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Post by malifer on May 29, 2012 18:50:26 GMT -8
I was listening to Stu SW Ghostbusters session and there is a moment where Stu hands the players a letter and a map.
They then figure out what to do next...
I have never done this.
How does everyone go about working out props?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2012 5:31:19 GMT -8
Depends on the props. I have used printed out journal entries, letters, and in my pulp game I'm getting ready to hand the party a decoder ring they pulled off a proto nazi which will help decode messages they find later.
The trick I find is to keep the res herrings in the clues to a minimum since the part will almost always jump on those and ignore the clue you meant for them. You can also allow them to use skill checks to try and find the clues if they aren't jumping out at them.
Also for my pulp game I have newspaper articles, ticket stubs, etc, using a CoC module as the base for it so its packed full of clue handouts and I'm printing them on different kinds of paper depending on what the handout is. For this Office Depot is your friend.
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daniel
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 217
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Post by daniel on May 30, 2012 5:48:50 GMT -8
I would tray and avoid props that just end up being stuff that people play with at the table. The negative example that i have run across being things like coins it was an interesting example of what the DM wanted to show with them but i feel they should have been removed from the table afterwards.
* He was demonstrating how heavy they were
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Post by stork on May 30, 2012 6:24:47 GMT -8
Here is a site with great free CoC props in printable pdf form. Ive posted this link before in the old forum, but it bears reposting. www.cthulhulives.org/HPLHSPress/mediaintro.html This is a great example of what Stu does with maps, news papers etc.
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Post by jazzisblues on May 30, 2012 6:34:24 GMT -8
Examples of things I've done with props over the years:
1. One of those small moleskin notebooks with handwritten notes as if a detective were working on cases. My daughter actually rendered the notebook. I gave her the notes that mattered and then she filled in notes from other cases so the players got the fun of trying to figure out what mattered.
2. Bags of poker chips spray painted gold silver or copper so players had the money their characters actually had.
3. Assorted treasure maps, journals, letters and such usually drawn or calligraphed by hand to make them look fun.
My personal favorite though goes to WillH in his "Last Voyage of the HMS Babet" game at GameX 2012 when he had a pitcher of grog for us to drink during the game. Quite tasty and very much set the tone for the game.
Cheers,
JiB
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Post by ironnikki on May 30, 2012 6:41:12 GMT -8
Here is a site with great free CoC props in printable pdf form. Ive posted this link before in the old forum, but it bears reposting. www.cthulhulives.org/HPLHSPress/mediaintro.html This is a great example of what Stu does with maps, news papers etc. The link that you posted was broken for me, but is this what you meant to link to, stork? It looks pretty cool! One of my proudest GM moments was during a nWoD game. The players entered a room in what appeared to be some sort of temple. The room was in the shape of a hexagon, and there was a small altar in the shape of a hexagon in the middle. When they reached the altar, the single door slammed shut, and some viscous liquid began pouring into the room from the walls. The altar was located on a raised dais, and the PC's had 5 minutes to assemble a bunch of pieces of paper that I gave them into... a hexagon. It was basically a tangram puzzle, and they managed to figure it out after only a couple of acid burns :-P Pretty simple puzzle, and I know that it's been done before, but I was proud that I had come up with it, and the players loved it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2012 10:31:20 GMT -8
I've done several puzzles like that using chess pieces on a chess board, some sudoku type things using colored glass beads, and a few wooden block puzzles. I usually break them out along with a reoccurring gnome that my party loves to hate and who I fully intend to bring up in other game worlds in the future, I just love him so much.
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Post by muntjack on May 31, 2012 19:48:10 GMT -8
My personal favorite examples of gaming props came at a con game I ran at Gamicon. The concept was that the players were all test subjects in this super sterile lab that was pretty much deserted. I made their character sheets and information as part of paperwork inside actual file folders.
The best example from that game was my laptop. There was some emergency power, but there wasn't enough to run any of the computers. However, they found a laptop of one of the workers. I used my own laptop and created a new account name for the person, changed the user logo to the symbol for the Technocracy (it was an old WoD game), and they had to guess the password. After they got in, I had made a folder and filled it with Word files providing clues about their background and the story. There were also some red herrings in there. The thing that two out of the three groups that played the game did, which I found amusing, was spend most of their time in a random folder of pictures that I also placed alongside the text. I kept time, and after a point the computer shut down, leaving them with only the information they could muster in the time frame. The prop was a big success, and it really added a lot to that particular game.
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jebnotjib
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 30
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, baby!
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Post by jebnotjib on Jun 1, 2012 3:46:57 GMT -8
With all the stuff available on the interwebz, you can create some very realistic props as well. For my Savage Worlds espionage game at Fear the Con, I handed out dossiers with satellite photos, highly detailed maps, and convincing ID badges complete with the logo of a real organization on them. I use Print Shop all the time for things like this, but there's no shortage of applications that do the same thing.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jun 1, 2012 6:25:10 GMT -8
With all the stuff available on the interwebz, you can create some very realistic props as well. For my Savage Worlds espionage game at Fear the Con, I handed out dossiers with satellite photos, highly detailed maps, and convincing ID badges complete with the logo of a real organization on them. I use Print Shop all the time for things like this, but there's no shortage of applications that do the same thing. Ok now I REALLY want to play in a game you run. Very very cool stuff Jeb. Cheers, JiB(not Jeb)
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jebnotjib
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 30
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, baby!
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Post by jebnotjib on Jun 4, 2012 4:50:06 GMT -8
With all the stuff available on the interwebz, you can create some very realistic props as well. For my Savage Worlds espionage game at Fear the Con, I handed out dossiers with satellite photos, highly detailed maps, and convincing ID badges complete with the logo of a real organization on them. I use Print Shop all the time for things like this, but there's no shortage of applications that do the same thing. Ok now I REALLY want to play in a game you run. Very very cool stuff Jeb. Cheers, JiB(not Jeb) I have never visited California (and never really wanted to), but since listening to happyjacks, I've changed my mind. Hollywood? Disneyland? The 405 freeway? Fuck all that, I want to game with the douchebags.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jun 4, 2012 6:50:01 GMT -8
Ok now I REALLY want to play in a game you run. Very very cool stuff Jeb. Cheers, JiB(not Jeb) I have never visited California (and never really wanted to), but since listening to happyjacks, I've changed my mind. Hollywood? Disneyland? The 405 freeway? Fuck all that, I want to game with the douchebags. Well, we're even then because I really would like to go to FTC. I had hoped to go this year, but with moving to SoCal, and then FTC got moved and conflicted with other things here it didn't work out. Cheers, JiB
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Post by HourEleven on Jun 16, 2012 6:51:19 GMT -8
I mostly GM modern (the past 20 years or so) games, so I made PDF templates I can use to quickly generate email props (how my hunter group gets their next job) and text messages (because they are fun to slide a tiny text print out across the table to the character who would have received it so they can hold the information or share it with the group). The interactive PDFs can be found at my site: hour11gaming.blogspot.com/p/resources-for-gms.htmlI'm still working on the PDF for quick printing telegrams (we keep postponing the Cthulhu game), but when it's done it will be posted here.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jun 16, 2012 7:10:49 GMT -8
I mostly GM modern (the past 20 years or so) games, so I made PDF templates I can use to quickly generate email props (how my hunter group gets their next job) and text messages (because they are fun to slide a tiny text print out across the table to the character who would have received it so they can hold the information or share it with the group). The interactive PDFs can be found at my site: hour11gaming.blogspot.com/p/resources-for-gms.htmlI'm still working on the PDF for quick printing telegrams (we keep postponing the Cthulhu game), but when it's done it will be posted here. I'm getting a 404 on your link hour11 ... JiB
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Post by HourEleven on Jun 16, 2012 7:17:43 GMT -8
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