Many Game Masters love giving out handouts during RPG sessions. Here's a couple cheap and easy methods to make them more fun. You can buy my books here: amzn.to/2FC8FmM
Seth, I've been a Dungeon Master for D&D and Pathfinder for almost ten years now. Through all the channels I've seen, you have some of the most solid game mastery advice I have ever seen, and use you as a reference for up-and-coming Dungeon Masters in my group who want to learn the trade. Though this video is of great quality, I find your best work had to be the organized player-folders you introduced, something I had never thought of in my many years of playing, and advice that completely solved the all-too-common issue of players forgetting information and losing character sheets within my group. I can only imagine how much of a blast it must be to participate in one of your games. Thank you so much for what you do and I hope you enjoy making these videos as much as I enjoy watching them.
You should also check out Matthew Colville or just Matt Colville. He does a lot of stuff about "Running the Game" there is like 40ish of them. ranging from about 6 mins to 30 mins. Average time is 24 mins but there all good.
Yes, Seth, this is a great idea... Couple things for you (in case you're interested)... Number 1... BUTCHER PAPER!!! This stuff is GREAT. It's cheap, when you look at the "long run". You get it by the roll, so it looks expensive to buy (around $30 per) but it's like... miles of paper. It comes in a couple varieties, so do be careful. I always order PLAIN, so it's non-waxed... a detail sometimes you only get from the "fine print". Just like it's name suggests, this stuff is TOUGH. It's designed to wrap meat in a butcher shop, so it deals with liquids (like blood) really well. It rarely disintegrates (even saturated) and takes a beating compared to similar products at a print shop. You can get the waxed kind too, which can be helpful. It can be wax coated on one or both sides, so attention should be paid. It also comes in both brown (old fashioned) and white varieties... AND it comes in different "sizes", so you can order 2 foot, 3 foot, and even 6 foot rolls... The height of the roll is actually the WIDTH of the paper, though... so understand it's heavy... BUT for a group that does a lot of props, or in case you occasionally like BIG art projects, it's practically indispensable. For the "home GM on a budget" I'd still recommend a 2-foot roll, since that's not very hard to deal with, can be kept in a closet or on most shelves, and there's plenty more that you CAN do with it than random maps, scrolls, parchments, and plot-related documents... It's also plenty large enough to fit just about anything you'd want. AND you can always lay out several "swaths" and tape the edges together (overlap?) to make a larger single "piece"... Various juices, pulps, and extractives from vegetation and produce can also be used to "tint" paper, just the same as the coffee or tea staining. Lighter and darker stains can be managed with more or less water and higher or lower temperatures for the extractive (which is basically like tea-making)... Alcohol (isopropyl) is also a VERY GOOD organic extractive base, in the case that 1, you need it dry relatively quick OR 2, you have something that water isn't working so well at extracting... Beet juice gives a rich reddish to purple color, depending on the "intensity" used, for instance. You can also "distress" paper by tossing it into a common dryer with NO HEAT and a whole set of poker-chips. It was documented by old counterfeiters as a way to "age" the fresh bills out of their presses... AND it really works well. Poker chips being plastic, generally don't ruin the inner finish of the dryer either... (coins will do that, though)... In any case, hope some of this was interesting and fun... AND I would definitely check out more of your tricks of the trade, as it's always fun to do something "quick and dirty" to spruce up the game-table and ambiance... ;o)
Hey Seth, my wife says that your printer may have an option to change the weight of paper being used, so that may help printing on newsprint. Try googling your printer + adjusting paper weight. 👍 Great video, as always!!
If you get a lot of packages in the mail like my household does, you tend to end up with a lot of packing paper. Huge sheets of cheap brown paper, I love that stuff and I use it for maps and stuff all the time.
Dustin Deckert Thanks dude. I was just about to clean up my room and throw away a bunch of packaging paper from some stuff I ordered. You saved me a bunch of money I'd spend on old looking paper.....
I use the little mini one drink alcohol bottles for potions my players find. Then if they drink them in the game they can try the fun mixed drink irl I made for them. The mini bottles come in a ton of interesting shapes and sizes
Did the letter w/ wax stamp in my campaign for some new players. Their jaws dropped when I said "you receive a letter" and then passed it over. Made a huge first impression. Plus, I had my roommate write it out in cursive so they would not recognise the handwritting.
I had to write letters to a player from an NPC that was obsessed with the PC. The NPC was a murderer and would write the name of the PC on the folded letter in the blood of the victim. Citadel Wazdakka Red worked well for it. I dipped my brush in the paint and flicked it toward the sheet of paper to make nice blood splatters. I also added a few finger prints as the name was written with the NPCs fingers.
Evil Scientist I've done that before and purposely burned a hole in it like the old treasure maps might have. Just be careful not to do too much or the paper can become very brittle.
To expand on the burning the edges, I find you have more control over the final outcome if you set fire to a small corner, let it burn for a second or two and then put it out, rinsing and repeating. If you let the fire get too strong it tends to burn more than you were hoping for and you have to start again.
Besides from burning it fully you can even stain the paper if you are careful enough with the flame. i would recommend a candle, so you have another hand free to hold the paper. It's just great if the players find something like this in a burned/burning building or in a dragons lair.
Can also try making your own paper, for an authentic pre-industrial feel. It's not hard; about on the level of an elementary school science experiment. It's too long to get into on a comment box, but there's a lot of youtube videos on how to do it.
A thing I have been doing is to always have some printer paper laying in a window where they can be yellowed by the sun, and then when they reach different amounts of yellow I replace them with a new and put them in my roleplaying box. That way I always have some "old" paper to draw maps on
Using tea and coffee has another perk, it tends to make the paper smell nice =) I use vinager to age paper sometimes, works great and you can choose different colors to get different effects. And you can use a couple of drops of beetroot to redden or stain the paper. You can also "bake" paper in the oven to get it darker, just watch it so it doesnt catch on fire. =) And of course you can stain the paper with tea and then put it in the oven to dry it faster. Sometimes I put wet coffee or tea-grains direct on the paper to stain it and give it a very old and imperfect look. Just leave it there until it has dried and then just brush it off.
Just a casual FYI... The BIG BIG trick to avoid lighting paper on fire in the oven, is keeping the Temperature control BELOW 450 F... Personally, I stick to 400 or lower, since I have an older oven and they're somewhat unpredictable. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 Have you ever heard of Fahrenheit 451? (the book or the movie) It was about burning books, it was named that because the temperature at which paper catches fire is 451 degrees.
@@snate56 Had a middle school Language Arts teacher who was a Bradbury Fan... AND my father lived a short time about a block away from Bradbury... I figured putting together a decent book report on "Farhenheit 451" would net me a few brownie points and ease my way to better grades... Then in high school, we had a "section" on it, about oppression, tyranny, and the likes of Orwell... a few other dystopian authors... SO I got dragged through it a second time, but my notes from earlier allowed me a bit of sleep now and again without too much hell to play. Yeah... I've read it. There's even a Cliff-Notes about it (in case you need a short-cut)... ;o) haha... just read my earlier comment... and I'd ordinarily never edit... so "update"... We had Chemistry in 7th and 8th grade Science Class, so part of that was the basics of finding out the "flash points" of various materials, like paper, cotton, gasoline, alcohol... That was where I first started picking it up... BUT I've also "antiqued" a LOT of paper products for everything from Theatrical to TTRPG props, and even as part of "replica" set-ups. Sticking below 450 generally comes from experience... and with some ovens (cheap and not so precise) GET A THERMOMETER and pay attention the first few times, rather than just follow whatever the dial or digital control says. ;o)
I just finished running Lost Mines of Phandelver for some players (adults in their 40s and 50s) who were new to D&D. To make sure their impression of the game was a good one, I included some handouts: 1. Letter to a boss monster from villain (hand wrote a note in my imitation of a fantasy script) 2. Letter to a boss NPC from villain 3. Map of mine and caverns (partial) that was done in a highly stylized format resembling a flowchart rather than realistic representation (as a cultural difference) 4. Map of area surrounding a ruined castle (absent from module material) 5. NPC profile pictures for use during role playing encounters Between that and the crafting of the set piece battle terrain and exploration reveal pieces (for use with miniatures) I made, they were blown away. I definitely agree that props are an important and fun part of the RPG experience.
I'm running the same campaign as well with my friends (they just reached the village) and I've crafted (so far): 1. The note outside mayor's house (which doubles as a regional map) 2. The letter from villain to boss NPC Good thinking that you made the map for the mine as well. I'd like to see it for "inspiration" :DD P.S. I've also translated three parts of the campaign (need to translate the last part as well), wizard and priest spells up to 2nd spell level and the monster list. Makes it easier for the players to understand I think. Also, makes the world a bit more consistent. But boy does it eat my time... a LOT of my time...
Well, since you're in England, I can only assume that antique maps, complete with strange and arcane glyphs, are a dime a dozen. So that might be OK. I'm in Texas. Here, anything made prior to 1980 is what you find in antique shops.
I have some detailed charts of the islands of the Caribbean and Antilles. They are reproductions, but they still cost £100 each before I framed them. So if it's your money, by all means go ahead and distress them.
For staining, try crumpling the paper BEFORE applying the coffee, tea or other ingredients. The creases will enhance and vary the darkness of the stain!
What i didet for my players is to burn the paper so you ignite a side of a paper and than your nead to turn off the fire. Wow the paper lokks now nice and a bite burned and old. Sry im from germany so bad english
You can also oven bake or blow-dry wet paper to give it a stiffer parchment feel, or drop coffee granules on still soaked paper to give the impression of blotches or mould. There are some pretty detailed videos also on YT if you search paper aging, and this is a great idea if you're already going to the effort of making handouts.
One of my players’ chars is on a vision quest sent by an ancient ancestor, both from an ancient Egypt-like land. His char is trying to fit into these new lands w so many unknown gods & powers & such. I needed to give his char some guidance, to help the player find his place in the adventure. So using several online translation tools, I crafted a message for him into hieroglyphics, then printed these & rolled it into a scroll. When his ancestor reached out to him one morning, the PC envisioned (& char was given) a scroll. When both were confused, I voiced his ancestor, “Have you forgotten our old ways so quickly young ‘fighter cleric / son’?”. Then I sent him the English text of the message on his phone. “Does this mean more to you now? ”
We here at Game On! use red food dye mixed with a little blue in about a 3:1 ratio. Gets that great dry look. Wears clothes you don't mind getting stained however haha.
Great video Seth! Handout-videos are always fun to watch. Making own props is great! You get 3 great things from it every time. 1. Figuring out what prop to do for the next rpg session and the hunt for as cheap stuff as possible to use for making it is somewhat of an obsession for me now a days. =) 2. The crating itself is loads of fun! 3. To see the reactions on the players faces when they get to use it makes the work totally worth it. And it doesnt have to be expensive and advanced stuff, just a handwritten letter or some cheap fake jewel or perhaps a funky little Cthulhu amulett made with owendried clay and painted with a dark wash to make it look old. I promise that the players will appreciate it when you give it to them. =) I bought an old typewriter and types out official papers, letters and telegrams and such on it, super simple and looks great with the right paper. Great advice with the envelopes, never thought of that, I use "butcher paper" but have to buy a big roll of it that is rather expensive. I will check out the envelopes! =)
The best cheap blood splatter I've found is Kool Aide. Take some of the $.15 cent packs and add like 2 or 3 Tablespoons of water to them and use a pastry brush or paint brush to splatter it on. I've used Fruit Punch and a few grains of grape to really great effect.
If you are using a laser printer, wrapping paper can be used. As in - the standard, brown-grey, pulp paper used to wrap packages. Just make sure it's not the waxed variant. Then just fold it into a ball and unfold few times. Or even don't do that, depending on how the printing worked out. Also, from the days when I was doing a lot of work-related inking, I still have my "glass tile". It's a wooden frame to contain an A4 paper inside, the one you put large photos or similar inside to hang on the wall. I put it on my lap, put a lamp on the ground level, and two layers of paper: the original image I'm drawing over, and a clean sheet of paper. Any sort of imperfections only enhance the result. Another trick with paper stuff is that you can use the old newspapers and a hard scrubber, essentially making your own, home-made palimpsest. The downside is that they are really delicate, but you have now a huge A2 piece of paper to work with and nobody is going have issues with whatever you put on it And a specific one when handling riddles, codes or translations is to have a "full text" of it and then have two other copies of that text, with random words still in cypher. Then just tear lines from it and whenever players are trying to pierce the thing, hand them over some of the "slices" you have. This can even be affecting their future tries, sicne they can be given the same "slice", but with different words revealed. Oh, yeah, and typewriter, a physical thing, works wonders when running anything in the "Chandler times". You can even print out forms and then just type them in.
Bloodstains are brownish.... you can possibly use thinned ketchup or barbecue sauce for that, and daub off the excess...? I mean, I'm not sure whether it'd work, but hey, the cost of an experiment is a ketchup packet and a sheet of typing paper, so I might try.
So, if you live in a city search for custom printers. Most printers throw away paper scrap that accumulated after they do custom work. When I was living in Clarcksville, one of my roommates worked for a custom printer and his boss let him have any paper scrap left over from custom work. He made little rip off tablets from cheat paper and really expensive scrap and he brought them back to use in games. That was in 1991 and I still have some of the paper from that time and I use it for notes and small maps. I suggest you ask nicely for the scrap, but dumpster diving will also work.
I love adding props to my games. I don't do it all the time, but it really adds flavour. For my first game of Shadowrun I had 3D-printed and painted the most iconic pistol in the game. "You see the guards, they see you, and they all reach for one of these!" [reaches under the table and takes out a massive pistol] "Roll for initiative."
I just draw a map on a blank sheet with a pencil, crumple the paper and put is in the tea cup. Black tea works best, IMO. Once dry, I go nuts with ink and calligraphy.
Hi, anyone found or have any money props for 1920-1930? It would be fun to give the players to actually use for their characters money that they are carrying on them. The paper kind anyway, like pounds and dollar bills. The coins is a bit hard to print =P Or give them as a handout in an envelope for a job well done or perhaps a bribe or something like that.
Here's how I prepare handouts representingold maps: First, bury it in earth outside for at least three months. Then wear it in your underpants for three months. Then put it in a drawer in your apartment, set your apartment on fire, and rush in to save it from the drawer before the map burns to ash. Voilà: A perfect looking (and smelling) ancient map.
What i did was make a mix of tea, coffee and soy sauce, then i put it in the freezer, when i need it i thaw it, then soak my paper in the mix for 5 minutes, remove the liquid, then put the paper in the oven for 10-20 minutes, then i will sometimes burn the paper.
Once for an American civil war presentation at middle school we were told to be authentic, bring in pieces like telescopes, stuff soldiers would have [no weapons though :( ] I made a map of the battle of Gettysburg, and to make it look authentic, my dad helped and we put it in the oven for a bit, so it looked old and like it had been through a battle. The teachers took points off because it looked damaged and poor quality like I had drawn it last night on a piece of scrap paper >:(.
I was watching one of your other Call of Cthulhu related shows, and realised that there was talk of various pieces of art as possible hand outs.. I have a large painting i did of Cthulhu that could work there.. Let me know if you want a copy and i'll make sure you get to see it. It's kinda cool.
Another tip if you have the prep time for it: Put the paper in your pocket or backpack in a place that you shuffle in around a lot. Worn paper and torn/burned paper looks not quite the same...
To make your piece of parchment weathered at the edges lightly burn it with a small lighter. I do not recommend this for all people and you should stay safe by having a source of water nearby.
Print a map, or letter on parchment or tea stained paper, then crumple it up, flatten it back out, and repeat until it softens and ages. Iron it before you hand it out or put it under some books. It really makes it feel ancient and delicate. Laser printer toner will flake off, so only works with inkjet and hand drawn.
I used that coffee stain method, but what I did was I put the pan inside the oven at 200°F for about 3 or 4 minutes, when you see the edges of the paper curl up just a tiny bit then go ahead and take it out of the oven and now it's dried and stiff like old parchment
An idea I used created a written message as a brittle scroll that could disintegrate if not handled carefully. I wrote out the message on a sheet of paper and loosely rolled it into a scroll and tied a ribbon around it. This went into a low oven, which turned it a very light tan with a bit more color on the edges. This was intended to mimic an item that had been lying in a chest for decades. I had to practice to get the baking time right so the scroll could still be used and not be too brittle. This one was a rhyming clue, if I remember correctly, but it could be used for a map or even a spell scroll.
I'm a bit late to the party but I've been tea staining handouts for a while and its always a great way to add immersion to the game. In addition to tea staining i like to take a tea stain handout and hold it over a flame (an oven burner works). It adds a lot of wear and tear, might even get some charred edges.
Brown grocery bag and just cut off the flat non-logo side, works great, you can also at the dollar store buy twine that looks like old reed string or something to that effect so roll your paper in to a scroll and tie it off with that string.
One trick I've used is to wet the edges and then rip little bits off until the entire edge is ripped rather than tearing a long strip I find that this method gives a very nice feathered edge.
My brother in law worked at starbucks, and the divider paper that came in the lid boxes were a nice size (~12x18) and he would draw maps, and then crumple them, leave them in the back window of his car, spill coffee on them... the whole shebang. It’s made for some really great maps. I’m always interested in stuff like this. My party is collecting orbs that will function as keys later. I want to get marbles for them so each person can hold an orb as they fit them into the cyclops eye key holes at the end of the dungeon.
Thank you so much for this video Seth! I'm currently running an Evil D&D campaign, and I wanted something to spice up the table and give them an overview of the world. I used the coffee staining trick, and it worked fabulously. The map turned out wonderfully, and my players very much enjoyed a physical map that looked as if it had been taken straight from the setting. For anyone looking to create their own map with the staining method, I found that the best method was to take a piece of 8x11 printer paper, and to draw the entire map on that paper in pencil. Make sure to draw the map as if it's the final product, adding any details or shading of your choice. I received the best results using the Coffee method, specifically a small pot of coffee; not a Keurig. Do the exact same method that Seth outlines in the video, but make sure to gently spread the coffee out in even lines to avoid smudging any graphite. Let the paper fully dry. Once dry, trace any outline, name, or natural landmark on the map with black ink, but leave any shaded details in pencil. The final product will be a wonderful map to present your players with. I'd also recommend, if you're looking to make your map look older, to wait until the moment after the map has dried fully and to then immediately distress it a few times, as it will add the tactile effect of age, and will make the paper easier to fold and manipulate in the future. Have a wonderful time everyone!
I\ve had great success with dry tumbling the paper a while after tea/coffee staining it. Not right after staining it, the paper can't be so damp it falls apart when tumbling about. Being creative helps. Burn it a bit, spill other stuff. Do weird things! I once soaked a paper (for Call of Cthulhu) in pigs blood and left it out in the sun to dry. Not only was the paper grizzly to look at, it also smelled. OK, I might have gone a bit overboard on that.
Make scroll tubes (model rocket tubes, paper towel core tubes... 3D print a fancy tube...) And get a wax seal kit. Wax seal scrolls and stuff that you want to make look "official" such as messages for the king. You can have magical traps go off when the players break the seal... You can make assorted seals on the scroll tubes, again with potential effects when they break the seal. For dJinn bottles, Put a bottle out with aluminum foil (representing a lead seal) wrapped over the mouth and sealed with wax. They break the seal and the dJinn comes out. Small wood box with small brass lock on the hasp... Hand them the key when they figure out how to open it. You can make all kinds of fun props for the game. Most of the seals can be redone pretty easily. Be sure to get all of your props and handouts back to be used in another game or campaign. Just because it worked one way the first time doesn't mean it has to work exactly the same the next time.
You can spice up your seals with short (2-4 inch) pieces of plain and/or patterned ribbon incorporated into the wax. And those ribbons can be longer to hold even more seals if the document is meant to have passed through several noteworthy hands or signatories.
Why not mail out your handouts? Everyone enjoys getting a package. You could cleverly nest (numbered) boxes to be opened at the appropriate time to reveal each prop rather than have to mail out multiple parcels.
Photoshop is your friend. You can make even cooler stuff when you're not limited to real world materials, go nuts with those handouts. Even if you're not familiar with it, making stuff like old maps is super easy, just put some paper pics on a different layer and voilá! There's tons of youtube tutorials on it. Check out How to be a Great GM.
Brown paper bags are another great resource. It's on the dark side, but that if you use black ink it can create a really cool effect. I'd also recommend investing in a bottle of calligraphy ink and an ink pen for a more authentic look.
I once gave away a copy of the movie "The Men Who Stare At Goats". I put it in a large envelope marked "Evidence". I then made a document to look like some sort of official record, complete with an agency crest, and typed in the lyrics to "Rosetta Stoned" by Tool (look it up, you'll like it). I then folded the stack of papers, crumpled it, sprayed water on it and finally put coffee mug stains on it. My efforts seemed to be appreciated.
Even if you can use standard 80g/qm paper, I suggest heavier paper - 120g or even 200g. You can still use tea, coffee, vinegar, thinned water-colours... It is more expensive then cheap printer paper, but not as much as actual parchment-style paper. And at one point I grabbed a pack mould-made-style paper from the local supermarket for a real cheap price. Look out for those things.
any tips for handling other languages, I wanna have people be spoken to in dwarven, or recieve a letter in elven but I don't really have any good idea's to use?
If it comes to *spoken languages* - maybe learn a few adress-forms, weekdays, times, 'yes', 'no', 'help' and one or two nice sounding insults / curses in a few foreign languages for representing different cultures. Or in actual Sindarin. Learning a whole new language - or more for that matter - might be a bit of an overkill for your purpose. If it comes to *written language* - try different font-types. You'll find free fonts really easy - for example here: www.1001freefonts.com/ I use the 'Alphabet of the Magi' for example for my Cthulhu/Dreamlands 'language' And another one for everything related to Nyarlathotep and so on. You might keep even the adress forms like Gospodin (horrific latinised Russian) instead of Mister to give it the right flair. Provide your players with translation tables for the symbols, if they knew the language and advise all players who don't understand it, to not try to read it - or even allow them to brute-force-translate the coded messages...
@@robertnett9793 I would try that, but as I and one of my players have a background in rapid decryption of replacement ciphers from 20+ years in LARPs. that would backfire on me in about 2-4 minutes. By rapid, I mean we would decrypt things that were meant to take weeks or months of at-home time to decrypt to be used to further the plotlines. The people running the game kept getting new methods and tricks from the internet, a person who worked in financial encryption, and a Mensa examiner they collectively knew, and we just tore through them like a snack. They finally resorted to asking us to only work on stuff that other people had given up on.
Great ideas Seth. This is the most genuinely helpful DMing channel on TH-cam I've ever seen. You're just not a serious enough DM if you don't cut yourself to put bloodstains on your handouts. I'm kidding of course, self-harm is no good.
Wow, Seth, I didn't know you were Dutch. Or maybe that's your camera. (Sorry, I had to do that) Anyway, I did something like that for a campaign I'm playing in. I decided to have my character leave the party, and rather than have a whole scene, I typed up a letter using some handwriting-like font and printed it out on some fancy paper I bought a few years go but haven't used. The DM really liked it.
These are some cool ideas! My game is in a modern setting and over skype, so I'm limited to an extent, but I've been writing on maps/adding post its/photocopying books and scanning them in to send to my players, and I think it looks pretty cool, even if, sadly, they can't hold them. My next campaign has some prohibition era ghosts - it might be super cool to coffee stain some stuff so it'll look cooler in the scan.
Another great video. Thanks. Wow, if a player had the chutzpah to make fun of an otherwise detailed map that I happened to output from a printer, he might find a couple extra arrows coming his way in the next combat.
I know they are hard to find nowadays, but we used to draw maps and cryptic scrolls on the old brown paper grocery bags. They had the great color and thickness to represent old vellum.
Last adventure I ran had a hand out for each PC, it was a vision from the god of order (main antagonist long story) I used regular copy paper printed in a good cursive font. First thing I did was crumpled them up and flattened them out three or four times. Followed that up by dumping coffee grounds and opened tea bags in different areas of the paper. Poured boiling water directly on them and pealed them up then threw them in the oven right on the racks to dry. It ended up having a harder brittle texture with an aged look to it. Everyone loved it. As a side note sented candle wax does not substitute for sealing wax...
This is perfect for handing out game invites to session zero. It lets the invited players know right away how dedicated you are to the experience of the game. Thanks for sharing!
One trick I used was printing on resume paper in a fancy font and then tracing the letters with a fine point sharpie pen. It bleeds through the paper like traditional ink and looks handwritten. I then added a wax seal just like what was mentioned in this video. It made the players day I think when I handed it over to start the session.
I like to tea stain and use an oven for drying. If you want rips or creases in the paper, it's important to add them before staining or else they can reveal the white paper under the stain.
Thanks Seth. I have some maps and a letter from a mysterious messanger to hand out to my party this Saturday. Think that I will go and spice those up now 😀
In my D&D campaign we're going through, we found a book on necromancy crucial to the plot. The DM gave us a printed out book, but it was just printer paper arranged to look like a book. Any ideas on how to make an ancient book prop (with pictures on the inside) for cheep?
Arcane tomes are tricky. If you shop around you can often find some cool leather book covers for journals. I have a player who has done this with some super-thick printer paper and printed out a tome that he assembled and put inside a leather cover (He's a leather-worker, so he made the cover himself). There's still a cost, but the results were awesome.
Seth, I've been a Dungeon Master for D&D and Pathfinder for almost ten years now. Through all the channels I've seen, you have some of the most solid game mastery advice I have ever seen, and use you as a reference for up-and-coming Dungeon Masters in my group who want to learn the trade. Though this video is of great quality, I find your best work had to be the organized player-folders you introduced, something I had never thought of in my many years of playing, and advice that completely solved the all-too-common issue of players forgetting information and losing character sheets within my group.
I can only imagine how much of a blast it must be to participate in one of your games. Thank you so much for what you do and I hope you enjoy making these videos as much as I enjoy watching them.
You should also check out Matthew Colville or just Matt Colville. He does a lot of stuff about "Running the Game" there is like 40ish of them. ranging from about 6 mins to 30 mins. Average time is 24 mins but there all good.
Yes, Seth, this is a great idea...
Couple things for you (in case you're interested)...
Number 1... BUTCHER PAPER!!!
This stuff is GREAT. It's cheap, when you look at the "long run". You get it by the roll, so it looks expensive to buy (around $30 per) but it's like... miles of paper. It comes in a couple varieties, so do be careful. I always order PLAIN, so it's non-waxed... a detail sometimes you only get from the "fine print".
Just like it's name suggests, this stuff is TOUGH. It's designed to wrap meat in a butcher shop, so it deals with liquids (like blood) really well. It rarely disintegrates (even saturated) and takes a beating compared to similar products at a print shop.
You can get the waxed kind too, which can be helpful. It can be wax coated on one or both sides, so attention should be paid. It also comes in both brown (old fashioned) and white varieties... AND it comes in different "sizes", so you can order 2 foot, 3 foot, and even 6 foot rolls... The height of the roll is actually the WIDTH of the paper, though... so understand it's heavy... BUT for a group that does a lot of props, or in case you occasionally like BIG art projects, it's practically indispensable. For the "home GM on a budget" I'd still recommend a 2-foot roll, since that's not very hard to deal with, can be kept in a closet or on most shelves, and there's plenty more that you CAN do with it than random maps, scrolls, parchments, and plot-related documents... It's also plenty large enough to fit just about anything you'd want. AND you can always lay out several "swaths" and tape the edges together (overlap?) to make a larger single "piece"...
Various juices, pulps, and extractives from vegetation and produce can also be used to "tint" paper, just the same as the coffee or tea staining. Lighter and darker stains can be managed with more or less water and higher or lower temperatures for the extractive (which is basically like tea-making)... Alcohol (isopropyl) is also a VERY GOOD organic extractive base, in the case that 1, you need it dry relatively quick OR 2, you have something that water isn't working so well at extracting...
Beet juice gives a rich reddish to purple color, depending on the "intensity" used, for instance.
You can also "distress" paper by tossing it into a common dryer with NO HEAT and a whole set of poker-chips. It was documented by old counterfeiters as a way to "age" the fresh bills out of their presses... AND it really works well. Poker chips being plastic, generally don't ruin the inner finish of the dryer either... (coins will do that, though)...
In any case, hope some of this was interesting and fun... AND I would definitely check out more of your tricks of the trade, as it's always fun to do something "quick and dirty" to spruce up the game-table and ambiance... ;o)
I just wanted to say bravo! This is as good as the video.
Hey Seth, my wife says that your printer may have an option to change the weight of paper being used, so that may help printing on newsprint. Try googling your printer + adjusting paper weight. 👍
Great video, as always!!
If you get a lot of packages in the mail like my household does, you tend to end up with a lot of packing paper. Huge sheets of cheap brown paper, I love that stuff and I use it for maps and stuff all the time.
Dustin Deckert Thanks dude. I was just about to clean up my room and throw away a bunch of packaging paper from some stuff I ordered. You saved me a bunch of money I'd spend on old looking paper.....
I use the little mini one drink alcohol bottles for potions my players find. Then if they drink them in the game they can try the fun mixed drink irl I made for them. The mini bottles come in a ton of interesting shapes and sizes
That is really cool!
My dm has this thing where he makes this awful concoction and if we drink it our potion’s effect strengthens
Did the letter w/ wax stamp in my campaign for some new players. Their jaws dropped when I said "you receive a letter" and then passed it over. Made a huge first impression. Plus, I had my roommate write it out in cursive so they would not recognise the handwritting.
This is a children's map. Now we're gonna teabag it.
Gygaxdammit
I had to write letters to a player from an NPC that was obsessed with the PC. The NPC was a murderer and would write the name of the PC on the folded letter in the blood of the victim. Citadel Wazdakka Red worked well for it. I dipped my brush in the paint and flicked it toward the sheet of paper to make nice blood splatters. I also added a few finger prints as the name was written with the NPCs fingers.
You can also carefully burn the edges of paper with a lighter.
Evil Scientist I've done that before and purposely burned a hole in it like the old treasure maps might have. Just be careful not to do too much or the paper can become very brittle.
I WAS GONNA POST THAT..... :'( I thought i was original
All the cool kids are doing it.
To expand on the burning the edges, I find you have more control over the final outcome if you set fire to a small corner, let it burn for a second or two and then put it out, rinsing and repeating. If you let the fire get too strong it tends to burn more than you were hoping for and you have to start again.
Besides from burning it fully you can even stain the paper if you are careful enough with the flame. i would recommend a candle, so you have another hand free to hold the paper.
It's just great if the players find something like this in a burned/burning building or in a dragons lair.
Many ink jet printers will have the ink bleed when you do the tea staining.
Laser printing will not bleed.
Can also try making your own paper, for an authentic pre-industrial feel. It's not hard; about on the level of an elementary school science experiment.
It's too long to get into on a comment box, but there's a lot of youtube videos on how to do it.
A thing I have been doing is to always have some printer paper laying in a window where they can be yellowed by the sun, and then when they reach different amounts of yellow I replace them with a new and put them in my roleplaying box. That way I always have some "old" paper to draw maps on
Using tea and coffee has another perk, it tends to make the paper smell nice =)
I use vinager to age paper sometimes, works great and you can choose different colors to get different effects.
And you can use a couple of drops of beetroot to redden or stain the paper.
You can also "bake" paper in the oven to get it darker, just watch it so it doesnt catch on fire. =)
And of course you can stain the paper with tea and then put it in the oven to dry it faster.
Sometimes I put wet coffee or tea-grains direct on the paper to stain it and give it a very old and imperfect look. Just leave it there until it has dried and then just brush it off.
Just a casual FYI... The BIG BIG trick to avoid lighting paper on fire in the oven, is keeping the Temperature control BELOW 450 F...
Personally, I stick to 400 or lower, since I have an older oven and they're somewhat unpredictable. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464
Have you ever heard of Fahrenheit 451? (the book or the movie) It was about burning books, it was named that because the temperature at which paper catches fire is 451 degrees.
@@snate56 Had a middle school Language Arts teacher who was a Bradbury Fan... AND my father lived a short time about a block away from Bradbury...
I figured putting together a decent book report on "Farhenheit 451" would net me a few brownie points and ease my way to better grades...
Then in high school, we had a "section" on it, about oppression, tyranny, and the likes of Orwell... a few other dystopian authors... SO I got dragged through it a second time, but my notes from earlier allowed me a bit of sleep now and again without too much hell to play.
Yeah... I've read it. There's even a Cliff-Notes about it (in case you need a short-cut)... ;o)
haha... just read my earlier comment... and I'd ordinarily never edit... so "update"...
We had Chemistry in 7th and 8th grade Science Class, so part of that was the basics of finding out the "flash points" of various materials, like paper, cotton, gasoline, alcohol... That was where I first started picking it up... BUT I've also "antiqued" a LOT of paper products for everything from Theatrical to TTRPG props, and even as part of "replica" set-ups. Sticking below 450 generally comes from experience... and with some ovens (cheap and not so precise) GET A THERMOMETER and pay attention the first few times, rather than just follow whatever the dial or digital control says. ;o)
If the game starts to drag lock the map for a quick pick me up!
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 you had a fun chemistry teacher...so did I! When Beakman and Nye came out I was all like "been there'!
I just finished running Lost Mines of Phandelver for some players (adults in their 40s and 50s) who were new to D&D. To make sure their impression of the game was a good one, I included some handouts:
1. Letter to a boss monster from villain (hand wrote a note in my imitation of a fantasy script)
2. Letter to a boss NPC from villain
3. Map of mine and caverns (partial) that was done in a highly stylized format resembling a flowchart rather than realistic representation (as a cultural difference)
4. Map of area surrounding a ruined castle (absent from module material)
5. NPC profile pictures for use during role playing encounters
Between that and the crafting of the set piece battle terrain and exploration reveal pieces (for use with miniatures) I made, they were blown away. I definitely agree that props are an important and fun part of the RPG experience.
I'm running the same campaign as well with my friends (they just reached the village) and I've crafted (so far):
1. The note outside mayor's house (which doubles as a regional map)
2. The letter from villain to boss NPC
Good thinking that you made the map for the mine as well. I'd like to see it for "inspiration" :DD
P.S. I've also translated three parts of the campaign (need to translate the last part as well), wizard and priest spells up to 2nd spell level and the monster list. Makes it easier for the players to understand I think. Also, makes the world a bit more consistent. But boy does it eat my time... a LOT of my time...
Nice! Enjoy running the rest of the adventure with your friends. I think the translation part does sound like a lot of work, good luck.
Great ideas!
So buying antique maps & cutting them up isn’t ok? 😜
Well, since you're in England, I can only assume that antique maps, complete with strange and arcane glyphs, are a dime a dozen. So that might be OK. I'm in Texas. Here, anything made prior to 1980 is what you find in antique shops.
I have some detailed charts of the islands of the Caribbean and Antilles. They are reproductions, but they still cost £100 each before I framed them. So if it's your money, by all means go ahead and distress them.
I remember when the Freemason used the back of the constitution to draw their map for their game... Good prop!
Can't wait to try this! I predict happy players.
For staining, try crumpling the paper BEFORE applying the coffee, tea or other ingredients. The creases will enhance and vary the darkness of the stain!
But why’s all the printer ink gone?
Did you ink up all your money again?
Buying PDFs from Drive Thru RPG then printing the darn things out.
What i didet for my players is to burn the paper so you ignite a side of a paper and than your nead to turn off the fire. Wow the paper lokks now nice and a bite burned and old. Sry im from germany so bad english
Your vids are the best! You should have 100x your current number of subscribers!
You can also oven bake or blow-dry wet paper to give it a stiffer parchment feel, or drop coffee granules on still soaked paper to give the impression of blotches or mould. There are some pretty detailed videos also on YT if you search paper aging, and this is a great idea if you're already going to the effort of making handouts.
I second the coffee grounds thing.
I use 20 to like 50 year old paper. I have like 500 blank sheets of it. It has that nice orange-yellow colour that only old paper has.
One of my players’ chars is on a vision quest sent by an ancient ancestor, both from an ancient Egypt-like land. His char is trying to fit into these new lands w so many unknown gods & powers & such.
I needed to give his char some guidance, to help the player find his place in the adventure. So using several online translation tools, I crafted a message for him into hieroglyphics, then printed these & rolled it into a scroll.
When his ancestor reached out to him one morning, the PC envisioned (& char was given) a scroll. When both were confused, I voiced his ancestor, “Have you forgotten our old ways so quickly young ‘fighter cleric / son’?”. Then I sent him the English text of the message on his phone. “Does this mean more to you now? ”
We here at Game On! use red food dye mixed with a little blue in about a 3:1 ratio. Gets that great dry look. Wears clothes you don't mind getting stained however haha.
Unfortunately, my group can't meet in person. I make some nice looking letters in photoshop though.
That is a good workaround to the remote gaming. Well done!
Great video Seth! Handout-videos are always fun to watch.
Making own props is great! You get 3 great things from it every time.
1. Figuring out what prop to do for the next rpg session and the hunt for as cheap stuff as possible to use for making it is somewhat of an obsession for me now a days. =)
2. The crating itself is loads of fun!
3. To see the reactions on the players faces when they get to use it makes the work totally worth it.
And it doesnt have to be expensive and advanced stuff, just a handwritten letter or some cheap fake jewel or perhaps a funky little Cthulhu amulett made with owendried clay and painted with a dark wash to make it look old. I promise that the players will appreciate it when you give it to them. =)
I bought an old typewriter and types out official papers, letters and telegrams and such on it, super simple and looks great with the right paper. Great advice with the envelopes, never thought of that, I use "butcher paper" but have to buy a big roll of it that is rather expensive. I will check out the envelopes! =)
The best cheap blood splatter I've found is Kool Aide. Take some of the $.15 cent packs and add like 2 or 3 Tablespoons of water to them and use a pastry brush or paint brush to splatter it on. I've used Fruit Punch and a few grains of grape to really great effect.
I'd be sure to use the stuff you need to add you own sugar to, and then don't add it. Ants. You could also use Crystal Light (or generic equivalent).
Did you make that one map with Campaign cartographer? I love that program, and I highly recommend it, even it if is a little windows 98.
My favorite 2 suggestions are: 1 suggesting that DMs even do this and 2. staining and crumpling paper!
Fun fact: Tea staining and coffee staining makes paper non-recyclable, but can still be composted.
If you are using a laser printer, wrapping paper can be used. As in - the standard, brown-grey, pulp paper used to wrap packages. Just make sure it's not the waxed variant. Then just fold it into a ball and unfold few times. Or even don't do that, depending on how the printing worked out.
Also, from the days when I was doing a lot of work-related inking, I still have my "glass tile". It's a wooden frame to contain an A4 paper inside, the one you put large photos or similar inside to hang on the wall. I put it on my lap, put a lamp on the ground level, and two layers of paper: the original image I'm drawing over, and a clean sheet of paper. Any sort of imperfections only enhance the result.
Another trick with paper stuff is that you can use the old newspapers and a hard scrubber, essentially making your own, home-made palimpsest. The downside is that they are really delicate, but you have now a huge A2 piece of paper to work with and nobody is going have issues with whatever you put on it
And a specific one when handling riddles, codes or translations is to have a "full text" of it and then have two other copies of that text, with random words still in cypher. Then just tear lines from it and whenever players are trying to pierce the thing, hand them over some of the "slices" you have. This can even be affecting their future tries, sicne they can be given the same "slice", but with different words revealed.
Oh, yeah, and typewriter, a physical thing, works wonders when running anything in the "Chandler times". You can even print out forms and then just type them in.
Surprised you didn't mention getting fonts to simulate typewriters or telegrams.
Bloodstains are brownish.... you can possibly use thinned ketchup or barbecue sauce for that, and daub off the excess...? I mean, I'm not sure whether it'd work, but hey, the cost of an experiment is a ketchup packet and a sheet of typing paper, so I might try.
So, if you live in a city search for custom printers. Most printers throw away paper scrap that accumulated after they do custom work. When I was living in Clarcksville, one of my roommates worked for a custom printer and his boss let him have any paper scrap left over from custom work. He made little rip off tablets from cheat paper and really expensive scrap and he brought them back to use in games. That was in 1991 and I still have some of the paper from that time and I use it for notes and small maps.
I suggest you ask nicely for the scrap, but dumpster diving will also work.
I love adding props to my games. I don't do it all the time, but it really adds flavour. For my first game of Shadowrun I had 3D-printed and painted the most iconic pistol in the game. "You see the guards, they see you, and they all reach for one of these!" [reaches under the table and takes out a massive pistol] "Roll for initiative."
I just draw a map on a blank sheet with a pencil, crumple the paper and put is in the tea cup. Black tea works best, IMO. Once dry, I go nuts with ink and calligraphy.
Hi, anyone found or have any money props for 1920-1930? It would be fun to give the players to actually use for their characters money that they are carrying on them.
The paper kind anyway, like pounds and dollar bills. The coins is a bit hard to print =P
Or give them as a handout in an envelope for a job well done or perhaps a bribe or something like that.
Here's how I prepare handouts representingold maps: First, bury it in earth outside for at least three months. Then wear it in your underpants for three months. Then put it in a drawer in your apartment, set your apartment on fire, and rush in to save it from the drawer before the map burns to ash. Voilà: A perfect looking (and smelling) ancient map.
If you're impatient, you could pop the coffee/tea-soaked paper into the microwave and blast it for half a minute.
Dutch angle. If this was a Call of Cthulhu, it would be fitting. Still unsettling.
I've found my favorite process for tea staining is a lot of liquid then nuking it in the microwave. It dries really fast and makes it nice and crisp
What i did was make a mix of tea, coffee and soy sauce, then i put it in the freezer, when i need it i thaw it, then soak my paper in the mix for 5 minutes, remove the liquid, then put the paper in the oven for 10-20 minutes, then i will sometimes burn the paper.
Once for an American civil war presentation at middle school we were told to be authentic, bring in pieces like telescopes, stuff soldiers would have [no weapons though :( ] I made a map of the battle of Gettysburg, and to make it look authentic, my dad helped and we put it in the oven for a bit, so it looked old and like it had been through a battle. The teachers took points off because it looked damaged and poor quality like I had drawn it last night on a piece of scrap paper >:(.
I was watching one of your other Call of Cthulhu related shows, and realised that there was talk of various pieces of art as possible hand outs.. I have a large painting i did of Cthulhu that could work there.. Let me know if you want a copy and i'll make sure you get to see it. It's kinda cool.
Another tip if you have the prep time for it:
Put the paper in your pocket or backpack in a place that you shuffle in around a lot. Worn paper and torn/burned paper looks not quite the same...
Excelkent suggestions and inspiration, as ever!
My current DM has his girlfriend fold all of the paper birds I the Water deep campaign and throws them at us when we received it.
To make your piece of parchment weathered at the edges lightly burn it with a small lighter. I do not recommend this for all people and you should stay safe by having a source of water nearby.
Print a map, or letter on parchment or tea stained paper, then crumple it up, flatten it back out, and repeat until it softens and ages. Iron it before you hand it out or put it under some books. It really makes it feel ancient and delicate.
Laser printer toner will flake off, so only works with inkjet and hand drawn.
If you want a more authentic look, you can take a piece of paper, store it in suboptimal conditions for about a decade, and then it will look aged
For blood cover, just ask that one friend who always has a bloody nose. Nothing better than the real deal.
I used that coffee stain method, but what I did was I put the pan inside the oven at 200°F for about 3 or 4 minutes, when you see the edges of the paper curl up just a tiny bit then go ahead and take it out of the oven and now it's dried and stiff like old parchment
An idea I used created a written message as a brittle scroll that could disintegrate if not handled carefully. I wrote out the message on a sheet of paper and loosely rolled it into a scroll and tied a ribbon around it. This went into a low oven, which turned it a very light tan with a bit more color on the edges. This was intended to mimic an item that had been lying in a chest for decades. I had to practice to get the baking time right so the scroll could still be used and not be too brittle. This one was a rhyming clue, if I remember correctly, but it could be used for a map or even a spell scroll.
I'm a bit late to the party but I've been tea staining handouts for a while and its always a great way to add immersion to the game. In addition to tea staining i like to take a tea stain handout and hold it over a flame (an oven burner works). It adds a lot of wear and tear, might even get some charred edges.
Brown grocery bag and just cut off the flat non-logo side, works great, you can also at the dollar store buy twine that looks like old reed string or something to that effect so roll your paper in to a scroll and tie it off with that string.
One trick I've used is to wet the edges and then rip little bits off until the entire edge is ripped rather than tearing a long strip I find that this method gives a very nice feathered edge.
My brother in law worked at starbucks, and the divider paper that came in the lid boxes were a nice size (~12x18) and he would draw maps, and then crumple them, leave them in the back window of his car, spill coffee on them... the whole shebang. It’s made for some really great maps. I’m always interested in stuff like this. My party is collecting orbs that will function as keys later. I want to get marbles for them so each person can hold an orb as they fit them into the cyclops eye key holes at the end of the dungeon.
Thank you so much for this video Seth! I'm currently running an Evil D&D campaign, and I wanted something to spice up the table and give them an overview of the world. I used the coffee staining trick, and it worked fabulously. The map turned out wonderfully, and my players very much enjoyed a physical map that looked as if it had been taken straight from the setting.
For anyone looking to create their own map with the staining method, I found that the best method was to take a piece of 8x11 printer paper, and to draw the entire map on that paper in pencil. Make sure to draw the map as if it's the final product, adding any details or shading of your choice. I received the best results using the Coffee method, specifically a small pot of coffee; not a Keurig. Do the exact same method that Seth outlines in the video, but make sure to gently spread the coffee out in even lines to avoid smudging any graphite. Let the paper fully dry. Once dry, trace any outline, name, or natural landmark on the map with black ink, but leave any shaded details in pencil. The final product will be a wonderful map to present your players with.
I'd also recommend, if you're looking to make your map look older, to wait until the moment after the map has dried fully and to then immediately distress it a few times, as it will add the tactile effect of age, and will make the paper easier to fold and manipulate in the future.
Have a wonderful time everyone!
Nice one! That's some good trixx
When I tea stain I soak the paper in the tea.
I\ve had great success with dry tumbling the paper a while after tea/coffee staining it. Not right after staining it, the paper can't be so damp it falls apart when tumbling about.
Being creative helps. Burn it a bit, spill other stuff. Do weird things! I once soaked a paper (for Call of Cthulhu) in pigs blood and left it out in the sun to dry. Not only was the paper grizzly to look at, it also smelled. OK, I might have gone a bit overboard on that.
Björn Jansson intense but good
Make scroll tubes (model rocket tubes, paper towel core tubes... 3D print a fancy tube...) And get a wax seal kit.
Wax seal scrolls and stuff that you want to make look "official" such as messages for the king.
You can have magical traps go off when the players break the seal...
You can make assorted seals on the scroll tubes, again with potential effects when they break the seal.
For dJinn bottles, Put a bottle out with aluminum foil (representing a lead seal) wrapped over the mouth and sealed with wax. They break the seal and the dJinn comes out.
Small wood box with small brass lock on the hasp... Hand them the key when they figure out how to open it.
You can make all kinds of fun props for the game.
Most of the seals can be redone pretty easily.
Be sure to get all of your props and handouts back to be used in another game or campaign.
Just because it worked one way the first time doesn't mean it has to
work exactly the same the next time.
You can spice up your seals with short (2-4 inch) pieces of plain and/or patterned ribbon incorporated into the wax. And those ribbons can be longer to hold even more seals if the document is meant to have passed through several noteworthy hands or signatories.
Excellent advice and ideas!!
Teabagging for beginners...
nice tipps, but sadly i only play online since we sit in 3 different cuntrys
Why not mail out your handouts? Everyone enjoys getting a package. You could cleverly nest (numbered) boxes to be opened at the appropriate time to reveal each prop rather than have to mail out multiple parcels.
Photoshop is your friend. You can make even cooler stuff when you're not limited to real world materials, go nuts with those handouts. Even if you're not familiar with it, making stuff like old maps is super easy, just put some paper pics on a different layer and voilá! There's tons of youtube tutorials on it. Check out How to be a Great GM.
Although if you want something they can actually hold, mailing is an option like the other guy said
Brown paper bags are another great resource. It's on the dark side, but that if you use black ink it can create a really cool effect. I'd also recommend investing in a bottle of calligraphy ink and an ink pen for a more authentic look.
I once gave away a copy of the movie "The Men Who Stare At Goats".
I put it in a large envelope marked "Evidence". I then made a document to look like some sort of official record, complete with an agency crest, and typed in the lyrics to "Rosetta Stoned" by Tool (look it up, you'll like it). I then folded the stack of papers, crumpled it, sprayed water on it and finally put coffee mug stains on it.
My efforts seemed to be appreciated.
Even if you can use standard 80g/qm paper, I suggest heavier paper - 120g or even 200g.
You can still use tea, coffee, vinegar, thinned water-colours...
It is more expensive then cheap printer paper, but not as much as actual parchment-style paper.
And at one point I grabbed a pack mould-made-style paper from the local supermarket for a real cheap price. Look out for those things.
any tips for handling other languages, I wanna have people be spoken to in dwarven, or recieve a letter in elven but I don't really have any good idea's to use?
If it comes to *spoken languages* - maybe learn a few adress-forms, weekdays, times, 'yes', 'no', 'help' and one or two nice sounding insults / curses in a few foreign languages for representing different cultures. Or in actual Sindarin.
Learning a whole new language - or more for that matter - might be a bit of an overkill for your purpose.
If it comes to *written language* - try different font-types. You'll find free fonts really easy - for example here:
www.1001freefonts.com/
I use the 'Alphabet of the Magi' for example for my Cthulhu/Dreamlands 'language'
And another one for everything related to Nyarlathotep and so on.
You might keep even the adress forms like Gospodin (horrific latinised Russian) instead of Mister to give it the right flair.
Provide your players with translation tables for the symbols, if they knew the language and advise all players who don't understand it, to not try to read it - or even allow them to brute-force-translate the coded messages...
@@robertnett9793 I would try that, but as I and one of my players have a background in rapid decryption of replacement ciphers from 20+ years in LARPs. that would backfire on me in about 2-4 minutes. By rapid, I mean we would decrypt things that were meant to take weeks or months of at-home time to decrypt to be used to further the plotlines. The people running the game kept getting new methods and tricks from the internet, a person who worked in financial encryption, and a Mensa examiner they collectively knew, and we just tore through them like a snack. They finally resorted to asking us to only work on stuff that other people had given up on.
@@MonkeyJedi99 : Ok then... you probably should use a more complex cipher system.
Like phrase-encryption :D
And greetings fellow 20+ years larper :D
I absolutely love hearing your advice, Seth! Thank you for providing your wealth of knowledge to the internet. ❤️
Great ideas Seth. This is the most genuinely helpful DMing channel on TH-cam I've ever seen.
You're just not a serious enough DM if you don't cut yourself to put bloodstains on your handouts. I'm kidding of course, self-harm is no good.
Wow, Seth, I didn't know you were Dutch. Or maybe that's your camera. (Sorry, I had to do that)
Anyway, I did something like that for a campaign I'm playing in. I decided to have my character leave the party, and rather than have a whole scene, I typed up a letter using some handwriting-like font and printed it out on some fancy paper I bought a few years go but haven't used. The DM really liked it.
These are some cool ideas! My game is in a modern setting and over skype, so I'm limited to an extent, but I've been writing on maps/adding post its/photocopying books and scanning them in to send to my players, and I think it looks pretty cool, even if, sadly, they can't hold them. My next campaign has some prohibition era ghosts - it might be super cool to coffee stain some stuff so it'll look cooler in the scan.
Another great video. Thanks.
Wow, if a player had the chutzpah to make fun of an otherwise detailed map that I happened to output from a printer, he might find a couple extra arrows coming his way in the next combat.
I know they are hard to find nowadays, but we used to draw maps and cryptic scrolls on the old brown paper grocery bags. They had the great color and thickness to represent old vellum.
Last adventure I ran had a hand out for each PC, it was a vision from the god of order (main antagonist long story) I used regular copy paper printed in a good cursive font. First thing I did was crumpled them up and flattened them out three or four times. Followed that up by dumping coffee grounds and opened tea bags in different areas of the paper. Poured boiling water directly on them and pealed them up then threw them in the oven right on the racks to dry. It ended up having a harder brittle texture with an aged look to it. Everyone loved it.
As a side note sented candle wax does not substitute for sealing wax...
This is perfect for handing out game invites to session zero. It lets the invited players know right away how dedicated you are to the experience of the game. Thanks for sharing!
One trick I used was printing on resume paper in a fancy font and then tracing the letters with a fine point sharpie pen. It bleeds through the paper like traditional ink and looks handwritten. I then added a wax seal just like what was mentioned in this video.
It made the players day I think when I handed it over to start the session.
I like to tea stain and use an oven for drying. If you want rips or creases in the paper, it's important to add them before staining or else they can reveal the white paper under the stain.
Great tips. I like giving stuff out in my games that the players and hold and interact with. You can burn the edges too just do it out side.
Thanks Seth. I have some maps and a letter from a mysterious messanger to hand out to my party this Saturday. Think that I will go and spice those up now 😀
Hay! Love the vids, any chance of a cthulhu/ 2020 rpg play through?
you can always burn the edges too and then blow it out real quickly that actually makes things look pretty badass
Another trick uses a lighter on the back of the paper to make marks. Be careful not to burn the house down or the paper.
Awesome tips can't till I get home to ruin a bunch paper perfecting this one.
I like also drawing the characters that my players are going to meet
How many Pinterest boards was this video shared on xD
I have some cigar tubes that I hand scrolls out in.
How did you fold that envelope I really like that
This is so awesome, i'm going to use these. Thank you so much!
Love your stuff. More delta green games
In my D&D campaign we're going through, we found a book on necromancy crucial to the plot. The DM gave us a printed out book, but it was just printer paper arranged to look like a book. Any ideas on how to make an ancient book prop (with pictures on the inside) for cheep?
Arcane tomes are tricky. If you shop around you can often find some cool leather book covers for journals. I have a player who has done this with some super-thick printer paper and printed out a tome that he assembled and put inside a leather cover (He's a leather-worker, so he made the cover himself). There's still a cost, but the results were awesome.
Keep calm and burn the edges
Good tips
Keep them coming 😊
coffee tricks a classic :D
Yay more uploads!
love your vids
Great tips
Thanks!