This veteran gamer created his own high-tech D&D custom table

By Mark Austin September 24, 2017

Dungeons & Dragons has grown in popularity the last several years, with new digital toolkits that make a Dungeon Master’s job easier to handle. No dice to lose, no rulebooks to thumb through, no smudged graph paper to track your progress. But veteran D&D fan Ken Hinxman has taken dungeon mastering to the next level with a home-built high-tech Dungeons & Dragons custom table that includes a 4K display and touchscreen capability.

Hinxman, who’s known as Caethial on Tumbler and Twitter, built the table in a single day on New Year’s Eve 2016 with two of his friends. Hinxman modestly notes that “there really are no plans for the table, we had a general idea of how we wanted it to turn out, but we made most of the decisions on it on the day we built it.”

The table itself was built with lumber you can buy at any hardware store, along with some brackets and a few screws. According to Hinxman, the table itself cost about $120 to make. It’s furnished with a 40-inch Samsung smart TV and a Dell Precision 5720 4K touchscreen workstation. The touchscreen is a nice touch, but the setup also works well with a laptop keyboard and mouse, as you can see in one of the gallery images above. Building one of these babies in your own gaming den will run you about $2,500.

Caethial’s table set off a firestorm on Reddit when it was first posted, with more than 75,000 upvotes (and counting) at present. We’ve featured custom gaming tables before, but this was a completely homebrew venture and the finished product is remarkable to behold.

The software Hinxman uses to run his games is Fantasy Grounds, a virtual RPG tabletop system that’s officially licensed by Wizards of the Coast and available on Steam. Hinxman says that he prefers Fantasy Grounds over other systems such as Roll20, noting that he finds it far easier to use. Although generally used for online play, he says it works quite well for home games and allows a “fog of war” effect where the map is gradually revealed to the players as they explore it.

Check out the photo gallery for some great images from Hinxman’s Tumblr page to see more detail of the build itself, as well as exciting action shots of a game in full swing.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Mark’s first encounter with high-tech was a TRS-80. He spent 20 years working for Nintendo and Xbox as a writer and…

Gaming

All Trinkets in Tales of Kenzera: Zau, explained

The main character of Tales of Kenzera: Zau stands with two elemental items.

Your main upgrades in a metroidvania like Tales of Kenzera: Zau will always be your new abilities. These transform the way you move and fight, but there are other ways you can make Zau a more powerful shaman. Trinkets are introduced right away, but aren't given away as freely as you might think. Each one requires you to overcome a small trial that tests your platforming abilities off the main path. Technically, you can miss every single one aside from the one you begin the game with. Even though there are a few fast travel points, backtracking isn't a particularly fun experience. Here are all the Trinket locations in Tales of Kenzera: Zau, plus which ones you should equip.
All Trinket locations
You can see which zones have Trinkets on the map, and for the most part, you will be able to grab them as you navigate through them for the first time. Here are each of the Trinket locations roughly in the order you should naturally be able to get them.
Battering Stance
This is the Trinket you begin the game with and is equipped by default.
Lifted Spirit

The first Trinket is found in this side path trial in The Buluu Caverns.
Retaliating Spirit

Gaming

How to start The Forgotten Kingdom DLC in Remnant 2

Invoker

Remnant 2 is a massive game that already boasts nearly endless replayability, but that isn't stopping developer Gunfire Games from adding even more to do in the popular looter shooter. The game's new DLC, The Forgotten Kingdom, provides players with a substantial amount of extra stuff to check out, such as new biomes to explore, an additional archetype known as The Invoker, and plenty of fresh enemies to take down. If you're ready to see all of what The Forgotten Kingdom DLC has to offer, read on to learn how to access it from within the game.
How to start The Forgotten Kingdom DLC
The first step in accessing The Forgotten Kingdom DLC is to ensure you've purchased and downloaded it. You can buy the standalone version from your respective storefront for $10, or you can opt to snag the $25 bundle, which includes The Awakened King, The Forgotten Kingdom, and another future DLC that has yet to be announced. If you intend to play the full trilogy of DLCs, the former is your best option, as you'll save five bucks off the total cost of all three.

Once you've purchased and downloaded the DLC, you'll be ready to access The Forgotten Kingdom by visiting a World Stone and opening Adventure Mode. You'll need to have completed the Yaesha biome at least one time. At that point, you can select "Reroll Adventure Mode" and choose The Forgotten Kingdom: One Shot on the right, which will notably give you exclusive DLC content your first time through. Keep in mind that while this initial run won't feature any older content, your subsequent playthroughs of Yaesha will weave DLC areas in with main campaign content.

Gaming

All Baobab Tree locations in Tales of Kenzera

Zau fights a dragon in Tales of Kenzera: Zau.

While it wasn't marketed as being a particularly punishing game, Tales of Kenzera: Zau is by no means easy. You will have plenty of environmental challenges that can instantly sap your life, and the enemies you face -- especially the bosses -- are no slouches. When you first begin, it will only take a couple of bad hits to send Zau to the land of the dead himself. Alongside the Trinkets you can unlock through hidden challenges around the map, there are also Baobab Trees where Zau can stop to reflect on his journey thus far, have a short dialogue with Kalunga, and get a small addition to his health bar. Like everything in the game, these trees aren't prohibitively hidden, but you could easily pass one by and have no idea where it was when trying to backtrack. These are all the Baobab Tree locations so you can max out your health bar.
All Baobab Tree locations
There are six Baobab Trees to find in Tales of Kenzera: Zau and each adds a small segment of health to your total. When you collect them all, you will roughly double your HP bar. Here are each of their locations in the rough order you should naturally find them in. Most can be picked up on your first time through that area.
Ikakaramba

This one is very hard to miss as it is directly on your critical path. If you do, you can fast travel to the nearby campfire to grab it.
The Great Cliffs