Real world extras for players

[Nibbens]

Incorporating real things into a gaming session can improve your gameplay: For example - the easiest thing to include in a game is a note, it gives the Players something physical to hold and look at. If the note is crumbled, I crumple the real note. If it's burned, I often scorch it before game. If it's supposed to be written in blood, I decorate it with heavy use of a red marker.

1) All of these things can help with immersion, obviously. But at what point does it become distracting?
2) What were some of the wildest things you've ever included in your games?

I once was selling raffle tickets for something many years ago, and had an in game merchant sell them for magic items to my players... It was the dirtiest move I ever pulled during a game - but it worked. LOL.

[ksbsnowowl]

Tomorrow night when my PC's enter Castle Ravenloft and meet Strahd in the dining room, I will play a section of "Unhallowed Ground" by Midnight Syndicate. Strahd will be playing the organ as they arrive.

[Zaq]

While it can very, very easily end up being overused, I've seen a hand puppet used to great effect. In my current game, there's a powerful, mostly friendly dragon that we've had to deal with two or three times, and the GM has this hand puppet he uses for the dragon that really brings those dialogue sessions to life. The puppet's a little goofy, but the dragon's also a little goofy (he's a red dragon, but he's also a hardcore stoner, so he's not likely to rampage around eating people unless they harsh his mellow), so it works out.

Obviously, that wouldn't work especially well for humanoid NPCs (while a puppet certainly makes you pay attention, it's also hard to take them 100% seriously), but for an oddball like the stoner dragon, it can be extremely entertaining. He's definitely a lot more memorable than some other NPCs, pretty much as a direct result of that puppet.

Not quite the same thing as making a fancy note to hand to a player, but on some level, a prop's a prop.

[Grod_The_Giant]

For one mid-semester climax, the party in my superhero game was supposed to fight a giant robot. (Really giant. Like "500 foot tall" giant). The week before, I was feeling kind of stressed and found a box of k'nex, so I... might have built a giant robot out of k'nex. And brought it to the game. And so, after describing the ungodly huge robot standing up and up and up, I reached behind me and plopped this foot-tall k'nex monstrosity onto the battlemap. It actually worked out great-- when characters started climbing onto (or, in the case of the stretch guy, into) the robot, I could physically put their tokens on it. And I'd statted out each limb as a separate creature, and started ripping them off the model whenever they took one out. It was kind of a cheesy gimmick, but I thought it worked rather well.

[Phaederkiel]

My group usually uses lego figures for the battlemap. When I wanted to have some giants, I put some playmobil knights down. The menace was tangible...

[nedz]

Does this include LARP ? :smallamused:

[P.F.]

Our Pathfinder DM gave us paper versions of the writs of authority our characters carried. One of the funnest parts of the game has been brandishing the writs in unison any time an unsuspecting NPC confronts us.

[Extra Anchovies]

Does this include LARP ? :smallamused:

If so, hackey sacks work well for targeted spells (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw) :smalltongue: LARP doesn't work too well with combat magic.

[Crake]

I included a stained world map with a burned section that was in the center of a maelstrom, leaving a few coastlines unburnt, indicating that there was a landmass in the center, as well as coastlines of an, at the time, unknown second continent.

http://i.imgur.com/NwAaCh3.jpg

The lines are leylines, the intersections at which are like locks to a planet-wide cage containing lovecraftian old gods.

[Thurbane]

Tomorrow night when my PC's enter Castle Ravenloft and meet Strahd in the dining room, I will play a section of "Unhallowed Ground" by Midnight Syndicate. Strahd will be playing the organ as they arrive.

I like it, but I'd got with Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (I know it's a bit cliche, but it's classic vampire music).

[Atarax]

I included a stained world map with a burned section that was in the center of a maelstrom, leaving a few coastlines unburnt, indicating that there was a landmass in the center, as well as coastlines of an, at the time, unknown second continent.

http://i.imgur.com/NwAaCh3.jpg

The lines are leylines, the intersections at which are like locks to a planet-wide cage containing lovecraftian old gods.



Once, I spilled coffee on a map before the session. So, in true DM fashion, I crumpled it up and burnt it to pass it off as intentional. I think I got away with it.

[Uncle Pine]

I usually hand to the players a hand drawn world map if they have access to one, but I'm not sure if that qualifies because this is probably what everyone does.
A couple of times I used a PS1 videogame case as a "miniature" for a really huge creature, while the players in one of my groups created their own miniatures with clay and rice.

[Crake]

Once, I spilled coffee on a map before the session. So, in true DM fashion, I crumpled it up and burnt it to pass it off as intentional. I think I got away with it.

Haha, could have just said that a previous owner of the map spilt coffee on it? Ship captain in rough waters perhaps? :smalltongue: