There's a wacky, "twist-on-a-classic" take on Candyland called Run For Your Life, Candyman!. It strongly suggests using gingerbread men as your 'health' indicator. You put a dollop of frosting on each part of your gingerbread man as it takes damage. When someone finishes damaging a part (arm, leg, torso, etc.) you rip that part out and give it to them to eat.

It's a funny, semi-nostalgic way to spend an evening around Christmas; but expanding the idea a little makes it more broadly applicable. For example, I like the idea of a model of a great big boss creature which you actively disassemble as the players damage it -- LEGO, candy, bread, Tinkertoys, whatever.

We use shell casings for Bennies when we run Death Race Z with Savage Worlds rules.

-- Ben

I always love the idea of using props in my game, but it usually never goes anywhere. I think the best I've done is using old arcade tokens I snagged on eBay as Perversity Points when running Paranoia, or printing out "large-scale" maps on legal paper after hours at work.

My favorite prop was one I used for a sci fi game. it was a first contact scenario in a derelict spaceship. I made a hand puppet of the alien. During the game, when the players got to the encounter area, I had them leave the room while I turned out the lights and got situated at the far end. They were allowed to re-enter using only a flashlight for illumination. I even had an alien language roughed out. They spent the better part of an hour talking to the puppet, trying to communicate with sign language to a creature that had a totally non-human physiology. If was a blast.

Props can make a game if used well.

Let's see...

I've used fun-sized candybars and individually wrapped lifesavers for minions. That leads to some interesting tactical decisions ("I want the Kit Kat!" *blam*).

For my WWII Homefront game I rigged up my ipod to play big band in the background whenever they were in a club. I really wanted to get some Amos & Andy and match it to the in-game date, but I didn't have the time to run it down. I also kept a specific pen on hand that stood in for a cigar when a certain NPC was on screen.

I love to use props.

We almost always have a map. Sometimes the map is drawn on a wet-erase mat, other times they are re-usable scenery tiles, and on special occasion we use a projector on the ceiling to project the map onto the board.

Our group has a ton of miniatures. Unfortunately, finding appropriate miniatures is almost always a pain the butt so we end up using whatever miniature we hand at hand. That NPC merchant is now a skeleton archer (Why do we have 10 of these guys?). Sometimes we'll use dice to represent miniatures. I've recently been getting into paper miniatures and pawns. Almost as good as real miniatures, one tenth the cost, and are easier to keep boxed up. If we ever use the projector, we use miniatures/tokens in Maptools for miniatures.

Music. We have never really used music successfully in a game. We've tried it once or twice and it was okay. But we never kept with it.

Burned scrolls, paper maps, letters, etc.... I love taking the time to make physical handouts for this they find in game.