Visual Aids for Players

[kdresser]

Hey!

I was curious how many of you as the LM implore the use of visual aids. Do you like to run tablet slideshows showing off relevant New Zealand landscapes based on your current location? Do you use minis or pictures of your enemies? Do you have players draw or print off a picture of their characters for all to use as a reference?

[zedturtle]

Let's see... I've linked to various pictures and paintings, Photoshopped some illustrations for desired effects*, drawn illustrations in pencil, pen and pastel and made lots of maps. I also tend to take screen-shots of the Journeymeter and post them in order for the players to see the route that they're attempting to navigate. I've also made some reminder/reference cards for stances.

About the only thing I haven't done is minis, though I did use a photo of a mini once to represent a troll because it was the closest to what I was envisioning.


— • — • —

An amended illustration in a recent publication really tickles my fancy, for example.

[kdresser]

Let's see... I've linked to various pictures and paintings, Photoshopped some illustrations for desired effects*, drawn illustrations in pencil, pen and pastel and made lots of maps. I also tend to take screen-shots of the Journeymeter and post them in order for the players to see the route that they're attempting to navigate. I've also made some reminder/reference cards for stances.

About the only thing I haven't done is minis, though I did use a photo of a mini once to represent a troll because it was the closest to what I was envisioning.


— • — • —

An amended illustration in a recent publication really tickles my fancy, for example.

was this mostly done in person or online? Did your players find it helpful?

[mirkwoodfalcon]

Let's see... I've linked to various pictures and paintings, Photoshopped some illustrations for desired effects*, drawn illustrations in pencil, pen and pastel and made lots of maps. I also tend to take screen-shots of the Journeymeter and post them in order for the players to see the route that they're attempting to navigate. I've also made some reminder/reference cards for stances.

About the only thing I haven't done is minis, though I did use a photo of a mini once to represent a troll because it was the closest to what I was envisioning.


— • — • —

An amended illustration in a recent publication really tickles my fancy, for example.

I'll add that, having played under zedturtle once, he also brought a beautifully-illustrated map to the table with prominent locations marked (which really helped to figure out where we were) and some amazing combat stance cards that made book-keeping during the fighting segments very little.

[zedturtle]

was this mostly done in person or online? Did your players find it helpful?

I play different ways, but more often am running games Play-by-Post than any other way. I guess we'll do a massive image dump, in case anyone is interested in seeing this stuff.

Here's the latest version of the map that mirkwoodfalcon was talking about:



Here's a map of the Old Ford, relevant to the Kinstrife discussion:



Runes the heroes found in a dark place:



Map of a 'famous' place:



A couple of gents that the heroes ran into:



A goblin trap:



A spooky cave:



Some characters you might meet:



A sickle drawn by a certain someone:



One level of a witch's tower:



A crappy drawing of Fenbridge Castle:



A map of another area:



Another map that I might get done before the campaign is over:



A farmstead belonging to a powerful figure:



A witch's hut and a sarnlug causing trouble:



Crappy pastel drawing:



Sections of a map, drawn as the heroes explored the caves:



Playing around with hexmaps:



Rolling them bones:



Stance references

Advesary Blanks

And, of course, all the links in my sig for all the other stuff I've done.

[kdresser]

Excellent illustrations, Zed. Thank you for sharing!

[Majestic]

For most of my RPGs, I rely heavily on visuals, often 1" cardstock/cardboard counters, used with standard vinyl maps (or tiles, or printed paper). I've found this really helps the players to visualize who is where, especially in combat.

But I've only done this once for TOR, as it was an especially pivotal battle with a fun environment (IIRC, the final battle with the dragon Raenar from the end of Tales from Wilderland). Generally, I've found that TOR's more narrative approach makes it so that we don't need to use tokens or minis.

I still use a few visual cues, like maps, beads (as tokens for Preliminary dice and to represent concepts like the Fellowship Pool), and the occasional illustration. I also use the battle stance cards and the mats made for keeping track of Journey roles and battle positioning. I often show the table (we play FTF) the excellent illustrations from the books, too.