, though if I were satisfied with lower resolution animations, or with still pictures, there would be vastly less data to move around - I'm okay with spending two minutes to get such excellent eye candy as these maps. The prototype table is soon to come apart so I can install the same TV into the new oak case that I've yet to make, and I'll be ordering a new sheet of Lexan to armor the top surface. I have a bunch of table legs available, though I'm more likely to set this up with folding banquet table legs for ease of storage and setup.
Tamas Nemes is the artist who makes the animated maps I've displayed. He releases multiple new maps each month, visually spectacular settings of ancient temples, city streets, caves, swamps - the list is endless. He is on Patreon, I get no kickbacks from him.
This is "Floating Islands".
11 Dec 2020
I've installed the SSD, it's the first time I've used one with this small a form factor. It's the size of a stick of gum, and mounts directly to a specialized socket in the motherboard, which is how it has bandwidth so vastly faster than SATA. This should reduce by rather a lot any delays due to disk access. This weekend's game will determine if disk access was the problem.
7 Dec 2020
Saturday's test went well, with minor problems to solve that are more computer related than game table related. Maps take a distressingly long time to load - those animated maps are a huge chunk of data, leaving players a too-generous amount of time to go grab snacks. I've purchased a really fast SSD to store the data - my other option is to make smaller maps, breaking up dungeons into several files, which will make the load times more frequent but shorter.
SSD has grown up somewhat since the last time I bought one. This one is PCI-e, as opposed to SATA, and boasts a truly spectacular read/write speed compared to older SSDs, entirely out of the league of the classic spinning rusty platter HDs of ancient days. My computer's next bottleneck is RAM, but I've blown my upgrade budget on this fix.
I have the oak planks needed for the new game table case, and have a few more tools coming through the mail for carpentry. I'm still debating on how to join the boards - dovetail? Blind dovetail? End lap? Box joint? Mortise and tenon? I've been reading up on joinery, and while the really fancy stuff is way beyond my abilities, there are a lot of ways that involve not much more skill than I have, and are still strong and beautiful.
28 Nov 2020
The LED strip lights didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, so I removed them. The prototype case now has a rectangular hole chiseled into it, exposing the TV's controls (this TV didn't come with a remote). Tonight's game will help us decide how much we can adjust the TV in order to make it easier for the camera to capture - this may be the last modification I make before starting on the next case. This one is pine, and has had a slew of changes in its short life. The next one will be oak, and will incorporate all the features that I had to retrofit to the prototype.
The next case will have the correct size of Lexan - I screwed the prototype measurements up, which is why the Lexan barely covered the screen and left the top and bottom of the TV exposed.
As the screen, and the underside of the Lexan, like to statically attract dust, I'm going to get some open celled foam to line the edges like a gasket. The other option would be to make the Lexan simpler to remove for cleaning, but I'd rather have the game table as sturdy as possible - simpler to make the Lexan immobile and part of the structure.
The next model will be using the same TV as the prototype, and will go through its own cycle of playtesting and modification, until I'm confident that the design is ready for production.
14 NOV 2020
Trying out an LED strip around the inside edge, to give better definition to the minis. While it made it easier to see details through the camera, the in-person players were bothered by the intense light. Back to the drawing board - LED strip lights weren't as helpful as I'd expected. The webcam isn't great at dealing with varying light levels - pale things wash out entirely if the rest of the screen is dark, for example, making Fog of War more disruptive. We are replacing the camera with a newer one for the next game, we will see how much that helps the problem.
We also had a few minor problems with the software, due to some animations I'd downloaded that don't play nicely with others.
With the LED strip lights, the minis can be seen clearly... just not by anybody in the same room as the table, as they're squinting through the glare. Not as useful as I'd hoped.
I made a few LED lights in different colors, for better visibility on the camera. Once again, I'm hoping the new camera removes the need for them - until CoVID is under control, we can't do any face to face gaming. This game table already works well enough for face to face, what I'm working on now is better Zoom performance (or Discord).
10 NOV 2020
This test was previous to installing it in the case, with the TV still upright on its stand.