Share your Best Prop Story

[Setherick]

I used a clear plastic tray for a water trap once. I pre-measured how much water was needed to fill the "trap" and set aside several glasses with each round's worth of new water.

I put the character's minis in the tray along with the other props (wooden blocks and various other plastic items) and managed to convince the players it was to keep everything in order.

When they triggered the trap midfight I started pouring water into the tray round by round and informed them that the trap was to scale. The halfling was not please. Wood blocks started to float, causing parts of the battle field to crumble and fall, which I said was destruction and debre caught in the raging waters.

Players survived pretty easily (I'd wanted to really threaten them but it didn't work out that way) and the visual elements made it much more engrossing.

Very nice. Very very nice.

[clockworkjoe]

I used a clear plastic tray for a water trap once. I pre-measured how much water was needed to fill the "trap" and set aside several glasses with each round's worth of new water.

I put the character's minis in the tray along with the other props (wooden blocks and various other plastic items) and managed to convince the players it was to keep everything in order.

When they triggered the trap midfight I started pouring water into the tray round by round and informed them that the trap was to scale. The halfling was not please. Wood blocks started to float, causing parts of the battle field to crumble and fall, which I said was destruction and debre caught in the raging waters.

Players survived pretty easily (I'd wanted to really threaten them but it didn't work out that way) and the visual elements made it much more engrossing.

gonna do this

[Tadanori Oyama]

I could only use it once per group of players to full effect. I'm currently working on a way to do it again, but with sand.

[Setherick]

I used a clear plastic tray for a water trap once. I pre-measured how much water was needed to fill the "trap" and set aside several glasses with each round's worth of new water.

I put the character's minis in the tray along with the other props (wooden blocks and various other plastic items) and managed to convince the players it was to keep everything in order.

When they triggered the trap midfight I started pouring water into the tray round by round and informed them that the trap was to scale. The halfling was not please. Wood blocks started to float, causing parts of the battle field to crumble and fall, which I said was destruction and debre caught in the raging waters.

Players survived pretty easily (I'd wanted to really threaten them but it didn't work out that way) and the visual elements made it much more engrossing.

gonna do this

It would have worked well in the IH campaign a few years back.

[sarendt]

No. In the game it was a bloody map. Covered in several different types of bloody.

I have done something similar for in game notes/messages using tea to color paper to look old, never did a bloody map, that would be pretty cool!

I will usually try to make a sketch or something of some of the locals I make.  One of the best I might be able to dig up still, was a abandoned tower for my maps that I am posting.  It had a large gapping hole in the side of it that had been blown away due to an explosion inside the tower.  The players had to figure out a way to get to higher levels of the tower as the ladder to the high floors was blown up and parts of the wall were missing.  Also the remains of the owner were burried on the ground next to the rubble from when he got blown out of the tower as well.

-Scott

[Setherick]

No. In the game it was a bloody map. Covered in several different types of bloody.

I have done something similar for in game notes/messages using tea to color paper to look old, never did a bloody map, that would be pretty cool!

I will usually try to make a sketch or something of some of the locals I make.  One of the best I might be able to dig up still, was a abandoned tower for my maps that I am posting.  It had a large gapping hole in the side of it that had been blown away due to an explosion inside the tower.  The players had to figure out a way to get to higher levels of the tower as the ladder to the high floors was blown up and parts of the wall were missing.  Also the remains of the owner were burried on the ground next to the rubble from when he got blown out of the tower as well.

-Scott

The trick for the map was burning the edges without catching the entire piece of parchment on fire. Also, if you have a cat/dog, wad the map up and use it to play fetch for an hour or so to get some nice scratching and teeth marks.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Depending on the material you use to make it, running it through the dryer for awhile can give it a very different feel. I've always wanted to try freezing a map (like putting it into the ice box with the ice cubes) and then mircowaving it to remove any water in it after pulling it out. I have no idea what that would do to the paper.

[Setherick]

Depending on the material you use to make it, running it through the dryer for awhile can give it a very different feel. I've always wanted to try freezing a map (like putting it into the ice box with the ice cubes) and then mircowaving it to remove any water in it after pulling it out. I have no idea what that would do to the paper.

Depends on the paper. You'd probably want to use some heavy bond paper or cotton parchment when you try it.

[Boyos]

I think -Scotts best prop was his staff with a chicken head on it! threw his commands of "Arise Chicken Arise" Let him Necro a thread back from nearly a year ago! All Hail -Scott. If he was in the cult still he would have clearly risen to high priest!

[sarendt]

 

[robotkarateman]

[clicky for the set]

I've been meaning to get this scanned for a while, instead I got photos done tonight.

This is a sketchbook I did for a Palladium fantasy adventure I ran a while back. I stole a bunch of sketches off of Google Image and printed them out, then beat the book up by kicking it through a bunch of mud puddles. I'm pretty happy with the final result, particularly the way the inkjet ink made a convincing imitation of india ink.

The players were traveling into the jungles to the south and met up with a professor named Challenger who had a sketchbook by an artist who went missing there. Challenger gets killed, PCs inherit the book. If they'd paid attention, the sketchbook told them everything they would be encountering; it even gave them a map of the region. Of course, being gamers, they flipped through it, said, "That's cool!", and then mostly forgot about it until after they were in trouble.

The entire thing was an homage to both Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and Apocalypse Now, with a long river cruise into deeper hearts of darkness, crazed Empire soldiers who'd been in the jungle too long, and dinosaurs in the Land of the White Maples. There was even a crazy Empire family who refused to give up their jungle home while war with the orcs raged around them.

This is also the campaign where the velociraptors the party were fighting suddenly up and split as if a big predator were coming. The players expected me to dig out the T-Rex toy I had and their collective jaw dropped as, instead, I plunked two Starship Troopers warrior bugs on the table. It was beautiful.

[sarendt]

My hats off to you Robotkarateman!  That has to be the finest game prop I have ever seen! 

The art work alone is well thought out and put togeather in a way that had I not known you made it I would have assumed a copy of some other real book, the wash out of the images adds a very 'real' look to it.  A few pages of such a work would have still been very impressive, but you have about 20 pages I think! 

What type of paper did you use?  It looks like it was above standard grade paper, yes?  Did you pratice at all with the water and smearing the pictures or no?  If you were going to repeat something like it what would you have done differently?

Again, very impressive!!

-Scott

[robotkarateman]

The company I work for has a print shop, so I have access to lots of papers. The paper for the pages is actually lighter than regular paper,  I'm pretty sure it's a really light 50 lb Cougar with a heavier, natural stock for the cover. The metal stitching is an anachronism, but nobody said anything about during the game

I don't know if I'd repeat this. The first one was done so haphazardly that it adds to the character. If I tried to do it again I'd probably try to make it perfect and thus fuck it up.

[Setherick]

The company I work for has a print shop, so I have access to lots of papers. The paper for the pages is actually lighter than regular paper,  I'm pretty sure it's a really light 50 lb Cougar with a heavier, natural stock for the cover. The metal stitching is an anachronism, but nobody said anything about during the game

I don't know if I'd repeat this. The first one was done so haphazardly that it adds to the character. If I tried to do it again I'd probably try to make it perfect and thus fuck it up.

It's still a nice prop either way.

[Boyos]

yeah very nice.