For most of my gaming life I have passionately loved DM screens. Passionately. Like in a sick I so love you and you frakking scare the crap out of me but I can't get enough of you Amy Winehouse kind of way. Like most of the women I date. But I digress ...I loved them for the artwork (both awesome and terrible), the charts, the time saved flipping through books. Screens have also been My Great Wall of Authority that protected my session notes and die rolls and scribbles and minis-waiting-to-pounce from the prying eyes of sniveling greedy players. Little in gaming could compare to the dire bloodlust and manic glee I felt while attaching tall wooden skewers to the screen folds and hanging sawed-off miniature heads from them as I mwah-ha-ha'ed my way through TPK after TPK ...What? Oh like I'm the only one who did that! Pfft, wussies.
Anyway, DM screens have been a part of my tabletop experience since ... well since I can remember playing RPGs.
But something happened numerous years ago. I stopped using a screen when I ran games. I'm not quite sure when or why I decided to run games "naked and exposed" but I did. All my rolls were visible. There was nothing hidden from the players, except the occasional "secret" die roll I made by simply covering it with my hand. My typed and handwritten notes were right there in the open (I did keep dungeon maps covered with a book or my home-made "DM Screen". See below).
And I found the experience exhilarating. So much so that I can't imagine ever going back to using a DM screen.
How about you folks? Do you still use screens? Shun them? Dress them up and make kinky videos with them? Have you changed your preference for using screens (like me) over the years?
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These days I use a two-page sheet printed (double-sided on cardstock and laminated) with all the tables and charts I commonly reference while running games. I like it because it allows me to look up stuff quickly and serves double-duty as a map "cover upper". I offer it up here in 2nd edition AD&D format.
4 comments:
Howdy! I haven't given up the old screen yet. I've just gotten back into the D&D gaming scene over the last year or so, and I've carried over the need for a screen from my experiences from many years ago. But, as time goes on, I may in fact go without. I can see the virtues of not using a screen, and I feel like I want to experience that. This may take some time for me, as my confidence increases and I realize I don't need the screen anymore. It's a process, as you described.
Great post, cool blog, glad to meet you! Hope you stop on by my place sometime:
http://unto-the-breach.blogspot.com/
I still love the DM screen. It's like the iconostasis in an Orthodox church, behind which is the DM's "holy of holies". Ridiculous, I know, but this is D&D after all. Plus I like having all the charts right there in front of me, without having to flip through various pages.
Hey guys! I definitely understand the desire to stay behind the screen. I had it for a very long time. I think I'm just changing as a DM and letting go and viewing my role differently and trusting the dice and my instincts -- if that makes any sense. Not that using a screen necessarily means the opposite.
Perhaps this should be a blog post later on when I've thought about it more. Right now I'm just going with the flow and enjoying a screenless game immensely.
I have a three-ring binder where the cover folds horizontally so it stands up at about a 45 degree angle. Makes it easier to read and provides some cover without getting in the way.
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