Use of props in games.

[hong]

I'm not really a fan of props, but they're a necessary evil, I guess.

 

[Narfellus]

I've used lots of props over the years. Incense for special flowers or herbs they find; homemade letters, maps, note scraps, passwords, poems, rings, buckles, amulets, swords, daggers, etc. Just small stuff really, but it helps players visualize, not that i would want to do it all the time. What i've never done is dress up in costume, that's a little too much for me, but i know that a lot of people take the "roleplaying" aspect to the nth degree.

 

[Henry]

My props don't usually go too far beyond documents (parchments, maps, etc.) but I did once for a Star Wars New Jedi Order game put together a Coruscant bridgeway scene for the battlemat; the PC's were hopping from bridge to bridge, bull rushing people off the bridge, and in some cases (a dark force adept) levitating warriors and tossing them off the bridge! All it took was some styrofoam, a cutter, and silver spray paint, and a good time was had by all.

I did have a DM who once put together the treasure box we found, with a trinket/bauble for each magic item and gold that we found. Pretty neat, but I usually reserve my prop-making for items on the tabletop.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm like Henry; I'll make up some documents, but that's about it. If I'm feeling really into it, I'll used a crusty dried blood looking font/color on parchment or resulme paper, burn the edges, or even bbq the document to get a sooty, old feel to it, but that's about as far as I've ever gone.

Lately, though, I've started using better miniatures. Does that count?

 

[Rel]

Historically we've used props only rarely but it has always been well received. One GM in our group got a ton of low denomination foreign coins and we used them as actual coinage for our game. It made scenes where we were bribing NPC's very fun and interesting as their tongues would visibly loosen as I slid a few more coins across the table at the GM.

Another guy in our group who ran a game for a while was very big on props. He gave out little magical charms and potions and scrolls every time we came across them. After a while I had a treasure chest worth of magic items to keep track of. While a bit bulky, this certainly helped to remind me that I had expendable magic items to use when things got tough.

And then there's the "adventures" that I've been running for my three year old daughter. These are ALL props. Since everything is LARPed then I have props for every NPC, magic item, coin and even the monsters. You can see pictures of them in the Story Hour link in my sig (the Samantha the Red one). She has a backpack that she carries around to put all these things in and it is huge fun watching her dig around in there looking for "The Potion that make me really BIG!"

 

[Voadam]

I use captured images from pictures in modules, pdfs, or from places like the WotC art gallery to create visuals for PCs without module or monster text accompanying it. The MM art gallery is particularly useful.

 

[ledded]

Pictures, downloads off the 'net, researched documents (including an actual coroners report), scrolls sealed with wax, cheapo coins, little loot bags with a trapped/cursed item 'message', a bag of plastic Norse 'runes', etc. Research is big in our d20 Modern games; pictures of actual locations, newspaper clippings of actual stories that are 'covers' for surreal events in the game, schematics, maps, or satellite/high altitude photos downloaded of an actual location we're going to play in, etc add a ton of fun and occasional eerieness to the game.

My favorite was a message the GM casually handed me once, in character, from an NPC saying 'your friend <x> said you should read this right away' while this certain NPC was in a little monologue. It was tightly bound, and the material used to tie it was some kind of metallic ribbon. While opening it, I went "ouch, that thing almost cut me". As soon as I opened it, the first line said "This message is treated with a contact poison, with the ribbon having tiny barbs with an injury poison. Roll a fort save..."

For our d20 modern games, I have picked up some plastic toy guns just for funsies, and we happen to have a small collection of cheap hats that someone will occasionally use if it helps them get into character (one character is a cowboy-hat wearing Evangelical preacher, and the player wears a cowboy hat while playing him). Not necessary, but fun stuff to play around with to help you get into character sometimes.

We have tons of table/miniature related stuff that aren't exactly game props but really make for interesting setups and games, and we tend to be able to improvise most anything on the fly.

 

[Tortoise]

Rel, that larp you're doing with your daughter is truely inspired. Great stuff. The props you came up with rocked. Just what was it that you used for the rat? I couldn't really tell from the picture.

Everyone, keep up the ideas. Has anyone checked out the website I posted the link to and found anything they could use? I'm still exploring some of it and finding things there like faux pearl necklaces, etc, that would work for treasure.

 

[Invictikore]

Once I used a 6ft X 4ft Cork Board that I posted a bunch of Jobs and adventures on. I told them you see this hanging in the Adventurers Guild. It was fun writing a couple of them in dwarvish and watching the humans try and figure out what it said. They spent about 30 Minutes going thru the Postings until they picked one. That was the beginning of our Campaign. (sits back to remember the good ol days)

 

[Rel]

Rel, that larp you're doing with your daughter is truely inspired. Great stuff. The props you came up with rocked. Just what was it that you used for the rat? I couldn't really tell from the picture.

Well, it was actually a big stuffed rat. My wife made it.

Let me 'splain: Years ago I came up with this idea of running these sorts of "LARP" adventures for my friends (this was well before I knew the term "LARP"). We called each of these games individually "The Challenge". They were mostly centered around solving various puzzles/doing a scavenger hunt with a loose story that tied it all together. As time went on I added more and more story elements.

Themes that were covered in these games were varied each year and included:

Murder Mystery/Mad Scientist
Elite Military Commandoes
Typical Fantasy
Men In Black/Alien Invasion
Faerie World Fantasy
Haunted House/Wraith

For the second Fantasy themed game, we decided to have some "Dire Rats" that plagued the junkyard and had to be fought. So my wife bought this furry brown fabric and sewed up these roughly triangular shaped rat bodies. She then added some ears and tail made from the same fabric and sewed on little beady eyes and a nose (you can buy these at craft stores for making teddy bears and such).

The rats looked great when they were finished and were a big hit with the players of the Challenge. As an added bonus they were very soft and fluffy so we wound up using them as pillows in our basement. Alas, they have not aged terribly well (particularly with our daughter grabbing and pulling at them in her infant years) and they've lost their tails and ears over the years. But since she knows them as "the rats" then they are easy for her to identify as adversaries when we do our Adventures.