Two Rules for Props | Mastery
On getting the most from your craft
“We can’t just leave it,” Pepper said, finger tapping against the letter’s seal.
“Well we can’t open it,” said Avery. “They’d know we’re on to them.”
“I think the brawl in Redfen might have given that away,” said Pepper in a tone that made “think” sound more like “know”.
“Right now they know that a handful of drunk travelers got into a fight with their hired thugs,” said Mandy, stepping to stand between Pepper and Avery. “If you break that seal, they’ll know that we came looking for them.”
“Let me see it.” Rowan had been quiet through the building row, and their voice quieted the others.
Pepper held out the letter. Rowan took it and, in the same smooth motion, tore the seal cleanly from the paper. Ignoring a burst of inarticulate noise from Avery and Mandy, Rowan’s eyes traced a careful path across the parchment.
“Candle please, Pepper,” they said, beginning to copy the document into their notebook.
The artificer rummaged in their satchel for a moment before producing a pristine green taper and lighting it with a wave of their hand. Rowan took a last careful look at the letter, gave the seal three quick passes over the candle flame, and secured it again to the parchment.
At the dining room table, Zoe puts their lighter back in their pocket and hands me the letter. I turn it over in my hands, eyeing up the edges of the seal. It’s still warm.
“I cannot believe that worked,” I say.
I’m a massive sucker for props. Of all the things that I have let define my DMing style in the last year or so, I think that the most obvious has been my focus on physical game pieces.
We all like props, though. There’s this awesome, tactile joy that comes from holding the thing that your character is holding. It’s one part getting to exist in the world of your character and one part playing with toys.
But as good as props can feel, they can also fall very flat. I’ve given props to my players that have created moments that absolutely couldn’t have existed otherwise, and I’ve given props to my players that have been set aside and forgotten about basically immediately. With the effort that it takes to make a good prop, that hurts a lot.
This post is meant to help you tell which items to leave to your players’ imaginations and which to craft for your table.
What are props for?
To start things off, we need to talk about what good props can bring to your game. We’ve already said that they feel good, and we’ve already said that they immerse you in the game world. But I think it’s very important to understand what that actually means. Because immersion is specific.
Here’s what I mean by that. We say that a prop immerses you in the game world. We say that it makes the world feel real. But what it’s really doing is making a very specific piece of the world feel real. Props focus player attention, and they help to dictate which elements of our fiction feel most important.
To my mind, a good prop is something that takes advantage of this. If you want your game to be about traveling your world, give your players a map. If you want your game to be about haggling and bartering, give your players coins. If you want your players to actually pay attention to information, give it to them on fancy prop paper.
Conversely, don’t make props that aren’t related to the most relevant pillars of your game! If your game isn’t about the geography of your setting, your players probably don’t need a map. I think that as crafty DMs we can feel an instinct to, once we start making props, just never stop. I’m here to tell you that focusing your attention on a smaller number of highly relevant props will have a dramatically stronger effect.
The caveat here is that props won’t singlehandedly focus your game. Giving your players a map won’t make geography important if the narrative and mechanics of your game aren’t concerned with geography – everything has to be pulling in the same direction. A prop gets players seeking, and your game has to give them something to find.
But what are props *for*?
It’s also important to consider what any given prop does in a more literal sense. If travel is important to your game and you give your players a map of the region they are in, they will use that map every session to plan their journeys. If you give them a scale model of their wagon for the same reason, I don’t think that prop would get the same kind of mileage. The difference is the usefulness of the item.
In brief, a prop should be something that can be used in the way that the PCs use the same in-world item. This is a big part of how we create the immersive parallel action between player and character, and it’s also a very practical way to give props a longer lifespan. If I am putting in the work to craft an item, I want it to stick around for a while. And the props that stay relevant at the table are the ones that have a point.
However beautiful the compass you found at the antique store is, John is not going to be able to do anything with it at the table if it doesn’t actually point to his character’s greatest desire.
The rules writ simple
Those are my two most general guidelines for making props! Make sure that they (a) draw player attention to the pillars of your game, and (b) can actually be used at the table. Remember that and you’ll be set.
Wrapup
And… that’s it for this one. A whole lot shorter than the last.
When I first drafted this one, it was another monster article with a bunch of stories and examples. But whenever I started editing one of the examples, it seemed like I was writing something that wasn’t quite this article. So instead those little tangents are being spun out into their own articles next week. Expect the first, about using physical coins and making money matter, this Tuesday! After that, I’ll be twisting off a section about using props as clues to mysteries, and then talking about the props I’m using right now as part of a little Campaign Diary.
Thank you so much for reading! I’m so very grateful to everyone who’s found their way to this page, and especially grateful to those who have already subscribed. I’m so excited to write for this page every day, and I can’t wait for you to see more of what I’m working on :)
The photo in this article was taken by me, and featured a map that I drew.