u/Dicesongs

So this is a thing I think about a lot when you build props for your table, physical or digital, how far is too far?

I am not talking about a cool map or some ambient music on a speaker. I mean really committing to it.

here is my example from Dicesongs, my own system set in the world of Ertha.

The Shadowgate is a location. a singular point sealed at the end of the First Age after the great war. it is the threshold where the Voidborn can spill back into Ertha if the seals break; it has been quiet for a long time.

the Voidborn have a messenger, a character whose entire purpose is to find someone weak enough to turn. Not through force, through patience, chipping away at mental and emotional resolve over time until someone cracks and starts breaking seals themselves. think of it as a long game of corruption.

The lore I wrote says this messenger can appear in any reflective surface, so since I wrote it, I had to back it up, I

pitched my voice way down using my data tools in my home studio , built the visual in Adobe Character Animator. scored it. motion graphics. the whole production. then at my physical table I run a Peppers Ghost setup so this character actually manifests on a mirror in the room.

here is the link to the actual video (without the ghost effect) if you want to see what that looks like:

https://youtu.be/nD1JDEH3WJE?si=Pqc3yDTX3jpKqriT

the reference I had in my head was those old wartime radio broadcasts, when Radio was the way we communicated back in WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam. one side knowing the other was listening and transmitting anyway. that slow deliberate voice that tells you something is coming.

the messenger is that energy. not a villain speech. just a signal from somewhere you cannot ignore.

does it land at the table. yeah. players go quiet in a way that does not happen with a description alone.

but I want to know where the room lands on this. physical props, digital, set dressing, ambient audio. what pulls you deeper into the fiction and what starts to feel like the person running the game is showing off instead of serving the story.

What say you all?