Using Physical Props in D&D

I’ve previously written about creating little registry books full of information. Creating letters and other documents to spice up your fantasy RPG sessions is fun and easy, but there are several more ways to use physical props to take your play to another level.

Maps

Probably the most obvious physical prop you can give your players is a map. They’re fun to make, look great, and literally lead to adventure. Don’t use letter-size paper; use something bigger and a bit thicker, like drawing paper or 11×17 tabloid paper; it’s much more impressive.

Sketch in the island, dungeon, ruins, or whatever, then ink it with fine-tip markers for a professional look that isn’t just ink-pen-on-letter-paper. Nip or tear the edges a little✽, and age it with soy sauce, dried in the oven for a few minutes after you’ve taken your fish sticks or pizza out (and turned the oven off).

✽ A lot of people like to burn the edges, but old documents didn’t constantly get slightly burned. The idea originally was to simulate the uneven edges of animal-skin parchment scrolls. By the Middle Ages, parchment was cut with perfectly even edges. You might instead trim a very small amount off the edge with scissors to give the edges a less machine-made look, or simply nip or otherwise damage the edges with a little abuse.

Don’t neglect the back side! That’s a great place for secret writing, clues, and riddles. Presentation counts, so roll the map up or fold it into quarters and tie a ribbon around it.

Invisible Ink

Imagine giving your players a map or letter with invisible ink on it that’s only visible in the light of the full moon or thru the All-seer gem or by heating the document up.

You can buy pens with ink that is only visible by ultraviolet light–which you pretend is moonlight or the view thru a magic gem. You can even embed the light in an object as a magic item or make it into a different object. You can do the writing with special pens or with a toothpick or makeshift quill pen in bleach.

Gandalf fellowship-of-the-ring-lord-of-the-rings — The One Ring’s inscription was revealed by fire.

UV pens revealed by UV lamps

For a cheap (and medievalesque) solution, dip a toothpick or makeshift quill pen in lemon juice or a baking soda solution and write your message or add notes to a map. When the time is right, hint to the players that a secret message can be revealed by heat.

The heat from a hair dryer is safer than a candle, tho slower; a stove is quick but leaves marks from the heating element. If you do use open flame, have a mini-fire extinguisher or bucket of water next to you (good advice in general when you light candles of any kind).

Disappearing Ink

There are also erasable pens that can write visibly but which disappear when heat is applied, either by stove top or by the friction of the eraser on the pen. I’ve used this before to create a block of text that then dissolves when heated, leaving just the message.

Minervy book clue pages — Left: A wall of text, some of which is disappearing ink. Right: a playing card code. This was hidden at the back of an old book by gluing just the edges of the pages together.

Connor applies heat to secret message — A hairdryer is probably the safest way to vanish the ink but not the fastest.

Disappearing ink vanished by friction or heat

You could, of course, combine invisible ink and disappearing ink on the same message, with the application of heat causing one message to vanish and the other to appear.

Ciphers

You can buy or make a cipher decoder disk to allow the players to decipher some runes, hieroglyphics, or secret message. Keep messages short; both encoding and decoding are tedious. Consider encoding only key words and phrases in an otherwise normal message.

Note that runes can decipher to letters or syllables, pictograms (like Chinese) should decode to whole words. Logograms (like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics) can be a combination.

Physical Puzzles

You can work a brainteaser into the story of the adventure. As Seth suggests below, the heroes might find two entwined keys they must separate to use or some hidden key or message in a box that’s tricky to open. Or assembling or disentangling a puzzle might trigger a vision from the god of mischief or goddess of secrets.

And also as Seth suggests, you might serve up a penalty for destroying a puzzle to get at the message or treasure inside, such as a god’s curse or a major wild magic effect.

Be sure to use simple brainteasers; players haven’t chosen this moment to work a puzzle–you’ve forced it on them.

The reward for succeeding at the puzzle could be the message inside, experience points, and/or getting to keep the puzzle in real life.