Keeping the players from looking around the screen

[Olaf the Stout]

Plenty of good suggestions here. Personally I'm glad I have mature players that don't feel the need to cheat their way through the adventure.

For our current campaign I got rid of my DM screen and have rolled all rolls in the open, with no fudging. It has been great and felt really liberating (apart from the times when I keep failing my monster's saves against things like Glitterdust, even when the party is 14th level!).

The only downside (a minor one at that) is that all my notes are in the open. As a result the player that sits next to me has caught a glimpse of a couple of pictures with monsters on them before the party has encountered them. He wasn't trying to cheat. It was more to do with the fact that they were full page illustrations of things like beholders and dragons. Sort of hard to miss seeing that when it is right next to your dice and character sheet. I wasn't worried though. He would never use that knowledge to his advantage.

Olaf the Stout

 

[SnowleopardVK]

Plenty of good suggestions here. Personally I'm glad I have mature players that don't feel the need to cheat their way through the adventure.

For our current campaign I got rid of my DM screen and have rolled all rolls in the open, with no fudging. It has been great and felt really liberating (apart from the times when I keep failing my monster's saves against things like Glitterdust, even when the party is 14th level!).

The only downside (a minor one at that) is that all my notes are in the open. As a result the player that sits next to me has caught a glimpse of a couple of pictures with monsters on them before the party has encountered them. He wasn't trying to cheat. It was more to do with the fact that they were full page illustrations of things like beholders and dragons. Sort of hard to miss seeing that when it is right next to your dice and character sheet. I wasn't worried though. He would never use that knowledge to his advantage.

Olaf the Stout

This actually reminds me of my situation, just with the difference in player attitude. Part of the problem I'm having is that the biggest/only table we've got is rather small. It's either roll in the open and have my notes in the open too, or hide both. There's not enough room for a screen to block the notes, and a space for rolling in the open. Unlike the situation you described though I'm pretty sure at least two, maybe three of my players would use it to their advantage if my notes were out in the open.

I think I'm most in favour of the punish-but not booting option. I suppose they might learn their lesson when they walk into dangerous traps that weren't on the map and I don't give them a save because I caught them peeking... Or any other number of punishments. Some of the ones suggested here seem a bit extreme, but I think I may be able to make use of a few of them if the need arises again.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

... I guess I'd start with, "Okay, seriously; how old are you people?"

 

[Doug McCrae]

... I guess I'd start with, "Okay, seriously; how old are you people?"

There's a player in my group that looks at my notes. He's in his 30s, a doctor specialising in psychiatry, recently qualified as a consultant. Like the 24 yr old SnowleopardVK mentions, he has a strong desire to win.

 

[Dice4Hire]

My notes are a living document. They might not be the same post peek and during the peek.

 

[Jhaelen]

Take down the screen.

This!
I definitely prefer not using a screen at all. I like to see (the expression on) the faces of my players - that's more important than staring at tables.

My maps have a tendency towards being just a network of nodes and edges, my (handwritten) notes are entirely unreadable (sometimes even for myself!), I let the dice fall as they may, and monster stat blocks are either common knowledge or (if custom-created) virtually unreadable.

One of my players enjoys peering at my stuff, but at the most he manages to note the current number of hit points of a foe. Since I also paraphrase the enemies' current health regularly, that's not terribly secret either.

So, really, stop hiding behind that screen! You don't need it.

 

[Dykstrav]

At my game this past weekend, I had players with laptops (about half of my players bring laptops). When the party encountered a gelatinous cube, one of the players immediately pulled up the stats for it on his laptop.

Fortunately, most of my players are awesome and immediately called him out on it--directly and with unambiguous disapproval. He claimed to "want to know what it looks like," to which I immediately pointed out that it looks like the gelatinous cube miniature on the table.

I've decided that I'm not going to award him experience for that encounter, especially since his character didn't join the rest of the party in the battle. I think it's a fair solution, and furthermore, I don't think that I'll have that problem again. I'm trying to be reasonable about it--we've only been playing together for three sessions, and maybe his past GMs have been lenient on that sort of thing.

I do think that the "you win" solution presented earlier is probably going to be the most effective if your entire group is doing it, although it seems to be a bit passive-aggressive to me. Usually I withhold experience points for stuff like that (because I feel that experience points are a reward for good play, not an entitlement).

 

[Kzach]

I can only echo those who say to play without a screen. The whole dynamic of a screen creates an 'DM vs. Player' situation anyway so why use it at all?

One of my friends who I usually end up gaming with constantly called me out on dice rolls behind the screen. He had this paranoid delusion that I was saving his character from certain death scenarios when the simple truth was that it was totally random and he was creating a pattern to see where there just wasn't a pattern in the first place. I got fed up with it and ran games without a screen from then on and was never happier.

 

[jasper]

1. I got rid of the screen and table. We all sat in the living room and I had a small camp table to roll on. Meanest thing I did was shoe box to roll in. Then let the son of the player roll and I added the mods. It very NICE to see a 4 year old laugh at his 30+ dad because the kid did max damage.
2. Anvils. Start will a foam one, then work your way up. I never had to use my 55# one. Note may cause dents in players and floors. And an officer of the law being called.
3. I put my notes in 3 ring binder and gave the players the maps. With out the secret doors and traps on it.

 

[RedTonic]

I have a default screen by simply running games online. IRL, I don't use a screen. I just have so many notes, and my handwriting is so bad, that that information is useless to the players. I roll in the open online and off, but sometimes screen by using pointless rolls, or rolls that I don't announce the intent of. I am lucky to have it both ways with my players; they accept me as both an adversary and advocate. We're good at compartmentalizing. I ditched people over the years who couldn't control their urge for WINNING.