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Gaming Props - What do you use and how do you make them?
- Thread starter msd
- Start date
Riggs
First Post
Some props I have used:
toy gold ala pirate treasure, little decorator bottles for potions with cork seals (craft stores), scrolls with spells on them made from parchment paper, a paint pen and tied with ribbon, toy weapons, malachite/hematite/I forget or other shiny rocks as currency in more barbaric cultures (I has Gnolls trade in them actually), MK furniture from Ebay. I once used a breakable geode and whatever stone/color the player got when she broke it was the type and power of the boon to her, like getting a potion of varying possible power. Fun to break and see since we all knew I had no idea what was in there.
And we use the little plastic dice holder cube as a fly/height representative.
I am thinking of using something common as a seal design and dripping a candle/using seal to decorate documents or seal scrolls, etc.
toy gold ala pirate treasure, little decorator bottles for potions with cork seals (craft stores), scrolls with spells on them made from parchment paper, a paint pen and tied with ribbon, toy weapons, malachite/hematite/I forget or other shiny rocks as currency in more barbaric cultures (I has Gnolls trade in them actually), MK furniture from Ebay. I once used a breakable geode and whatever stone/color the player got when she broke it was the type and power of the boon to her, like getting a potion of varying possible power. Fun to break and see since we all knew I had no idea what was in there.
And we use the little plastic dice holder cube as a fly/height representative.
I am thinking of using something common as a seal design and dripping a candle/using seal to decorate documents or seal scrolls, etc.
Henry
Autoexreginated
My favorite for aged parchment is the good old "paper dipped in coffee solution and dried in the oven" trick. Looks great, and you can run it through the printer before you screw with it, or hand-write on it afterward if you trust your "calligraphy" and "palsied hand" skills...
Steel_Wind
Legend
Other points:
Paper with a high linen content works well for sopping up moisture.
Don't play the moisture game and use an inkjet printer at the same time
The "bury your prop" advice is very good and highly effective. It also engages the nose of your players with smells and ends any diffculties with tea odors. Use this only for serious props though - not lightweight paper stuff...
Actual parchment (as opposed to a paper merely called parchment) is expensive. Make inquiries.
Sealing wax is available in some high end stationery stores (and is less brittle than normal candle wax at room temperature) A seal impression using something handy - (lots of children's toy's and other emblems have dragons and such on them) always look impressive and enhances the authenticity of your prop. You can always cut up a potato to make a stamp for a seal if you really need to, but adapting a toy or other packaging material generally works best.
Paper with a high linen content works well for sopping up moisture.
Don't play the moisture game and use an inkjet printer at the same time
The "bury your prop" advice is very good and highly effective. It also engages the nose of your players with smells and ends any diffculties with tea odors. Use this only for serious props though - not lightweight paper stuff...
Actual parchment (as opposed to a paper merely called parchment) is expensive. Make inquiries.
Sealing wax is available in some high end stationery stores (and is less brittle than normal candle wax at room temperature) A seal impression using something handy - (lots of children's toy's and other emblems have dragons and such on them) always look impressive and enhances the authenticity of your prop. You can always cut up a potato to make a stamp for a seal if you really need to, but adapting a toy or other packaging material generally works best.
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Varianor Abroad
Explorer
I've done a lot with handouts. A couple of articles are included in the www.roleplayingtips.com archives. Here's one on getting your players to read the background (which is obviously in a handout):
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=167#r1
Here's one on using letters:
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=161#r2
(There were more but I'm not finding them. A lot of other contributors had great things to offer. I suggest Googling handouts +roleplayingtips.com.)
As to neat, unusual or unique gaming props, that's half the fun of the game sometimes. I have used:
*a wooden scroll case (obtained at an SCA event)
*a faen-sized scroll that I made along with a faen-sized quill made out of a very small bird's feather
*a map with a hidden message on it made by writing lightly with pencil over the folded edge of the map
*heavily mica-embedded stones as part of a dungeon map - I just plunked them down all glittery
*a mortar and pestle when the PCs visited an alchemist's shop
*a real sword that I have
*costume jewelry - particularly rings
*a bottle obtained from an antique shop with an object inside
What I'm proudest of so far though is the diorama. I think making stuff like this is the ultimate in gaming props. Scroll down on this page on my LiveJournal to the photos:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/varianor/?skip=20
I also modified it to use some acquarium terrain and added some cavern sections when I ran Strike on Harrid's Creche at the ENWorld Boston GameDay. (You can see the aforementioned tiny scroll and quill in one of the photos lying there in the closest portion of the diorama.)
The key with props is to think creatively. What do you have that will work and will look good?
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=167#r1
Here's one on using letters:
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=161#r2
(There were more but I'm not finding them. A lot of other contributors had great things to offer. I suggest Googling handouts +roleplayingtips.com.)
As to neat, unusual or unique gaming props, that's half the fun of the game sometimes. I have used:
*a wooden scroll case (obtained at an SCA event)
*a faen-sized scroll that I made along with a faen-sized quill made out of a very small bird's feather
*a map with a hidden message on it made by writing lightly with pencil over the folded edge of the map
*heavily mica-embedded stones as part of a dungeon map - I just plunked them down all glittery
*a mortar and pestle when the PCs visited an alchemist's shop
*a real sword that I have
*costume jewelry - particularly rings
*a bottle obtained from an antique shop with an object inside
What I'm proudest of so far though is the diorama. I think making stuff like this is the ultimate in gaming props. Scroll down on this page on my LiveJournal to the photos:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/varianor/?skip=20
I also modified it to use some acquarium terrain and added some cavern sections when I ran Strike on Harrid's Creche at the ENWorld Boston GameDay. (You can see the aforementioned tiny scroll and quill in one of the photos lying there in the closest portion of the diorama.)
The key with props is to think creatively. What do you have that will work and will look good?
CronoDekar
First Post
Since I play online, I haven't used much props. However in a very short-lived d20 Modern campaign what I did was create a simple website the PCs would get clues from, and give the URL to them during the adventure. I thought it was rather clever!
MummyKitty
First Post
I love props, especially documents, maps and photographs. There are so many cool kinds of paper to print things out on laserjets now you can make almost any kind of document and make it look old with a little "roughing up" as has already been described. Check out this site for some tips on how to make some cool document props:
http://www.cthulhulives.org/toybox/PROPDOCS/PropDocs.html
It's for Cthulhu but some of these techniques could be used for older stuff.
http://www.cthulhulives.org/toybox/PROPDOCS/PropDocs.html
It's for Cthulhu but some of these techniques could be used for older stuff.
X
xnosipjpqmhd
Guest
Put props to work
Like some of the previous posters, I used lots of props in my last campaign, including various types of papers, spellbooks, and magic items. (I used minis with 3D terrain etc. as well, but I don't really count those as props.)
One thing that I really enjoyed doing was making the props serve a function in the campaign. In other words, the players really had to use their noggins to figure out the prop. Here are some examples from my last campaign.
- During the game, the players found a foot-long piece of shiny metal, bent in two places. (I actually used 1/4 thick wood, spray-painted silver.) I handed them the object. They didn't give it much thought, really. Later a sage confirmed for them that it was only half of a fully-assembled object. So they ventured out and found the second piece of the object, which looked exactly like the first, a foot-long piece of bent metal. When the players were fiddling around with the two metal pieces, and the brought them together in a particular way, THEY STUCK! (I had drilled holes in the wood and glued magnets in there, then covered them with cardstock and painted over it.) They toyed around some more and figured out that there was only one way to orient the pieces so that the magnets attracted each other.
- During the campaign, the players had acquired a number of maps. One in particular showed lands that they needed to get to, but for the life of them, they didn't recognize any of the other features on the map, so they didn't know which way to go. The game continued, and a couple hours later, one of the players finally announced, "I've got it." He showed the other players how the map fit (and slightly overlapped) to a map of their current location. A similar feature on both maps had been gnawing at his subconscious until he finally made the connexion.
- When searching the residence of an enemy, the players found about 50 tiny scraps of torn-up parchment. They didn't spend too long trying to piece these together before the spellcaster remembered he had a Patternweave spell in one of his spellbooks (another real prop). When he cast it, I gave him an assembled copy of the parchment to look at for as long as the spell lasted in real time (like 5 minutes IIRC).
- Magic in my campaign is a little more arcane than in most D&D games. In order to cast a spell, the player had to actually know the name of a circle of power for the appropriate magic school, along with certain other secrets. I didn't formally announce this fact to the players at the beginning of the campaign, since none of their characters had actually studied magic. So the player was literally learning right along with his character, including making various mistakes and learning from them, too. ;-) When he found a necklace of bone fragments, each carved with a different circle of power (and their names on the obverse), I handed him the real prop and he was very excited.
- One of the challenges in the campaign was defeating a ghostly NPC at a game similar to chess in order to receive a key. During the session, I brought out the board and pieces for the game, and explained the rules. Then we actually played the game (within the game). When the ghostly NPC was defeated, he lifted a section of the gameboard to reveal the (real) key hidden within.
I really enjoy it when the players actually figure things out, as opposed to them just rolling a die and asking if their character solves the puzzle. ;-) I had a number of other props in the game, a whole footlocker full of them actually, but the ones above are the most obvious examples of those that serve as more than just props; they're game elements in themselves.
Also, another piece of advice: make sure you throw in a fair number of mundane props, too, just so players don't say "if it's a prop, it must be important."
ironregime
Like some of the previous posters, I used lots of props in my last campaign, including various types of papers, spellbooks, and magic items. (I used minis with 3D terrain etc. as well, but I don't really count those as props.)
One thing that I really enjoyed doing was making the props serve a function in the campaign. In other words, the players really had to use their noggins to figure out the prop. Here are some examples from my last campaign.
- During the game, the players found a foot-long piece of shiny metal, bent in two places. (I actually used 1/4 thick wood, spray-painted silver.) I handed them the object. They didn't give it much thought, really. Later a sage confirmed for them that it was only half of a fully-assembled object. So they ventured out and found the second piece of the object, which looked exactly like the first, a foot-long piece of bent metal. When the players were fiddling around with the two metal pieces, and the brought them together in a particular way, THEY STUCK! (I had drilled holes in the wood and glued magnets in there, then covered them with cardstock and painted over it.) They toyed around some more and figured out that there was only one way to orient the pieces so that the magnets attracted each other.
- During the campaign, the players had acquired a number of maps. One in particular showed lands that they needed to get to, but for the life of them, they didn't recognize any of the other features on the map, so they didn't know which way to go. The game continued, and a couple hours later, one of the players finally announced, "I've got it." He showed the other players how the map fit (and slightly overlapped) to a map of their current location. A similar feature on both maps had been gnawing at his subconscious until he finally made the connexion.
- When searching the residence of an enemy, the players found about 50 tiny scraps of torn-up parchment. They didn't spend too long trying to piece these together before the spellcaster remembered he had a Patternweave spell in one of his spellbooks (another real prop). When he cast it, I gave him an assembled copy of the parchment to look at for as long as the spell lasted in real time (like 5 minutes IIRC).
- Magic in my campaign is a little more arcane than in most D&D games. In order to cast a spell, the player had to actually know the name of a circle of power for the appropriate magic school, along with certain other secrets. I didn't formally announce this fact to the players at the beginning of the campaign, since none of their characters had actually studied magic. So the player was literally learning right along with his character, including making various mistakes and learning from them, too. ;-) When he found a necklace of bone fragments, each carved with a different circle of power (and their names on the obverse), I handed him the real prop and he was very excited.
- One of the challenges in the campaign was defeating a ghostly NPC at a game similar to chess in order to receive a key. During the session, I brought out the board and pieces for the game, and explained the rules. Then we actually played the game (within the game). When the ghostly NPC was defeated, he lifted a section of the gameboard to reveal the (real) key hidden within.
I really enjoy it when the players actually figure things out, as opposed to them just rolling a die and asking if their character solves the puzzle. ;-) I had a number of other props in the game, a whole footlocker full of them actually, but the ones above are the most obvious examples of those that serve as more than just props; they're game elements in themselves.
Also, another piece of advice: make sure you throw in a fair number of mundane props, too, just so players don't say "if it's a prop, it must be important."
ironregime
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