Here's My Current Ironsworn Setup
"50 Subscribers on Substack" post
Well, I brought this on myself, I guess!
When I made my last post, I had 45 subscribers and was slowly adding one new person every couple of days. So, I stupidly said I’d show you my game setup if I could reach 50 subscribers…
Fast-forward 24 hours, and I’m on 59 subscribers! I dunno if my last post was the spark because I find it hard to think people were desperately keen to see a photo of my gaming table—but a promise is a promise, and here we are.
I’m fortunate to have a dedicated “man cave” (we live in a 3-bedroom house and there’s only me and my good lady), so I can leave a game permanently set up, and still have another table for other projects.
Also…I like “bling!” Here’s a sentence for each number in the photo above.
Ironsworn rulebook, printed and ring-bound from the free PDF
Ring-bound folder of oracles and random tables
Laminated character sheet with stickers for progress markers
Progress Sheet (old school, lol)
Ironsworn journal - made on Amazon KDP
“Move” cards (in category piles). Free PDF from the Internet.
A1 poster of the Ironsworn map for inspiration and flavour
Laminated Ironsworn “Ask the Oracle” and “Pay the price” for easy reference
My Assets Cards (on a 3D printed stand)
Cheap dice tray from Amazon.
As I say, I enjoy “blinging up” games—hence the 3D printing, laminating and so on. I find it helps me “get into” things, setting myself up in a way that encourages me to get to the table and play.
The other thing to say is that I have zero desire to have any digital aspect to my games. I play games on my Xbox Series X—but I don’t want to be faffing around with apps or VTTs when it comes to board games or TTRPGs
So there we go. That’s what I’m looking at when I come to play a session of Ironsworn.
What’s your set-up like?
Very nice set-up. Like you I am all-analogue when it comes to playing the game. I got a friend to laser-cut a box for me to store some gaming paraphernalia, and I can use the lid to track health, supply etc using marbles. Everything else is pen and paper!
I love the IDEA of playing analogue, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. So for now I track my campaign in Iron Journal, and write my stuff in Obsidian. I briefly tried Iron Vault as well but I like Iron Journal better, for the map.