The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => RPGs => : Setherick April 19, 2009, 09:57:04 PM
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While I'm creating share threads. Here's another one. Share a story of the best prop you used in a game. I decided to cheese it up one night and took the whole bloody map cliche way too far.
(http://abovetheunderground.pbwiki.com/f/bloody-map.jpg)
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Did somebody get his throat slitted while he was reading this map? ;D
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Did somebody get his throat slitted while he was reading this map? ;D
Just the chicken...joking. It's fake blood ofc. ::)
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Is it fake IN the game?
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Is it fake IN the game?
No. In the game it was a bloody map. Covered in several different types of bloody.
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I've got two stories -- one as a player and one as a GM.
As a player, I was in a one-shot Call of Cthulhu game where the GM, when in character as the creepy old coot who'd hired the investigators, had his girlfriend play the houseboy -- she was sleight, and had just shaved her head. She served tea at the beginning of the session, and just kind of crouched next to him whenever she wasn't doing anything else. It was extremely creepy.
As a GM, I was running a horror session of a sci-fi game, where the players were in a science research facility that had gone dark. When they arrived, the lights were on but nobody was home, etc. The facility was in two pieces that were connectd by an elevator, and I couldn't hav ethem using it too much because if they compared notes too often they'd figure out what was going on. My solution was, every time someone took the elevator, I'd hum "The Girl from Ipanema" until someone started gritting their teeth, then say "Ding! You're there." They stayed split up, and I still get compliments on that session years later, so I think it went over well.
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had his girlfriend play the houseboy -- she was sleight, and had just shaved her head.
what does that mean, im confused. But sound creepy none the less.
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Best props...used to be in a D&D game with someone who was in a pottery class. At the DM's request, she made small props for the game on occasion. The coolest was a couple of small coins that were part of a puzzle that we were needing to solve. I don't remember a lot of the details at this point, but we had to use the coins to translate something.
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had his girlfriend play the houseboy -- she was sleight, and had just shaved her head.
what does that mean, im confused. But sound creepy none the less.
She was shortish, and slender, so she could almost pass for a boy, and she was basically a live-action prop playing the old guy's very creepy servant. (She brought drinks, took empties, etc.)
She had a chair in the back corner of the room where she just kind of kept to herself when we weren't in the creepy old guy's house. When we did get to the house, she'd come back around the table, so she was only "there" when the servant was around.
It was very cool.
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every time someone took the elevator, I'd hum "The Girl from Ipanema" until someone started gritting their teeth, then say "Ding! You're there."
Hilarious. Incredible. I love it.
(I'm probably going to steal it when/if I find a gaming group.)
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had his girlfriend play the houseboy -- she was sleight, and had just shaved her head.
what does that mean, im confused. But sound creepy none the less.
She was shortish, and slender, so she could almost pass for a boy, and she was basically a live-action prop playing the old guy's very creepy servant. (She brought drinks, took empties, etc.)
She had a chair in the back corner of the room where she just kind of kept to herself when we weren't in the creepy old guy's house. When we did get to the house, she'd come back around the table, so she was only "there" when the servant was around.
It was very cool.
wow, just wow, thats like some borderline s&m shit! or justa very awsome wife, who would do anything for her husban.
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had his girlfriend play the houseboy -- she was sleight, and had just shaved her head.
what does that mean, im confused. But sound creepy none the less.
She was shortish, and slender, so she could almost pass for a boy, and she was basically a live-action prop playing the old guy's very creepy servant. (She brought drinks, took empties, etc.)
She had a chair in the back corner of the room where she just kind of kept to herself when we weren't in the creepy old guy's house. When we did get to the house, she'd come back around the table, so she was only "there" when the servant was around.
It was very cool.
wow, just wow, thats like some borderline s&m shit! or justa very awsome wife, who would do anything for her husban.
I'm slightly unnerved just thinking about it
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The best prop I created was a business card for an NPC. I've been building up the "Men In Immaculately Tailored Suits" as a semi-antagonistic organisation for my players, and this is the first time they'd actually had a friendly encounter with one of them. To make the card, I went to Google Images and did a search for "creepy guy in suit". It turned out pretty good:
(http://www.arthwollipot.com/games/metascape-ii/the-story/images/Mr_Smith.gif)
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To make the card, I went to Google Images and did a search for "creepy guy in suit".
If only I could get my students to research / talk about their research like this...
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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;D
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(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2719/4421991266_ded88f4221_m.jpg)
[clicky for the set] (http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotkarateman/sets/72157623465984509/)
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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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yeah very nice.
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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.
The reason I asked was I was thinking of trying something similar, just to see how it turned out.
-Scott
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We had a player in one of our games way back make her own patchwork doll to represent the doll her character carried around with her all the time. It was all sorts of beat up (stitching was coming loose, "hair" was falling out, etc). I got her boyfriend to sneak it to me one day between our weekly games and I sewed up the spots where the stuffing was coming loose, re-secured the hair, etc. He brought it to our next game claiming she left it at his place accidentally. She didn't notice what had been done until after we had started up. Noone fessed up to fixing the doll which is how it played out IC, too. My character had snuck it away from her during the night and fixed it. The most fitting thing was that neither my character nor I were very good at sewing.
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We had a player in one of our games way back make her own patchwork doll to represent the doll her character carried around with her all the time. It was all sorts of beat up (stitching was coming loose, "hair" was falling out, etc). I got her boyfriend to sneak it to me one day between our weekly games and I sewed up the spots where the stuffing was coming loose, re-secured the hair, etc. He brought it to our next game claiming she left it at his place accidentally. She didn't notice what had been done until after we had started up. Noone fessed up to fixing the doll which is how it played out IC, too. My character had snuck it away from her during the night and fixed it. The most fitting thing was that neither my character nor I were very good at sewing.
What game were you playing and why did her character have a doll?
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Because her character was a little girl.
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Because her character was a little girl.
Ah. I just wondered, it's a neat concept and I could see it working a number of different ways. Like if it was a MOCT game, the doll could have been the character's security item, etc.
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It didn't have any major significance other than the fact that her character was just really attached to it.
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My players are embarking on an island hopping military campaign. The players (and their Orc mercs) are landing on enemy occupied islands and neutralizing enemy hardpoints so allied forces can land and take control. Pretty narly I know.
Anyway I sail alot so I took a 30 year chart book off my friend's boat of the Channel Islands (in Cali). The book is weathered and yellowed, stained with fish blood, grease and sea water. Its got elevations, under water hazards, camp grounds, high/low tides, what type of flora to expect, the works. The players ask "So the hobgoblin (warlord/officer) we hired with the orcs, he's going to handle all the planning right?" I reached into my bag, pulled out the chart and a compass, flopped them on the and said "You guys plot are plotting ship's courses and picking your landing zones." They dove in and bickered like flag officers for the rest of the session on how to approach the first island, where they're landing zone was going to be and how to take the hardpoints on the island. If you had heard the arguing you would have thought you were in a planning session for D-Day.
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http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/
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http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/
Note I said share your best prop, Ross. Spammer. ::)
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http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/
Note I said share your best prop, Ross. Spammer. ::)
your face is a prop
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More great ideas! Real maps, hand made dolls! This is the stuff that I think can really bring a good game into great game!
-Scott
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I needed big doggies to go with the giant in our last session. Safari Ltd's timber wolves worked perfect.
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4439290060_76fc117418.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotkarateman/4439290060/)
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(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2719/4421991266_ded88f4221_m.jpg)
[clicky for the set] (http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotkarateman/sets/72157623465984509/)
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.
Challenger is my middle name.
As for best prop, I have this lifesize cardboard cut out of Ron Weasley that I can't wait to use for something diabolic.
I stole the number stations and used one as a sort of deep space random radio transmission during a routine trip between the Moon and Venus in my eclipse phase game. ALL the players hated me for playing the number stations and were very creeped out. I even now just tease them with the stations and they tell me to stop playing that scary stuff.
"Thanks. I have to go home to an empty house. Thanks a lot, fucker."
As for other gimicky bullshit, whenever we play CoC 1920s I wear my fedora, three piece suit, smoke my pipe and only check time with my pocket watch.
I haven't yet had the chance to whip out my sword cane, shrunken head, and actual cannibal forks (from fiji), but scenarios are in the works.
Oh oh! And once I got to make Delta Green props for college credit!
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bz8xqksR4VoSMDlhMmMzYmUtYzI3NS00YWJlLTkzNmUtZjJlMTA1ZWMxYmI3&hl=en
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bz8xqksR4VoSNDJlY2IzODUtY2NiNy00YjU2LWE2YzEtYTk3MzY5YzNhMDlj&hl=en
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bz8xqksR4VoSOWE4NDhlODAtYzNhOS00ZmFjLThiMjMtNzE1ZGE1ZWQxNmQ5&hl=en
Feel free to like do whatever with those pdfs.
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Oh oh! And once I got to make Delta Green props for college credit!
This requires more explanation.
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Oh oh! And once I got to make Delta Green props for college credit!
This requires more explanation.
Some sort of design class I'm guessing?
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Yeah exactly. Best class ever. My Prof used to design character sheets and so making props was fine with her.
I quote Ross and Tom in the project too. From the episodes about handouts and props. Flavor and plot, blah blah blah.
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Yeah exactly. Best class ever. My Prof used to design character sheets and so making props was fine with her.
I quote Ross and Tom in the project too. From the episodes about handouts and props. Flavor and plot, blah blah blah.
That's great.