Impromtu gaming props...

[RigaMortus2]

For those of you (like me) who use miniatures when you play (and who doesnt?), are there any other props you use, whether homemade or bought?

An example of something we use... You know when you order pizza (again, who doesn't when you're playing D&D?) and inside the pizza box you get those white little "table" looking tripods, which are used to keep the top of the pizza box from touching the pizza and sticking to the cheese? Well we use them to represent characters who are flying. They fit perfectly on the map, and we just set the minature on top of it. And the cool thing is, they fit over top of most medium sized minatures, incase you of 1 character flying above another.

So, what are some of your props?

 

[Wystan]

I could have sworn I've seen this topic.... No search however so....

 

[Einan]

Legos make for good cheap and modular ruins or buildings.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

We use the clear plastic dice boxes for the same thing. I have also improvised monsters out of food (Cheetos), and eaten them as they die. In one Call of Cthulhu game, the DM even gave us Hero Points (equivalent) that were actually cuttlefish chips. You had to eat them. Yugh. But I don't want to digress too much on food.

Another nice improv item is my three inch diameter d20 which subs in for all manner of large objects.

 

[tonym]

Corks for trees.

Tony M

 

[sniffles]

We use the white plastic pizza doodads too. We call them 'flight stands' because we usually use them to represent when a character is flying or levitating.

One of our player/GMs works in a photo lab and brings home lots of little plastic 35mm film containers. They come with a variety of different colored lids dependent on the type of film and who manufactured it. We use those to represent various states by placing them under the minis: red or orange ones to show who's carrying a light source, green if someone has been entangled, grey for various spell effects like invisibility.

He also brings home plastic spools that often get turned into impromptu pillars. Various kinds of plastic discs can represent designs on the floor or large spell areas, and clear plastic containers can be walls and force fields.

I bought a whole bunch of little plastic people, all of them beige, at a novelty store. They're slightly smaller than minis. We use them in our Champions and d20 Modern games to represent NPC crowds. They're great for superhero games because some of them are policemen, and others are women with kids.

The same guy with all the photo stuff also has a huge collection of Mage Knight figures that have been rebased onto smaller plastic bases, for use as monsters and NPCs.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Great suggestions... We to use spools for pillars, and clear plastic dice holders (cubes) as well.

 

[Shades of Green]

I usually ran (and played in) pretty prop-light (or propless) games, with maps and written handouts (sometimes with quite alot of diaries/log entries/letters per adventure, which I like much) being the main non-rule-related material. However, I've also used dice as markers/counters to represent the locations of combatants on a map.

However, I had the idea (inspired by an old FUDGE-rpg article which is no longer online IIRC) of using Army Men as "poor man's miniatures" in modern/futuristic games, as they are dirt-cheap and quite varied in types, and mostly on a scale that fits well with maps.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Oh yeah, there are also these plastic red transparent chips we use, from some board game (maybe BINGO?). Anyway, we use them as blood splatters to signify when a character drops. Instead of having "tipped over" miniatures cluttering the board, we sometimes use these. It helps when remembering what square a character dropped in, incase you need to search them mid-battle. Plus it is a cool blood splatter effect.

 

[Kormydigar]

For those of you (like me) who use miniatures when you play (and who doesnt?), are there any other props you use, whether homemade or bought?

An example of something we use... You know when you order pizza (again, who doesn't when you're playing D&D?) and inside the pizza box you get those white little "table" looking tripods, which are used to keep the top of the pizza box from touching the pizza and sticking to the cheese? Well we use them to represent characters who are flying. They fit perfectly on the map, and we just set the minature on top of it. And the cool thing is, they fit over top of most medium sized minatures, incase you of 1 character flying above another.

So, what are some of your props?

Cheese popcorn still makes the best Intellect Devourers in the world