Play mats from Kickstarter: too large?

[waitreally]

I was super excited to see the play mats. I just got an email update from the Kickstarter campaign showing a sneak peek at the play mats. All I can think of is:

Wasted. Space.

The play mats have spaces for dice? Huh?

In general, the layout makes no sense. The footprint is huge. And I don't think it's the recommended layout from the bits. I have a huge table—but I still anticipate this taking up too much space.

Thoughts?

[TheDavii]

They strike me as kind of ordinary. I was hoping that they'd incorporate the KB Conquest shops too (and perhaps give us a hint of shops yet to come).

I was also hoping that the playmats are vinyl and not paper like the KB Odyssey ones are. The folds make those very hard to use (does anybody use them?). But I can't say we've played any of the KB games lately (weather has been far too nice).

What is your suggestion for a less space-wasting arrangement?

[kittyfreak7]

We use the card holders for the shops, not for the RRR cards. And all of our supply cards are discarded in one discard pile as we don't shuffle them very often. We just separate them at the end of the game. All the regular card discard piles are in a row in the middle of our table and the shops are placed at one end of the table or in the corner between 2 players. How is everyone else setting up their table?

[waitreally]

Oct 3, 2012 22:07:13 GMT -5 TheDavii said:

What is your suggestion for a less space-wasting arrangement?

Here's how we play. All the other pieces (except dice) go into a box on the side. There's no reason to have the roaming run card stands just sitting on the table taking up space.

[hobby]

We maintain 4 draw piles (so the deck doesn't accidentally fall over). They are at the corners. Inside we have the three rows of cards. The 3 stores on one row, cabbage, water, and defense above the stores, with discard piles next to them. Zodiac, HEO/HER, and the Rank helper card are in the last row. We have the pawns somewhere in the middle (since they go fast). On both sides are discard piles. We actually sort out bunnies periodically during the game, but keep recently killed ones in the discard pile in case of certain cards (there's one that let's you get any card from the top 7 in the discard pile).

Also, having four draw piles lets a player "choose his own destiny", or at least feel like he has some control. And if they draw a TM, it's their own fault because there were 3 other piles to choose from.

[TheDavii]

Nov 14, 2012 2:55:26 GMT -5 hobby said:

We maintain 4 draw piles (so the deck doesn't accidentally fall over). They are at the coAlso, having four draw piles lets a player "choose his own destiny", or at least feel like he has some control. And if they draw a TM, it's their own fault because there were 3 other piles to choose from.

If the draw piles are split, players are always supposed to draw from the same pile (so, no, they don't get some control over their destiny).

[blue1245]

We always just put the pawn shop, weapons emp., and dolla discard perpendicular to the shop cards(Cross shaped essentially) (over the upper half so prices are still visible with the most updated market price.) this saves a fair amount of room.

We also used to have two draw piles for convenience purposes but then we decided to go back to one draw pile to create a more fair chance at everyone getting every card. ( to make this feasible w/o playing Jenga every KB game we only put the top half of the deck on the table for use until it runs low and then we add the bottom half underneath)