I have been writing encounters for, er, a while. Sometimes the ideas come from what I want the party to do in a plot, sometimes the idea is more precise (I want the party to have to fill a “gorge” with dead bodies, and then walk across them). Or sometimes it’s, “we have these styrofoam painted boxes from this other encounter, what else can we do with them?”
So here is the challenge: Give me an idea for a prop that you have never seen at an event before and I will write an encounter for which the prop will be the star.
A few rules:
1) The prop cannot be something that you have seen at a realms event before as an encounter prop.
For example, we have seen many coffee cups at events but never as a central prop. You could suggest it and it would fit this rule (but kind of boring), it has not been used as a central prop before. But you would not want to use a foam sword, swords have been props from the beginning.
2) The prop must be bigger than a bread box. (err, ignore that bit about a choosing coffee cup above)
For example, bigger then say 1 foot, by 8 inches by 8 inches. All measurements are approximations. What I do not think would be fun or challenging are things like “a thimble” or “the shoe from the monopoly game” (now a giant shoe….), or 7.2 ounces of cold water.
3) The prop cannot be bigger than 2 average people.
No buildings or things like that. Once again, keep it fun.
4) It can be as specific or as general as you want.
Post your ideas in the comments section on Facebook post for this article and in a few days I will make a poll to determine which one I will use.