Visual aids in your game

[lior_shapira]

In the past year or so I started inserting a lot more player's handouts and visual aids. I find they really help immerse the players into the game, whether its just an image of the monster they're facing, the npc they're dealing with, a treasure map or anything else...

Have you got any great visual aids you've used / plan to use and can share?

For example I found this online gallery of surreal photos which I'm sure to use soon
Lars Raun Photos

I can just see some of these pictures as a dream sequence

lior s.

 

[robberbaron]

I like using visual aids, though generally they are only floorplans drawn out in Powerpoint.

Handouts are something I have used sporadically in the past, but think they add a very useful "realness" to the game. When the party find a cryptic note in an NPC's pocket, I give them the note.
Makes game prep a little longer, but definitely worth it.

 

[thalder]

props

I ran a Cthulu campaign for a little while and made some props the guys liked, Newspaper front page with interesting headlines, pages from a mystical tome, notes from someone trying to decipher them. Found awesome fonts at fontfreak.com and fontfoundry.com that worked real well. I'm actually working on publishing the scenario in pdf format. I found that powerpoint and WordArt are my friends for that sort of thing. The Zentreadi and Star Math Fonts make cool alien text. If you want I can send you some of them. just email me.
asheffield@sednagames.com

 

[CombatWombat51]

I love using visual aids. Though I'd actually call them "physical" aids... for instance, in a fairly recent campaign I DMed, an NPC wanted to make a quick throw of his dice against the PC's throw. So as I roleplayed the NPC, I had two real dice palmed in my hand. I had went ahead and cut and carved 2d6 out of some scrap earlier that day. When the NPC offered the PC a chance to roll the dice, I actually handed the player the wooden dice.

Now, that might not sound too cool, but it was cooler than I nearly expected The players at the table were actually stunned, though we managed to finish that bit of RP before the questions: "Where'd you get those wooden dice? Did you make those? I didn't even see you holding them!"

Making a couple of crappy dice was easy, and hiding them in my hand, under the table for the most part, wasn't hard either. But the reaction was great, especially with the surprise value

I did a similar thing when I DMed I6 Ravenloft. For the scroll that the PC's find on the dead dude on the way to the castle, I went ahead and wrote it up on a piece of printer paper. I wrote it left-handed and cursive, so it didn't even resemble my handwriting. I did the standard tea-soaking, too. And since the guy was found in the mud, I added some of that, although I got the clods and mess off before rolling it and crumpling it. No need for dirt all over my table

I've done a few other scrolls, too. Wax seals, burnt sections of map, the standard stuff. I've maybe done it half a dozen time in a dozen years of gaming, but it's better that way because it's always better when it's a surprise

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

We're big on visuals in my two games. MojoGM prints things out on old parchment paper with caligraphy fonts a lot and it makes it look very cool.

Also in my other group, our DM had a recent plot that involved us finding a tin containing a stick with a rope around it, an old letter and a candle. He had visuals for all of them.

We also use a lot of terrain etc.

 

[Rokonin]

As a DM, I try to use visual aids as much as possible, but it seems that I don't have enough time to make them before most sessions. I've made a map stained with blood (gel food coloring) and several wooden trinkets and the like.

 

[Pbartender]

Something I'm trying out for my next campaign...

I stopped by the toy store, and picked up a sack up plastic toy coins, and a sack of fake plastic gems and some plastic costume jewelry. The coins (1 cent = 1 gold piece) and gems will be handed out as treasure during adventures... Whatever the players have, the party has. Magic items will be index cards folded in half and taped closed. The description of the item will be on the outside, and the value and game mechanic will be on the inside. Players get to open the card once the item gets Identified.

It'll be a means for me and my players to concretely keep track of 'valuable' items. I'm much more lackadaisical about mudane items, especially if they cost less than a gp... I assume that between the five of them, any particular piece of standard adventuring gear can be found in their collective packs.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

It'll be a means for me and my players to concretely keep track of 'valuable' items.

If we tried anything like that in our group, it would take about fifteen minutes before two of our players lost half of their gold pieces and 90% of their magic items. Four weeks later, we'd find one of the previously-lost magic items under a couch cushion, and three years from now people would still be finding gold coins under the other furniture.

Sounds like a fun idea, but I think it only works for groups where the players are the kind of people who are actually organized enough to keep track of where they keep things like index cards.

--
it was only last year that we finally got most of them to not lose their character sheets
ryan