Best props for your game?

[MortalPlague]

While DM'ing, I love to use handouts. I type up letters all the time, or put down historical notes, etc. It helps build immersion.

I also have a pouch full of old coins I picked up at a coin collector's shop (right next to a gaming shop, interestingly enough). Nothing too crazy, but actually spilling coins on the table is a lot of fun. At PAX 2011, a game called Firefall was holding a contest to have you run around and take photos of various things. They'd give you these little plastic 'gems' as a currency to later buy Firefall stuff. I kept the gems, and I've used them many times as both gems and as counters.

The best prop use on my end was when I was a player. It was the first session of our Evil campaign, and the characters were meeting at a campfire in a cave. A couple of characters were already there when my shapeshifter strode out of the dark and sat down at the fire. A few questions were posed his way, he answered. Then, at the table, I pulled a candy eyeball out of a pouch and ate it.

The reaction was fantastic. Well worth the investment! I had a whole pouch of eyeballs, which I would eat over the course of the next few sessions. But the first time got the best reaction for a prop I've ever seen.

 

[Dioltach]

I've been thinking about rugby too much. I saw the thread title and immediately thought "Alex Corbisiero and Adam Jones".

 

[sabrinathecat]

Legos. Enough said.
38 swords--most real antiques. Many different styles.
Sizable collection of minis.
Great collection of gaming music.

 

[Gilladian]

I make little mini props out of polymer clay. Treasure chests, tables, doors, tree stumps and bushes, a firepit, a well, an altar, some pillars. A tree platform that holds archers, etc... A kraken. An elemental. Many pogs, with numbers engraved on them, in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes. Some stand up, some are low/flat, and some are cone-shaped. It's nice to be able to put them out and say "the gold cone is the evil priest, the six red standing pogs are his demonic defenders, and the eight flat round pogs are scuttling crab-creatures". And next game, they can be totally different critters.