Ultimate D&D-playing dungeon. And I do mean "ultimate."

The Burntwire Brothers spent two years building a custom D&D room in their house. It includes a rack of swords, medieval chandeliers on dimmers controlled by the dungeon-master, as well as hidden strobes and fog machines. It also has every goddamned game ever published, by appearances. And skulls. Iron-bound doors. You get the picture. Give these chaps the Happy Mutant of the Year award.

Two years later...

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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gobo

They have repros of all the weapons from the first D&D movie? Yikes.

They have a neon D&D sign? Double yikes!

Amazing work :)
- Anonymous
  
  Quite probably not repros of the props. (And when they talk about the cover art to various modules decorating the place, they aren’t talking about prints either.)
demidan

Nice place! Maybe it’s time to post my friends house, er drunken bar sketch turned reality. Three story castle with drawbridge, 25′ tall trebuche, war room includes the never ending Napoleonic battle with nearly 50k 15mm figures, and enough swords spears and armor to start a small rebellion.
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  Demidan,
  
  Yeah, maybe it is time to post pics of your friend’s house :)
  
  Plz!
Anonymous

You’re telling me they went to all this trouble and expense and didn’t even build in a digital gaming table?

Wow. Someone needs to introduce them to the digital age of gaming.
pentomino

So there’s the maximal effort dungeon. I wonder about the minimal effort dungeon, though. The standard “card table in the living room” I’m used to has people against the wall and furniture, or not enough room for everything.

I’m no GM, but I’ve had one apartment or two that had a perfect kitchen for the job, depicted here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/pentoldapt . There’s a long bar that goes around the kitchen counter for the players, so they all have space mapped out, and plenty of space behind them if they need to dismount their stool. The GM stands in the kitchen and has his own kitchen counter real estate, a few inches lower, for room layout and/or a GM screen. Players don’t have to get up for more soda because the GM can also bartend, and the sink is right there, so dirty plates and cups can be collected, rinsed, and stashed in the dishwasher immediately. Empty cans, likewise, can be immediately discarded. Kitchen outlets provide power for laptops. And all of this is possible with minimal disruption to any furniture you may already have.

So I’d like to see some interior shots of
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  This is the minimal effort Dungeon:
  
  http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Homemade-Whiteboard-on-the-cheap!/
  
  It’s a ziploc bag, with a piece of cardboard in it. With some paperclips and a whiteboard marker. Everyone can have one, or just the DM, for different values of “minimal”. Maybe have another one, just for keeping track of numbers.
  
  Arrange yourselves anywhere. Draw map. Wipe map. Draw view. Wipe view. Etc.
pentomino

sorry, got cut of. I’d like to see some interior shots of some empty or model-room apartments that have space that is ideally suited for hosting a game, with the least amount of modification. I think the apartment I posted will be hard to beat.

(Discolsure: I used to live there, but I moved out three years ago, so I don’t think I could possibly collect a finder’s fee if one of you moves in there.)
Deidzoeb

To keep perspective, compare this with any given remodeling article in Sunset magazine or New York magazine, and these geeks probably aren’t spending as much money or time as others get praised for doing.
zyodei

Better watch out for that rack of swords if the game gets a bit too intense.

On the other hand, having a rack of swords against the wall might act as a deterrent to dungeonmaster abuse ;)

“The glittering treasure box contains 50 spirits of damnantion? You sonuvabitch! *CHOP*”
pecoto

He gets a “B” for the room. The table though….ergh, barely a “D”. Years ago I saw a custom gaming table someone had built….it featured pneumatic tubes for sending messages secretly from the GM to the players, separate nooks for everyone’s dice, books and character sheets, as well as cup and snack holders and privacy screens for each location players could sit at.
- coaxial
  
  i remember that table! Too bad I can’t find a link to it anymore. It was from like 2000 if I remember correctly. The closest thing to it I found was this $9000 behemoth… er… I mean “sultan.” http://www.geekchichq.com/Co_Store/The_Showroom/The_Sultan/The_Sultan.html
  
  The geek in me would love to have one, even though I don’t play any of these games anymore.
- Anonymous
  
  You must mean this table: http://www.agyris.net/v3/ugt/default.asp
Dave Faris

It’s really great that his mom let him build that in her basement.
- freshacconci
  
  For the win
Bartgroks

I have never been moved to jealousy by a boingboing post until this one. As a long time pen and paper aficionado I was blown away by this. Puts my discounted defective dry erase gamemap draped over a scavenged desk to shame.

Absolutely perfect timing too in that i was getting ready for my weekly Pathfinder game when it went up. Mailed the link to my old players back in Texas and made sure everyone playing today got a chance to sit at my box and peruse for a few minutes. Everyone was really impressed.
absimiliard

This is kind of awesome.

However . .. .

-abs remains a fairly minimalist d&d-er, give him a matt and some write-on/wipe-off markers and he has pretty much everything he needs, that said . . . . props ARE cool
Stefan Jones

Two things I would add:

Better lighting for the table.

A 50 horsepower shredder for disposing of D&D books as new editions are released. With a tub of plastic composition for turning the resulting pulp into papier mache which would be molded into dungeon scenery.

Oh, there are boardgames in the closet! One nice feature I’ve seen in seriosu gaming rooms are storage boards for preserving a game in progress.
Laroquod

Digital roleplaying is for rules lawyers and people who understand the point of roleplaying so poorly that they no longer see the value of the classic philosophies of ‘the rules are suggestions’ and ‘the DM has sole discretion as to what happens’, as set down by the Great Gygax in the time of the ancients. You should be ashamed. In fact you are ashamed, you are so stunned by the realisation that you have not really been roleplaying at all as it was intended, that you drop your sword and it makes a large clatter. Please roll for wandering monsters, and don’t be trying to tell me that some computer program says that’s not when you roll, or I’ll make you roll again.
starbugtwo

nice record collection by the look of it
adamnvillani

What’s up with all the multiple copies of some items? Did he just buy large collections as lots and not re-sell the duplicates?
Geak

Absolutely Fantastic! I’ve wanted to do something like that for myself for the last couple years but I’ve been too lazy. The room seems just a little small though. I don’t see chairs and not having someone standing in the pics to compare with it makes me think you’d get a sword hilt in the small of the back if you try to move around behind someone sitting at the table, which might make trips to the fridge for drinks a little difficult.
Anonymous

The only thing missing is women. I kid, I kid (sort of). I have many fond memories of playing D and D as a teenager. It requires imagination, cooperation, socializing, a bit of math, and more. It’s a shame to see it elbowed out by video games.
Andrew

It’s like that Seinfeld episode where George stops having sex, so he spends all his mental energy on intellectual/creative pursuits!
Fang Xianfu

Getting a 403 when I try to click the link. Or, indeed, the website. Has the weight of Boing Boing crushed it?
Ambiguity

…medieval chandeliers on dimmers…

Having a hard time parsing this one.
Axx

That’s awesome. The remodeling + the game collection must have cost a fortune…

The thing that jumped out at me was actually the table. It looks beautiful! Well, the top anyway.