Build Your Dream D&D Game Room: Top Tips from Daniel Hanzlian

Speaker 1 0:03

You've seen the awesome room setups on shows like Critical Role High Rollers dimension 20. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a room like that in your house? Today we sit down with Daniel Hanson. Am I saying that right?

Unknown Speaker 0:19

That's correct. Perfect. Perfect.

Speaker 1 0:21

And we're talking about building a game room for d&d or other role playing games exactly like that, where it fits the bill of total immersion. So welcome to How to be a better DM. Like I said, we are joined by Daniel hands land today. And I'm Justin Lewis, your host here with Tanner Whalen. Go ahead and say hi, Tanner. Hey, guys. And this is the show for dungeon masters who want to make better sessions. without going to college for an acting degree or becoming a writer. They just you just want to do better without spending years and years and years. And we're excited to talk about today's show. So let's just dive right in. First of all, Dan, thanks for being with us. Thanks for taking time out of your day. Have a beer? Yeah. First question, I wanted to ask, what are the biggest benefits you've seen from building out the game room that you have?

Speaker 2 1:16

Well, we used to play in my living room fair dining room, I guess it is but basically the living room. And then eventually, I was like, I think I could do a little bit better. Like, I think we could make something out of this. So we ended up building this table. And ever since we built the table, everything's kind of built off from there. But ever since then, it's kind of enhanced every little bit of the game. Because every time I add something to the game room, it feels like everyone gets a little bit more immersed. Like even so much is like the candles, or the back the walls and stuff like that that are in my setup, it just feels like it's added a little bit more immersion so I don't have to focus so much on myself and doing all the acting and all that I can kind of rely on the setup to kind of take care of some of the little pieces of d&d that kind of make it what it is. So

Speaker 1 2:04

absolutely. I think for podcast listeners, I should probably describe to you the room, that if you go to his Instagram, it's actually Dan's Lian, the DM, so da N Z li a n, the DM, you can see what I'm talking about. But in the middle of the room, you have this very large table. And the best way I could describe it, I'm guessing eight feet across at its widest point, right? It's actually 12 feet 12 Oh my god. That's beautiful

Speaker 2 2:38

feet by I think it's 10 and a half feet is that is

Speaker 1 2:42

awesome length. Yeah, so and the corners are, I guess you would consider them tapered or cut. So a person can actually sit on the corner. There are a total of eight seats around the west, east and south sides of the table. And the north side is the DEM spot, which is actually inset, probably I'm guessing two to three feet into the table

Unknown Speaker 3:08

correctly. It's about two, three.

Speaker 1 3:10

So that's awesome. And the table is finished with this nice, kind of a little bit darker finish. Not not the darkest I've seen but not the lightest. And in the middle of the table is this pretty big TV screen facing up that you put minis on and things like that. So that's just the table behind the table and on the walls are but kind of a stone fascia right on the walls. And then there are candle sconces throughout the room. And then IV hanging there's a shield behind the DMC the DMC, it's really just an amazing thing. Also, if you look up and you're in the middle of the room, you see kind of a cloudy sky with kind of cotton and LEDs up above the cotton. So it kind of gives the the thunder effect. It's a really cool setup. So obviously, with all of that, you said you started with a table, which I think is a really interesting thing, because that's how you you know, with d&d, you start with filling up the table. So what gave you your idea for the table that you wanted?

Speaker 2 4:11

So initially, it was a friend of mine and I worked together and we had the initial group was basically just work people. So well, we were building tables, not like actually just kind of assembling tables because we were getting a furniture store. And we were doing basically we build the tables and then they get sent out from the warehouse and they go to other people's houses and stuff like that. So we're getting into the furniture side of the building. So and we're like we could easily build something like this. It's not like that much a couple screws here a couple bolts, shaved down the edges, a little bit of sanding, but so he kept giving me in like my head. I'm like, you definitely do it. We could definitely do it. So we kept bouncing off ideas we ended up getting initially we grabbed some blankets, and then lay them out on the floor in my basement and the kind of the shape that we're looking to get. And I'm like, I saw a lot of tables online, and no one really had a way that everyone can see like the center of the screen evenly. And that was like the biggest selling thing for why we want the table we all went with so. But the whole process of building, it probably only took about a week. But the planning took probably at least three or four weeks of just kind of deciding what we wanted. So but that was the initial idea was just to get the table going. And then after that, I was like, Ah, this is probably good enough. But then I was like, I think I could do some of the walls. And then I was like, I think I could do something with you know, everything around the table. So it just evolved from just building that initial table. And again, I the real reason why I wanted it was for the screen. Because, I mean, initially I was drawing hand maps, and it's cool, but it takes a lot of time. And then I kept seeing all the digital maps are available. And I was like, Oh my God, if I could just get a TV on the table. We're good to go. Yeah, and

Speaker 3 6:06

the nice thing is, since is built into the table, because I I've had one where it's you know, it's just like in a box and you put that on your current table. And it takes up a lot of space. And so it's a lot better that way. Now, here's a question. With hindsight, obviously, it's a great table. With hindsight, is there anything you would have added to it? At this like now that you've used it for a bit?

Speaker 2 6:29

Um, I have some plans to potentially make some maybe something with fog, some holes underneath in a way that they can maybe funnel some fog into? Obviously, some more LEDs, obviously, everything's led, of course.

Unknown Speaker 6:49

Easy on there, but love it. Maybe

Speaker 2 6:52

even some speakers built into the table, give it a little bit of rumble effect. Can we have a cool, buddy sick, all these are obviously things you could do now. But if I was going to redo some things, I would probably just try to do the woodworking with better but it was the first table so I can. So there's little cracks and little creases and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, I think it turned out way better than I would have expected. Because I mean, I'm not a carpenter in any means. So

Speaker 3 7:21

I love that because it's, I mean, for everyone listening, keep in mind is like, even if you don't feel confident, you don't have to do it once and do it perfect. You know, like, obviously you did very well. But like, Yeah, but like in the end, it's like, Hey, you can make a pretty good first version. And then with time, you can be like, Oh, next time I try this, I'll upgrade it in these specific ways. You don't have to be perfect the first time. And the same goes for the other aspects of your room. You don't have to, you know, get everything right, you can start with a starting line. And then everything moves from there. It's just about getting started.

Speaker 1 8:00

Yeah, I'm a big proponent of you dip your toe in. And then if you like it, go the next like half centimeter. Right. So so the next big question that comes to my mind, I'm kind of an Ebenezer Scrooge, how much did just the table cost to where it is today. So

Speaker 2 8:19

Speaker 3 8:30

sense. Which is huge because like they go for a lot more than that

Speaker 2 8:37

the TV is a 35 inch Samsung TV which ended up being 650 When I bought it and the wood itself wasn't actually that much actually the wood was probably only on our 30 bucks because it's just pine it's nothing like more than that and then the felt was probably one of the more bigger expenses the two big sheets of felt that cover was actually I felt it's like a neoprene foam kind of like a mousepad Yeah, like dry suit. But that was probably almost 200 bucks the two pieces like each was 100 bucks so yeah, it definitely it wasn't expensive. I thought it was gonna be when we first because I was like my buddy and I were gonna chip in half and then I ended up paying most of it because again it didn't cost as much as I was gonna Yeah, because I mean my computer costs Yeah, everything else around the table is been just again little add ons but my whole goal with the whole room is that everything could be taken away. So even like the walls like I didn't want a permanent solution because again, if you're going to sell your house people having a dungeon face won't feel weird. So I mean depending on the buyer,

Unknown Speaker 9:52

the other buyer is like 50 over asking

Speaker 2 9:56

and everything but the actual The whole table is designed and the idea that it can be taken out. And so it's basically you can cut it right in half, except for the base, the base is something, but the main part of the top is just two pieces of plywood so that they can be taken off and then taken right upstairs, so that's

really cool. Yeah. Tanner, do you have a question? You look like your essays? Um,

no, I'm just, I'm blown away. Because like, specifically, I think that like, you know, some people might be like, Oh, I don't have a friend who does carpentry. I don't have a friend who does. It's like, here's the thing. You don't have to do a table. You don't have to do things exactly how you did it. You can get like, steps long. Like I said, I used a box TV, one that you put on the table. If you're not, if you're just using hand drawn maps right now. And you're like, oh, I want to kind of upgrade it a little bit. You can make a like little holding box and buy a very cheap TV for not that much. And then same for anything you want to hang on the walls, obviously. I mean, here's a question that shield Where do you get that shield?

This is the Amazon purchase right there. That's a I love it. It's not as heavy as like a regular shield drive. It's a more thinner metal. But the way I was looking for shields everywhere, and I couldn't find anything I liked. And then I just like, No, I'm just gonna go on Amazon, see if maybe they got something there. I was like, oh my god, this is exactly lassic just needed something to hang behind me to kind of bring the center focus behind kind of that area. And again, because a nice little backdrop, as opposed to like just I thought maybe crosswords would be kind of cool, too, but kind of stuff on the shield. Love it.

Yeah. And my point there is that like, you know, you can find cool random pieces of like stuff like maybe you go to the farmers market or to your local bookstore, or you just go on Etsy. And there's you can fill in your room with like a lot of cheaper things. But then have like some key pieces that people are like, Oh, my goodness, you must have spent so much or man this is so much. And then you're like I got it on Amazon.

My biggest thing that I would say for people if they want like a cheap thing that like transformed, the whole room is definitely the walls, those walls. I mean, that is like the cheapest thing in my room was the walls, but I think it brings like the whole room together. And you could do that. And even in your dining room, your living room wherever you want. I mean, those walls are basically just a party kids party wallpaper, which cost less than 20 bucks. And then I took a backdrop from like a photography backdrop of wood planks, and then just cut strips of the wood planks and taped over the seams. And it's all basically pinned to the wall. But you can literally just tape it to the wall with like painters tape or something like that. And it's, you could just take it down whenever you want.

And so for this whole process, like, Have you felt like it has had any drawbacks? Or like maybe have you spent a lot more time than you expected? Or has it been pretty good.

Honestly, for the setup of it, some of the more time consuming things obviously the table took a while but the most time consuming thing was probably recently when I put that cloud ceiling and but again, it's more of a just like a lot of that just is like an hour or two every day of like gluing and putting stuff together and then actually assembling it doesn't take that long but so far, I haven't really regretted too much of things that I've gotten. There's a couple of things that I would like to get, but obviously they're expensive projectors and stuff like that, but a lot of it kind of comes down to costs and it's like can I really justify buying something that's $1,000 Or is it alright?

I'm really glad you use the word justified. So are you married? Do you have a significant other that you live with in the house?

Yes, I am married and expecting a child. Congrats.

That is so cool. With being married the natural question from one married man to another is how in the world did you get your wife to sign off and say yes, this is okay for you to do in our house.

Luckily she is actually a pretty big gamer and I ended up convincing her initially to play with our group because we were missing some people that missing but we only had a group of like three and I was like you should just play with us you know you're gonna be there already mass punches happen again the other games and she's big until like MMOs and kind of the same idea that your character out play it out. I mean it's pretty much all d&d is make it what you want. So she's actually she's not as hyped as some of my other players are but she likes playing I think she likes the she likes the battles and she likes the puzzles and things that come up with but we actually met through gaming so it kind of worked out that she is such like a big gamer too. So

So I think you lucked out then you chose rightly before you try to convince

Yeah, I would have been hard to get a sports person and but my brother actually is more of a athlete kind of sports person. And he is probably my biggest fan like biggest component of wanting to do games all the time. And I'm like, I would have never have expected you to be one to play this nerdy game with us being like the big athlete Jack.

People surprise you. You never know who's going to come out of the woodwork saying, you know, I've always wanted to. I've always wanted to try that. The next question I want to ask is out of everything that you've invested in, were there any things that you were maybe surprised at? Kind of the lack of return? Right, you thought that it would be a bigger payoff? And it was just kind of like, oh, yeah, I got that. It's nice. But I was maybe expecting a little bit more things to stay away from essentially. Hmm,

good question. I haven't really found too much that been like, it's a big expense. As I try to keep things lower costs. I really, honestly need to get more into 3d printing, because I bought two 3d printers. And there's so much like you do with it. But I feel like such a daunting task sometimes to like, sit down and actually put it together, like, put together what you want for your game. So in terms of costs, they probably want one of the more expensive things that I don't use as much as I probably should. Yeah, so it's definitely good to have like, if you're just trying to build terrain for a lot of it, but in my opinion, it could be used more, it's like if you're into that kind of thing and go for it. But if you're just like, and I might use it, I probably would stay away from it, in terms of like cost to what you really get for it. Because yeah, project.

Yeah. And kind of speaking of the project element of it all, I could see a world where you just made the table. And then you're like, oh, good enough. Like what what kind of helped you keep the ball rolling, so to speak, and like, continue to look for ways to upgrade, it

is actually just the players. I feel like every time I see them come in and they see something new, they're like, oh my god, this is crazy. Like when I just unveiled I think it's been a month or two since I built the ceiling when they saw that. They're like, Oh, my God, what we've made the ceiling, they every time they think it's like some professional comes in and does it and I'm just like, it's not that hard. You just kind of you sit down, you plan it out, and then you try to make it as best you can. And, again, nothing's gonna be perfect. So people are not going to notice the imperfections. But you will like everything about my table. I'm always nitpicking, but again, they're just like, This is amazing. I don't know how you did this. And it's like, you just got to do it sometimes. And most people won't realize the little cracks is even when you're playing D, you need to get D you don't like you might like criticize yourself. But at the end of the day, some people love what you did. So

yeah. And I think that's, that's huge. I love that kind of insight that like, hey, half of the reason that I'm sorry, the whole reason we're DMS is, is because we just like the reactions of the players, right? Like, if you're going to spend that extra amount of time thinking about how to roleplay something, or dry or even drawing a map even before you have any of that stuff you're doing because you're like, oh, I want this, this to hit harder with the players. And so it's like, you know, to some extent, like if you start that journey, just by upgrading something, then you'll get a good

okay to get what will kind of go what? Yeah, for the listener, Tanner is cut out right now. I know that his thought was very deep and provoking. While he's thinking about that or trying to come back on. Let me continue with a different question. If you were to go back, and oh, 10 Are you back?

It all I had to say guys, I'm so sorry. All I had to say was that I think once you start, like improving your game and your room and your game room, then the ball gets rolling, because your players just give you that feedback. That's Sorry, that was it. I know you guys were waiting. Well, it was

it was a very fulfilling thoughts, I must say. Exactly. So Dan, if you were to go back and do it all again, with the knowledge that you have now, what things would you do first, like give us a step by step this is what I would do first, in order to create the optimal gameroom

Yeah, it's definitely you want to make sure that you have the right space for what you want to do. Because again, my basement is pretty long, and there's a lot of room with it. But even now, I'm like, Man, I wish I had a little bit different space a little bit taller ceilings a little bit this but again, it's just deciding where you want it and then kind of building out from there. But again, I think like a table even if it's not built just putting something in the center of the room to kind of fill the space that you want to have and again, making it so even if you just have like a regular table you can always Add another table to it if you want, like more dem space or something like that, but again, I feel like that's such a crucial area to kind of set in stone. And then kind of work your way out with again, I think walls is such a huge important thing, because most people are looking at the walls at all times, usually like looking around, looking around up the walls. But if you can just build from the center out, I think that's probably the best. Again, ceilings are, I mean, the tiles on the ceiling are cool and all but at the end of the day, that's not really that important. Again, what you have at the at the center of the table, and again, what you're doing with it, like whether it's a TV or just you know, if you actually have terrain that you're using, I think that's the most important thing to start with. So that's where I loaded up my started from again. Well,

I think that's actually quite insightful because it actually describes d&d itself. Right? We we, we start in the middle. And then we work our way out filling out all the details and things like that. Then I seriously enjoyed having on the show. Let's close out with our final tip for each of us on this is what you want to do. If you want to build a game room, ie more immersion for your players. And then you can choose if you want to go first giving the tip or last.

Oh, last, I want to hear what you guys have to say about this.

All right. All right, I can go firsthand if you're alright with that. Okay, so players, here's my tip for building out your game room. And the first tip I'm gonna cheat I'm gonna give to you. First step is to start, right. A lot of people, we've already said this in the show a lot of people, they wait till the timing is right, or until they have everything planned, or until some other quotation mark. But you really just need to start. If you think of something, then go do that thing. And every little bit is going to help with your immersion. The next thing I would say is don't blow your cache on just the fanciest thing you see, without looking for a cheaper alternative. Because like Dan said, you know, as I was looking for wall fascia to put on Home Depot naturally has like real stone that you can put on your wall. Now that has one effect. But obviously, if you do kind of a cheaper version, that's plastic, people still, they understand that it's plastic, but you still get the effect, right? So make sure you're not necessarily going for the fanciest option, when you could find a cheaper option, especially if you don't know exactly what you want.

Love it. For me, it's partially in the same vein, I would say, you know, keep it simple, stupid, right? Like I guess, I think that when you're starting focus on the main things, namely the wall, like the table, and maybe the lighting slash music, like focus on those main things first. Because as far as the other stuff, like the little bottles of like of dice, the little like the miniatures, things like that, those are all nice, but they can feel more like clutter, rather than kind of revolutionary. And so if your focus, like if you focus just most like, hey, if I'm going to save up money for anything, it's going to be for a tabletop TV, or it's going to be for some, like you were saying some, some cheap, affordable like wall hangings like that you can just put up and it suddenly changes. And as a bonus for that. If you don't have a room to dedicate, having things that are simple like that, that you can just put up with some tape that you can just put on your existing table, things like that, it's a great way to start, at least until you eventually do have a space where you can just keep it always a gamer, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. So for me, I would say, just to kind of envision what you want from the start, because again, it's harder to move around things once you kind of already started placing things, it's easy to, you know, like I said, buy things and just kind of fill your room with a bunch of stuff. But it's good to have an idea of what you kind of want it to look like at the end of you start with that. And kind of work your way from like the smallest piece until you have like a giant piece like and I have all these ideas for little things I can add on to my room. But at the end of the day, like if I don't have say the funds or the time or something like that, you don't want to like jump all in. I gotta have everything right at the start, you know, just kind of take little pieces by little pieces, add them into the room, because again, people will notice those things and honestly, it's probably better to have those little notices versus like everybody like, you know, I don't know where to look, everything's everywhere. And you know, just want to add little things, keep everybody on their toes, your players are gonna love seeing all the new things in your room. And again, I think that's the most important thing is to see the reaction of your players at the end of the day. So yeah,

I'm Love it. Honestly, this, this conversation has gotten me excited thinking of how can I make my game room that much better? And, you know, I'm gonna have to talk with my wife. She'll, she'll let me but again, thanks. Exactly. Thanks, Dan, for joining us on the show. Before we let you go, tell our listeners how they can reach out to you how they can support you see what you're up to all the things.

Yeah, obviously if you want to check out most of my stuff, I put pretty much put everything on to my Instagram, at Dan's land, the DM I also have Twitter as kind of the basically the same posts that I put up there. But anybody who is feel free to reach out to me, I'm more than willing to help you with your setups. And I always send out my blueprints that I have for my table anytime anybody asked, I probably got at least a couple of weeks of people wanting to the blueprints and I'm more than willing to kind of send those out or even just help with ideas of you know, what I did and kind of things that have worked for me. So definitely feel free to reach out and DM me anytime you want. I usually try to respond as long as doesn't end up in the spam much the day of

excellent, excellent. Well listen, we're gonna let you go. So that way you can go start building your game room. And we just ask you one one quick thing. As you do, make sure you take pictures and send it to us so we can glory in the game room you're building even if we're not necessarily at that, that point quite yet because of wives and whatnot, but send us pictures. Let us know how it's going for you and let us see the cool things we're up to until next time. Let's go ahead and roll initiative

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