Agreed, in my table the tv hangs from a lip so the entire back is open. But a tv isn’t designed to vent heat that way, it’s designed to stand vertical not horizontal. Thankfully I had no issues myself
@progressiveDND My friend's TV died after 3 games. I told hit to make sure to put ventilation but he didn't listen. Thankfully he was using a used 40$ TV so replacing it won't be expensive. I just hope the TV he finds a replacement are the same outside dimensions otherwise it will be a lot of work. I am builing a portable TV cabinet right now for a 32" TV and I purchased 4 50mm fans to push air in the TV and 2 80mm fans to vent from the side of the wood box. I expect no issues.
i think the best move is just to make sure you get a relatively modern tv, led, they tend to run way cooler. I went generic on mine, but 4k and never had an issue.
I built my table large enough to be a 10 seat dining room table. I covered the entire thing with a piece of thick glass to protect everything while we have Thanksgiving, dinners and Christmas dinners and what not. There is an issue with room around the center of the table for my players, but we solve this by just putting a TV tray for the players that wanted more space. That actually worked really well. I use roll20 to project the screen and I love it. I solved the floating issue mostly by using a dark character token that I control from my DM screen on the TV. So when a player does movement, they tell me where they wanna move I’ll move the token on the screen. They tell me when it’s right, then whatever player is closest moves the mini on top of the token I placed. That helps reduce the floating effect a lot. Also, because I’m using the tokens, I can keep track of status effects and I can lay down area of effects from the token which is really awesome
There's some great advice in here, especially about the viewing angle of the TV. I do take one exception though, and this could entirely be personal just to me: I haven’t used a TV table yet and have always hand drawn my maps on grid paper but I am planning to build my own TV table soon, which is why I'm here researching and looking for tips and inspiration. Even when I have done had drawn maps though, some of my maps have been REALLY big. The table we play on is 65"x38" and I have had lots of paper maps that have been as large as 63"x34". It wasn't always necessary to have maps quite that large and over time I have learned to make smaller maps by building vertically and generally making rooms more constrained and using scale and such, but my players seem to enjoy larger maps more where there are more things to interact with, more details and more complexity. Sure, you can do more maps that are smaller and only show smaller pieces of a larger area at a time, but its a lot more work changing out multiple maps to show smaller sections of one larger area. If my players are exploring a dungeon, I like to have the entire floor of the dungeon they are on mapped out on one large map and only have to change maps when they go from one floor to another. For example, when running Curse of Strahd there is this abandoned castle (I can't remember the name of it) that you can explore, having something to do with the Order of the Platinum Dragon or something, where you can pick up a side quest from a ghost or something like that. In the book they have maps for the castle and each map is one entire floor plus outbuildings and a bit of the surrounding terrain, and the place is quite large. I doubt you could fit one entire floor of that castle on a screen as small as you are suggesting and still have a 1"x1" grid for players to place minis. Yes, it can be frustrating sometimes when there isn’t a lot of table space around the edges for peoples binders and stuff and when they lay them on the maps sometimes the map gets pulled and minis get knocked over or whatnot but my players definitely dont get as excited when I put smaller maps on the table and its also frustrating when we have to stop play in order for me to change out maps. I think when a big map hits the table they feel like there is a lot more to discover in front of them. They dont know what to expect but they expect a lot of it, like theres more opportunity before them and they are getting into something that's going to take some time investment- a big adventure. Smaller maps are always just a tavern that they stop at along the way or a little church with a crypt below that they are going to find the end of in the next 30 minutes because theres only 3 rooms on the whole map and how much could there be to do in just 3 rooms? You might have to reach further to move minis or ask someone to move a mini for you or you might have to get creative with space to make room for binders and books and character sheets and stuff but I think its worth it to have a larger screen if you can manage it without having the screen take up 100% of the real estate on the table top. Honestly, I dont think I would go much smaller than a 50" if you can help it. Im using our current table to incorporate a TV and was originally going to go with a 65" because it would fit, even if only just barely width-wise. I did think better of it and wanted to give my players more table room around the TV and keep cost down and decided to go with a 50-55" inch instead. A 55" will probably be plenty of room for big maps but even at 50" it feels like its starting to get a little small. At 42" or less I think I would be disappointed with how large a map I could make and I think my players would be disappointed to not get big maps anymore eithr, even if the map on the screen only showed 1/4 of what is actually a larger area, I dont think it would have the same effect as actually seeing just how large an area you actually have to explore.
Sure I get that. Most people using tv tables are using software that lets them move the view area around, and then you just shift the tokens. It's not ideal, so I understand why someone would want to go mega huge on a TV to avoid. Still most VTTs used in TV tables (Look at Arkenforge, it's got the strongest tv table support I have seen) use fog of war, and dynamic lighting, which could mean most the time large sections of that massive screen could be black anyways. A couple of things not in the video that will be more in play if you do go larger. 1. You will want to be careful of people reaching over it. Any pressure way in the middle of a TV could actually damage it. You may want to consider hitting up a local glass shop (it's not terribly expensive, mine is glassed) and have them cut some glass to fit it. It's strong, and scratch resistant unlike plexi. One drawback is that glass over the screen will create a floating effect of your tokens. they will appear to be floating a "foot or two" above the map and when viewed at the angle you and your players will be seated at. 2. if using glass, try to seal it with some weather stripping to help stop spills, it's cheap, and could save you frying your TV when your barbarian decides to barbarian in real life :) It all comes down to preference, and I feel that mine is too large, which is why I put that in the list. It's also totally worth making sure that you have room player stations, it's a long game to have to hold and shuffle around your stuff, plus food and drink. When you pull the trigger, whip together a build video for the people still waiting to do it, and @ us :) Thanks for weighing in, stick around, we are trying to build up a nice little channel!
How thick should I make the glass for my TV table? I want it to be strong enough so that it wont shatter, but also thin enough so the minis do not hover too much.
hey hey! so if you can get away without adding glass over it that would be your best option to avoid the floating. If you aren't comfortable with that then just do a google for a glass shop and they should let you know what thickness you need to span the area. Keep in imnd it's not intended to hold heavy weights or take major impacts.
I had a glass company cut mine and I went with the thickness recommended for a standard dining room table. My gaming table looks exactly like a dining room table because…..it is my dining room table and needs to function exactly like a dining room table with the added benefit on game night it can power all of our devices and be the tv gaming table. when we’re not playing games it’s a regular table that doesn’t give my wife decorating headaches. The glass is thick enough that I don’t worry about someone leaning over and breaking it. I can put dishes glass platters and even all of the decorations in the center with out worry.(kind of cool thing I put a vortex on the screen so that it looks like a portal in the table for Halloween) I use roll 20 to project battle maps. One of my players logs in to roll20 and projects the player view on the map. I use my laptop on the dm screen and control tokens, the player says where they want to move to. I move the token then whoever is closest moves the mini on top of the token which works really well and visually eliminates a lot of the floating, not all of it but it helps. That’s what I did and why. Hope that helps.
