D&D Handouts

Over on Reddit, PMbyday_DMbynight shared some excellent handouts from his latest Dungeons and Dragons campaign:

 "During the last session of our D&D, I made handouts for my players. While I handed it to my players, they did not open it right away. They turned it over, checked the seal and held it up like it actually mattered. The whole table was quiet for few seconds. That’s the moment I know physical handouts are essential.

Since last year, I have been making simple “parchment” at home using cheap brown paper, printing on it and aging it a bit. Nothing really fancy or expensive but once you put it in an envelope or add a small prop, it starts feeling like an object from the world!

It is honestly one of the best and easiest upgrades to immersion at the table."

As you would expect, the comments include a lot of very positive player reactions to getting tailored handouts.  That jibes with my own experience.  I've also seen players totally ignore the clues and information included in prop documents.  That can occur even when the participants are experienced investigators.  When it does, I normally have them roll a perception or intelligence check for their characters and offer up varying levels of detail depending on their success (or lack thereof).

Is it meta-gaming to expect players to pick up on things?  You bet, but it's also fun and immersive.  Having the character's abilities as a backup gives them another chance to take advantage of what they've been given. 

 

"None More Black" Handouts

Over on Reddit, Nelog has posted a collection of handouts for the "None More Black" adventure from Chaosium's "Doors to Darkness" scenario collection.  The investigators are tasked with finding out what's going on after a student at Miskatonic University dies after taking a dangerous black-market drug.  The original version was set in the classic era of the 1920s.  Nelog had the brilliant idea to run it as a "Delta Green" scenario, transplanting the action to 1980's Miami.  "Miami Vice" meets the Mythos?  Sign me up.

He was kind enough to make all of the documents he created for the game available over here on Google Docs. 

 

Cthulhu Returns to Dungeons & Dragons

Cthulhu is coming back to Dungeons & Dragons.

Those of us of a certain age can remember when Lovecraft's Great Old One (and much of the Mythos) was statted up in the first edition of the Deities & Demigods handbook.  For many, TSR's heavily Derlethian write-ups were their introduction to Lovecraft's work.  That gateway closed after the second printing, when Chaosium politely pointed out they'd "officially" licensed the Mythos for their Call of Cthulhu TTRPG.

Now, decades later, Cthulhu is returning to the game.  WOTC have announced Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, an expansion of the popular setting incorporating new realms and darklords.  Cthulhu rules over Innsmouth, an island based on the town that debuted in Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth.  On the bright side, it's always nice to see the Mythos getting more exposure, but it remains to be seen how effectively it will be incorporated into the wider 5th edition milieu.  

That said, there is one thing I'm excited about.  Beadle and Grimms, the company that specializes in producing super-deluxe editions of WOTC's campaigns, have announced Strahd's Silver Edition of the Horrors Within.  It includes a slew of high-end accessories including maps, gaming aids, handouts, a new Tarroka deck, and...the Cthulhu Mist Talisman.  

 

The cast metal amulet looks pretty cool.  The physical prop apparently represents the in-game magical item needed to enter the Innsmouth realm.  

Before and After

Over on Reddit, the Muff1nKing posted a look at the clue board he created for his run of the Call of Cthulhu scenario "Tatters of the King".  The first photo is from the second session of the campaign, while the second comes from the tenth.  It features some great props and handouts, but it should go without saying the images contain significant spoilers.  

Clueboards are a fantastic tool for both Keepers and their players.  They allow everyone to keep track of their progress, and are an ideal way for players to get into the groove again at the start of a new session.  They're also a good reminder for the Keeper of a journaling campaign what handouts he'll need multiple copies of for the players. 

 

D&D Themed Gaming Room

This is the very best kind of gamer pr0n.  Andrew Havlicek brings us this look at "The Storm's Respite", his recently completed Dungeons and Dragons gaming room. It's pretty darn impressive.

 

Curse of Strahd Props

Wolfspirit4W brings us this collection of physical props and ephemera for their run of the "Curse of Strahd" campaign for Dungeons and Dragons.  There are few things more effective than running a high-touch version of an already epic adventure series.  If you're planning something similar, the one suggestion I would make is producing enough copies of every paper prop that each player can have their own.  That allows them to do a running journal of the adventure with tons of inserts, akin to the grail diary from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  That would be an amazing keepsake.

 

 

Free Call of Cthulhu Scenario- No Place of Honour

This is pretty cool.  Thomas E. Shkurti has released a free Call of Cthulhu tabletop scenario set in gaslight-era Australia. 

No Place of Honour is a tale of mystery, science, tragedy, time, and Victorian hubris, set deep in the Australian Outback in 1888. Investigators will be joining a medical aid mission to the remote mining settlement of Monument Station, which has been stricken by a mysterious plague- or, have the miners instead awakened an ancient, invisible killer?

The scenario includes 137 pages of slow-burn, sandbox exploration and investigation; with 6 full-color maps, 12 handouts, and 6 full-page illustrations, along with 6 pre-generated characters. It provides roughly 15-20 hours of play, and best accommodates a small group of 2 or 3 players.

The full scenario is available for free download from Google Drive here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kzbe9SAzUEmSycs1LHLsM1Lt6mxypo2L

Based on a quick read-through, it's an interesting period adventure with a great twist.  (You can find out more about that by clicking through to Mr. Shkurti's Reddit post and looking at the spoiler text.)  The complete adventure package includes an impressive collection of maps and handouts, exactly the kind of thing that's our bread and butter here at Propnomicon.

Kudos to Mr. Shkurti for an intriguing scenario and a willingness to share it with the community free of charge. 

 

 

"Day of the Beast" Handouts

In many ways, "Day of the Beast" from Chaosium is the little brother of "Masks of Nyarlathotep".  Both were originally published back in 1984 ("Day of the Beast" as "The Fungi from Yuggoth") and involved a globe spanning fight against creatures of the Mythos.  In the case of "Beast" that was the Mi-Go, as the original title gave away.

Over on Reddit, Pomchop put together a plethora of handouts for their running of the adventure.  Even better, they've made all of that impressive prep work available for free.  Yet another example of the awesomeness of the "Call of Cthulhu" community. 

 

A Star on the Shore

Over on Reddit, MrKennyG41 posted an inspirational gallery of the props and handouts he created for "A Star On the Shore".  This is just a small sampling.

 

 

Lost and Found Handouts

Oh, how I love prop layouts.  SR Sellens posted these shots of the physical and paper props he created for a railway-themed scenario called "Lost and Found".  If you like what you see you can find the complete adventure over in the Miskatonic Repository.

 

 

Ladybug, Ladybug Fly Away Home Handouts

Over on Reddit, UrsusRex01 has done two great things.  The first is posting this tableau of all the handouts they made for the "Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home" scenario for Call of Cthulhu.  The second is making every single one of these handouts available for download, absolutely free.  Just click over here.

 

 

Idol of Y'Golonac

Dadocadente brings us this "handout", a rough clay idol of Y'golonac wrapped in a bloody cloth.  Can't get much more immersive than that.  If you're not familiar with The Defiler, you'll find more over here.

 

 

Blade Runner RPG Props

Seth Skorkowsky has one of the best tabletop RPG channels on YouTube.  I first started following him because he was one of the few people covering Traveller, a game I've been a fan of for close to fifty years.  I stayed thanks to his insightful reviews and love of game handouts.  He's made dozens of them for scenarios he's run, all freely available.

His latest video is a look at the "Electric Dreams" adventure for the Blade Runner RPG.  It features a deep dive into the slew of incredible props and handouts included in the scenario, something you rarely see for science fiction games.  I'd love to see Mongoose start cranking out stuff like this for Traveller. 

 

Tools of the Trade

Over on Reddit, this_might_hurt shared some of the props he created for a homebrew Call of Cthulhu scenario, including a 3D printed Webley revolver.  The documents include a guest appearance by my Hellraiser glyphs.  

 

The Sunsword

Akoloutheo77 brings us this recreation of the Sunsword from the "Curse of Strahd" Dungeons and Dragons campaign.  He downloaded the basic form from Thingiverse (I think he used this model from screenowl), tweaked the shape and added more details, printed it out in a combination of PLA and resin, then finished it off with paint and a pair of inset faux gems.

 

The Devil's Dowry

This over-the-top handout for a tabletop Dungeons and Dragons game comes to us from professional graphic designer Stormageadon.  A fantastic piece of work, both in the aesthetic and plot-supporting sense.

 

I was asked to design a libretto to accompany a theater heist that's happening in Waterdeep in my girlfriend's campaign. 

I styled it off of late 19th century showbills, borrowing the art of the devil from a 1930s pulp novel. It was built entirely in Photoshop, in my experience in graphic design, finding a good font is 80% of the battle and I relied heavily on Hermann Ihlenburg’s typefaces for inspiration. 

One of the biggest challenges with designing something like this is that a lot of the very fun and engaging titles were all drawn by hand, which meant me doing a similar thing, drawing everything with Sharpie and scanning it and then tweaking it to make it look more contemporary. All in all, this is the result of about five and a half hours of work, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

 

 

 

Traveller Campaign Medals

Chris Heisman is getting ready to wrap up his current Traveller campaign, and he's doing it in style.  Each of the players will be getting one of these custom-made "Grand Star of the Directorate" medals.  It's a brilliant idea, and the kind of prop that players will remember for years. 

 

Waterdeep Receipt

Stormageadon's girlfriend tasked him with creating handouts for her Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

It’s difficult to figure out what exactly the visual style of a city like Waterdeep would be. I know fantasy tends to live in the 16th century or so, but I figure mass printing is already out and about so I based most of my work off of 19th century invoices. Please let me know if you think this fits the vibe of Waterdeep or how I can improve the next handouts. 

The longest part of the project was just getting fonts to look right. Next up is a few leaflets for some kind of opera and some posters for a sea maiden’s festival. 

It was about five hours of meticulous work on Photoshop, and then printing it in high fidelity on handmade paper. 

He's on-target with his design process.  Faerun, and Waterdeep in particular, has canonically had printing press technology since the setting was first published.   At the same time, you can still find professional scribes copying tomes by hand.  That's the legacy of a world shaped by the need to give gamemasters a place where they could set any kind of adventure.

The only thing I'm not crazy about is the deckled edge.  That's the hallmark of hand-laid, uncut paper, an artisan product.  Good for correspondence, but not the best fit for a pre-printed receipt.  

 

 

Tools of the Trade

I just love this kind of stuff.  Slooth849 brings us a collection of props from their tabletop Dungeons and Dragons game.  The only thing I'm not crazy about is the futuristic grenade, which apparently is used by an artificer character.  

 

Aslan Restaurant Menu

As a citizen of the Imperium since the late 70s, I absolutely love this printable prop for Traveller.  Mark Wicker posted the full PDF for an Aslan restaurant menu over on the Traveller RPG group on Facebook.  He says it's just the first.  Be sure to check out the mouth watering sea centipede.