I love tabletop games. If you are reading this, you probably love tabletop games, too.


Hey everyone, Reecius here from Frontline Gaming to discuss ways to make your gaming experience more immersive. More specifically, how to make miniatures games more immersive.

I love minis games because of their tactile nature. The games are visceral: they have real components that you really put together and painted. They have a little piece of you in them. We all create narratives in our minds about our little army men and women, even the most hardcore tournament gamers amongst us, while we play that make these games so much fun to play. That’s part of the appeal of minis games and why I prefer them to video games. We create a little universe that exists in part in the reality of the setting we create through our creative efforts and in part in our imaginations which we then share with other human beings. It’s collaborative story-telling, creation and competition all in one. Sweet!

One of the ways we can ramp this experience up is by creating an evocative setting. Beautiful minis with a fully fleshed out back-story (and yes, I am that nerdy. All my armies have written stories to go with them! Fan fiction FTW!) played on a piece of felt with a stack of books here and there is fine to get started with minis (and I know as a kid, my buddies and I started out in just that fashion), but to really take the experience to the next level, building a beautiful scene for your games to play out on is the next logical step.

We built all of this terrain for the LVO!
There are lots of ways to do this. Having built—literally—hundreds of tables of terrain in my gaming career I can tell you that while those mind-blowing custom tables we see in white dwarf or around the net are amazing and set the bar for what we can all aspire to build; for most of us that is either beyond our modeling ability, or we simply lack the time and inclination to build them.

Terrain kits, and custom jobs created from a mix of common items.

Easy ways to create a more immersive gaming environment are all around. Using a combination of household items like soda and tin cans, sprinkler pipes, bendy straws, etc. you can form a great foundation for some easy, custom terrain. Combine that with some items bought at the hardware or craft store such as hard board (awesome for basing terrain pieces), foam-core and the AMAZINGLY useful plastic pattern, and you can easily create some awesome terrain pieces. Mix this in with some purchased terrain kits such as those from GW or Amera to name a few, and you can economically create fun, playable, terrain that really enhances your gaming experience.


And, of course, I would be remiss not to plug out own products, the F.A.T. Mats. F.A.T. Mats are beautiful, durable, portable gaming surfaces to stage your games on. We actually have some new designs up for pre-order now for anyone interested. Just click here to see them. These really crank up the immersion of your game. For an example of how dramatic the difference is, take your terrain, put it on a sheet of felt, or wood table (or whatever you happen to use) and then pick it up, put a F.A.T. Mat down, and put the exact same terrain on the table and look at the amazing difference!


Another fun way to increase the immersion of your games is to write a back-story for them. I love doing this, but, I am a writer by nature (obviously). For those that don’t enjoy the act of writing, you can even just get some cool pics from the net to evoke the setting you are shooting for, and write a few bullet points about the key things you want to communicate about this particular battle. Email these to your gaming buddies before a game to create a more meaningful game and it gives you something fun to do when you should be working! Creating a narrative like this can take a normal Wednesday night game from fun, to epic. The best part about this is that it is easy to do, free, and is an enjoyable creative exercise of its own. You can link these games together too, with an ongoing narrative if you and your group are enjoying them. My old gaming group (hey, hey to the CCMG guys and gals!) and it was a blast. We created stories about our main characters and the battles they had between one another, it was really fun.

Lastly, document your games! Creating bat reps is fun, even if they are just for you and your friends. Written with pictures, videos, even something crazy like an audio drama recreation! Let your imagination go wild. Any of these can really enhance the game play experience.


Hopefully this article has given you some fun ideas for ways to increase the immersion of your game! Check out these pics of the new F.A.T. Mats which are up for pre-order now, and if you like any of them, head on over to Frontline Gaming to grab one. Happy gaming!









 
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