D&D 5E Building a better DM's screen

Sorry to say but I'm not impressed with the WotC DM's screen.

I bought it thinking it would help me transition from 2 decades of AD&D into the new world of 5th edition. I can't fault the screen for it's sturdiness, and it does suffice to hide my notes and rolls, but the charts on the inside are mostly useless. (Compare it to the 1st edition AD&D DM's Screen, which finds a space for virtually every chart in the PHB and DMG)

I've accepted that I'm just going to have build my own DM's screen, and when its done I will share it with the community. To that end, I wanted to poll the forum for suggestions about what to include.

To me, a good 5th edition DMs screen would include:
- Frequent Advantage and Disadvantage situations
- Weapons chart (damage and properties)
- Armour by AC and stealth impact
- Ability Score modifiers (??how could WotC forget to include this!!??)
- Monster Stats by Challenge Rating Chart from p. 274 of the DMG (this is so KEY! It contains enough basic info for a DM to generate an enemy combatant for any level at a moment's notice)
- Spell lists by class up to level 3 spells (maybe just cleric, wizard and sorcerer, space permitting)
- Conditions
- Attack actions w/ rules (hide, disarm, dodge, ready, help etc)
- Difficulty Classes with common examples
- Random physical trait chart (to help differentiate minions. i.e. "the one with the face scar", "the one with grey skin", etc)

The WotC 5e DM's Screen has a lot of charts for randomly generating NPC personalities (a name generator, NPC ideals, NPC flaws, NPC bonds). While they aren't bad to have, in my opinion they aren't essential. I think a DMs screen should put the codified rules at your fingertips so you don't have to go rifling through the books.

So what do you lot think?

Has somebody already done this and am I wasting my time?

To be certain...there are two DM screens for 5e. One was specific to the first adventure path, the other is the general one that came after that. Are you sure you got the right one?

Some on the stuff on your screen is redundant.

Ability score modifiers are easy to calculate. Score - 10 / 2, rounded down.
DCs are already on the current DM screen.
Advantage/Disadvantage scenarios are up to you, or under the conditions portion which is on the DM screen.
Spell lists are available online. Print one out or keep one handy, too much info here to realistically go on a DM screen.
I haven't had a situation where I've had to look up armour on the fly. Weapon damage maybe. More useful would simply have page references handy for these tables.

5e doesn't have a rule for everything like AD&D did. Their DM screen is far from perfect, but a lot of stuff can be memorized (or at least made up on the fly). DCs and advantage/disadvantage are examples of this. It's kind of the point that you, the DM, come up with where these apply in game.

The lot thinks this is an excellent screen that gives me things I need to DM not rules that are in my books

I find that armour & weapon stats are the things I need to refer to most frequently, plus the XP charts - XP by CR and Encounter XP - I don't use it for budgets, but I do use it for awards.

Also descriptions of what some PHB equipment does - burning oil, healing potions & the like.

DaveDash said:

Some on the stuff on your screen is redundant.

Ability score modifiers are easy to calculate. Score - 10 / 2, rounded down.

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That's still a lot more brain processing power than looking at a chart. I've run all 5 editions of this game at one time or another and they have different modifiers. Maybe you don't have this problem but I'm old and not the world's greatest multi-tasker to begin with. Things get jumbled together in my mind, and it's nice to have the chart at hand for re-assurance.

DCs are already on the current DM screen.

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That's true, and I never said they weren't, though they are stuck at the bottom almost like an afterthought. Further to your previous point, I think DCs are much easier to calculate off the cuff than recalling ability score modifiers.

Advantage/Disadvantage scenarios are up to you, or under the conditions portion which is on the DM screen... It's kind of the point that you, the DM, come up with where these apply in game.

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Lots of people say this, but in my view Advantage and Disadvantage are rather firmly codified into the game rules in a lot of places. In particular there are a multitude of class powers, spells and combat actions that provide advantage or cause disadvantage. Woe betide the DM who fails to give his players their prescribed advantage.

Spell lists are available online. Print one out or keep one handy, too much info here to realistically go on a DM screen.

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I think that's fair comment. I still think it would be helpful to have a list of low-level spells for common NPC spellcasters so in case you need to draw up a spell caster on the spur of the moment. This is one of my biggest bugbears as a DM.

I haven't had a situation where I've had to look up armour on the fly. Weapon damage maybe. More useful would simply have page references handy for these tables.

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Different strokes. For me the primary function of the DM screen info is to avoid having to look things up in the book as much as possible. Doing so slows the game down at key moments and make me look unprepared. Furthermore there's rarely enough copies of the book at the table. I also don't trust my players to roll the right damage dice so its good for checking up on them without being too obvious.

You've taken the time to tell me why you don't like my ideas. How about some constructive input? What would YOU put on an ideal DM screen?

S'mon said:

I find that armour & weapon stats are the things I need to refer to most frequently, plus the XP charts - XP by CR and Encounter XP - I don't use it for budgets, but I do use it for awards.

Also descriptions of what some PHB equipment does - burning oil, healing potions & the like.

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Thanks; S'mon. I don't generally award XP in game, but I might do if the numbers were easily at hand.

I've never built a combat encounter around CR budgets. I design encounters by what I reckon would be is ecologically realistic and dramtically interesting. CR budgets seem like a lot of work to me and dead boring.

I agree that commonly used equipment would be helpful too.

As the comments so far show, it is very different from DM to DM what is considered need-to-have on a DM screen. I don't need XP stuff, as I use milestone rewards, but I can surely understand why some DMs would like that info on their screen. I trust my players to roll the right dice and don't really need weapon charts, but if I played with a lot of people new to the game, it would come in handy.

I guess you should put whatever you need on your screen and not whatever other people need on theirs.

You can easily build your own:
http://hammerdog.com/twgs/

Just copy some tables, print, and you're good to go.

What they need is a blank DM screen, possibly with slide-in-loader sections like a binder so that you can put your own stuff in it, and potentially be able to write on on the clear plastic dry-erase style.

I'm perfectly happy with the DM screen as-is. I wouldn't want 90% of what you want on your screen.