Have you ever based a whole game session on a prop, and if so did it work?
Let me explain what I mean and give an example. Once I found this ship map I liked and decided to go whole hog on it. I printed out the whole monstrous amount of sheets, then is a fit of creative insanity I got some cardboard and some other materials and made a multiple level construct that I then put the sheets on in order, and created a 3d moel of the ship.
Now it wasn't quite to scale ad I had to leave around 8" of space between "decks" so one could see clearly into it and reach in to move ones miniatures. I set up a light on the side of the room shining towards the "model" to illuminate the interior to an acceptable degree. OK, got the picture?
The scenario was a fairly routine dungeon crawl (Yes, you can have dungeon crawls on a starship...) and it was nothing amazing, but my players loved it just due to the novelty of having this honking huge 3d map, even if it took up most of the table and I told everyone I'd kill the first person to mess it up.
Looking at the work and expense I'd put into it my players thought that was completely reasonable, BTW.
I didn't do that much more as it took a lot of work and it ate ink cartridges, and the novelty would wear off soon, but it worked once.
So, just the addition of a relatively modestly priced prop (Hey, there's a reason I refill inkjets.) and some serious work* I turned a routine dungeon crawl into something that really had the players interested.
So it was a game that worked because of a prop, the huge 3d map that had my players going WTF at first but really liking it later.
I'd like to know if anyone else used props in gaming and if so and how.
*for anyone contemplating this, to make the "decks" glue two sheets of cardboard together with the inner corrugations at 90 degrees from each other to make it strong enough not to crease. Make it just bigger a hair bigger than the sheets your maps will be printed on.
When gluing cardboard sheets together ir helps to weigh them down while drying to prevent curling, BTW.
To make the spacers, make a strip of cardboard 2" wide and as long as the map will be tall, then make 4 copies alternating the grain of the cardboard. Glue together to make one solid "bar". Make some small triangular "shelf holder" pieces of cardboard to hold the decks in place and put them along the inner surface, then put larger triangular "feet" on the sides and outer side to hold it up. Make enough to put your cardboard decks on, then assemble it with some common sense and maybe a few round wooden toothpicks to serve as "nails" if need be. Put your map sheets on the decks and you're done. Any gamer with any brains and skill should be able to work this out.
BTW, since my ship had 3 decks it was about 16" tall all told. The middle section was over 24" wide
I built a multilevel lich tomb/lair for AD&D 2e out of cardboard boxes, but the adventure kept getting pushed back until the thing finally fell apart. I was so disheartened that I never ran the adventure.
I based a Murdery mystery weekend (I run them for hotels) on a set of 1890's military maps of the Hymalayas I inherited from my uncle who picked them up in a junk shop.
Haven't gone to those extents myself. About the closest I've gone is basing a dungeon crawl using the board from Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel. Which worked surprisingly well.
For some very impressive prop work the Penny Arcade guys are doing it frequently. Which I guess is much easier to do when part of your work day is set aside for roleplaying related stuff.