Gaming accessories

[Greenfield]

I'm a big fan of props in tabletop gaming. I like to set the scene with something more three dimensional than lines drawn on a battle mat.

A bag of green lichen from the hobby shop provides years worth of use as brush or woods, and if I want to create a campsite scene I can just scatter the stuff in a semi-random circular pattern, and wherever it lands, that's where it is.

I have some cast resin stone walls, maybe half an inch high, in varying lengths that see a lot of duty. They mark the edge of a road, playing the part of low stone walls that line a farmer's field. The work out of scale, to mark castle walls, or the routes through a city.

Over the years I've collected some Doric/Ionic columns from the aquarium section of the pet store. A few of those can do wonders for the mood at the table. On their sides or flat, they're ancient ruins. Standing in neat rows they're the courtyard of a castle.

WOTC came out with some downloadable buildings a few years back, then republished them in an on-paper format sold in game shops. The originals are still available on line, if you know where to look. Foldup Paper Models: Compiled Archive has quite a few. You just print out the pages on a color printer, glue to some cardboard, then cut and fold on the lines and voila, buildings! And with a little creative re-engineering, you can make many of them fold flat for storage and transport.

I stopped using things like that a while back though. I find that I don't want anything too specialized, and I really don't want anything that keeps the players (or me) from seeing figures on the table.

I don't want the props to become the scene or the story, but rather I want them to fuel the imaginations of the players while giving them a common framework. For this reason, less is more, but once in a while, the bigger stuff is just what you want.

Any tricks you guys use, scenery wise?

 

[Dandu]

Legos

 

[Greenfield]

Dominos are popular too. (I'm not talking about the pizza.)

The local 99-cent store had plastic dinosaurs and dinosaur skeletons. Haven't found a good use for them yet, but they're in the goody bag.

I have a couple of packages of printed scenery cards, and they're okay when you need Viking long ships or stuff like that. I prefer 3 dimensions, though.

 

[Jacob Marley]

I have found the following work well as props:

• Hobby shop trees, glued to washers covered in hobby grass
• Department 56 buildings (esp. Dickens' Village) are pretty close to scale; they look great on a sandbox table
• Styrofoam pieces can be cut and painted to make small hills and tors
• Aquarium pieces work nicely
• Hirst Arts is great if you have some time and skill
• Dwarven Forge and Games Workshop also sell some nice terrain pieces

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Warhammer scenery.

A giant Dry Erase board.

 

[Li Shenron]

Lego

This is ideally my favourite, but using it for sceneries is expensive and very time-consuming. But even just using Lego for characters and monster is cool enough.

 

[Gilladian]

I have a bunch of generic monster stand-ins and some trees and bushes and such all made out of polymer clay.

You can see pics in my flickr account here:
DnD Minis - a set on Flickr

I think the most useful are the trees and the archery stand. I use them over and over!

When we ran a Ptolus campaign, I made a map of the whole city out of clay, about 1' long, to scale, to show how deep the river was, how wide, and where the different neighborhoods were, and where the spire was, and how high the sea-cliffs were. It really helped us all visualize the city. I need to take some photos!

I, too, find walls and actual buildings to be a nuisance, but I have a BUNCH of lego-look-alike building toys with tons of "castle" props. Torch stands, ladders, doors, pit covers, etc... are all very useful.

When I'm going to do a set scene, especially one that may take 2-3 sessions to play out, I will often spend the time to lay out the whole thing with dungeon tiles. In fact, I need to do that for this weekend's game! We're about to "attack" a bandit fort, and having it all mapped out ahead would be very useful; I may need some new props...

 

[kitcik]

Although out of print, the Mage Knight sets:
- Dungeon Artifacts Set 1
- Dungeon Artifacts Set 2
- Trap Pack
are pretty good for miscellaneous stuff. You can usually find them on ebay for a reasonable price. I use them all the time.

One thing that I have been looking into, but have not purchased yet, is this set of modular building stuff that is about to be released (it was on a Kickstarter, with which I am not associated).

I love Dwarven Forge, but it is really expensive and difficult to store (bulky).

EDIT: I should have said, if you are considering Dwarven Forge, also consider Dungeonstone (it's like Dwarven Forge except cheaper).

 

[The Red King]

I like to use Heroclix as figures, there are lots of robots that stand in for guys in armor, not to mention super heroes that have the look... Black Knight, or Dr.Doom!

 

[James the Newbie]

Spray painting bark chippings grey makes for excellent stones. And while your local park probably wouldn't miss 4 bark chippings, you probably should be buying them.