Getting Hammered part 3

Let's get into some of the accessories and options available from Hammered Game Tables, and specifically what I chose.

The first ones I want to tackle are the $130 option for Under-Lip Lighting, and the included player stations.

Under-Lip Lighting consists of strings of bright LED lights that lend themselves perfectly to lighting the player stations allowing easy reading and writing.

 The six 2' wide player stations can open much further than shown above. The lighting shines down on the stations providing an amazing amount of light.

You can see just how much room there is within the player station. Quite a few of the standard D&D sized game books can easily be stored within, along with dice bags, pencils, character sheets, etc, and cats if you so desire. (No cats were harmed in the making of this article.)

One suggestion I am going to make to Hammered Game Tables now that it is obvious to me, is to include a raised strip of wood just inside the drawer with a depression for holding pencils so they do not roll around when opening and closing the drawer.

There is of course, another advantage to the under-lip lighting . . . mood. If you want to run a session of a horror game or your adventure takes place in a very dark location, this lighting does wonders.

The LEDs are bright enough to be the only source of light in the room and are positioned to throw the light down and off the floor which will give those seated around the table an eerie light from below.

The lights are not just along the two long sides. There is also a strip attached to the GM caddy ensuring that the ref isn't flying blind. Oh, and if you want to be a real rat bastard, you control which lights strips are on or off from switches placed somewhere around the GM caddy.

I imagine Dan could provide different colors of LEDs, but I didn't ask, and now that I think about it, that might be a pretty cool idea. While Hammered Game Tables says the under-lip lighting option is 1-per table, there appears to be enough room that if you really wanted a different extra colored LED strip it could probably be done.

Even with the room lights on, the LEDs are still bright and useful for the players.

Next post I'll be talking about the GM caddy and the Dwarven Runes I opted to have added to the table.

Playing even when only two players show up.

Lost Baronies Session #5 is over and done with, and the time to begin preparing for #6 is approaching.

Due to some very odd scheduling issues this summer, there have only been two players (the same two each time) at the game for sessions 3, 4, and 5. The schedule is going to get wackier yet, though it should settle down when fall arrives.

With a party of 10 characters run by 6 (was 7, see an earlier post) players, many people would be inclined to play something else or cancel the session. In the past I would have done the same.

The differences for this campaign are that it is not heavily plot driven, being a sandbox style game, some of the players travel an hour or more to play, and I don't want to lose momentum and have the game die off as some past games have done.

When this happened for session #3 I was caught off guard, not having heard from anyone that they couldn't make it. Since then I have made a point of clarifying with everyone what their schedules are like for the foreseeable future.

The game is scheduled, and has been since before the start, to run regularly on the first and third Saturday of each month. Players can easily mark their calendars for it. Despite this, it has become routine now to send a reminder sometime during the latter part of the week before the day of play.

According to the players, unless things change, there should be 3 to 5 players for the next session since a new player is expected to join. We shall see.