D&D 5E DM Screen 'Wilderness Kit'

A 'Wilderness Kit' has appeared on WotC's website, which includes a DM screen, hex maps, ration tracker, wilderness rules references, and 27 cards. It comes out on 17th November (same day as Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) for $24.99.

Dungeon Master's Screen: Wilderness Kit | Dungeons & Dragons

Learn more about the Dungeon Master's Screen: Wilderness Kit from Dungeons & Dragons.

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CHART A COURSE IN THE WILDS
Venture into the wilds with this kit for the world's greatest roleplaying game.

This kit equips the Dungeon Master with a screen and other tools that are perfect for running D&D adventures in the wilderness.

The Dungeon Master’s screen features a gorgeous painting of fantasy landscapes on the outside, and useful rules references cover the inside of the screen, with an emphasis on wilderness rules. The kit also includes the following:

• 5 dry-erase sheets, featuring hex maps, a food-and-water tracker, and rules references (wilderness chases, wilderness journeys, and the actions you can take in combat)
• 27 cards that make it easy to keep track of conditions, initiative, and environmental effects
• 1 box to hold the kit's cards

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I remember when the players side had useful player info like equipment prices and such, kind of wish they did that still.

Yes, you can use the players' side to display information they may need and seem to forget from time to time, like the name of their characters or how to roll initiative.

 

[Rils]

Did you ever use the either of the 2e DM screens that were released? I very rarely had to open a book besides to look up a spell or magical item when I was using those. I even continued using them well into 3e.

And the writing was so small that nobody could see it from more than a chair's length away. One of those things that seemed like a good idea but didn't actually work. In our experience at least. It was much easier just to bookmark the price page in the PHB than to try and decipher the screen from the other end of the table. YMMV of course.

 

[R_J_K75]

And the writing was so small that nobody could see it from more than a chair's length away. One of those things that seemed like a good idea but didn't actually work. In our experience at least. It was much easier just to bookmark the price page in the PHB than to try and decipher the screen from the other end of the table. YMMV of course.

I never had any problem reading it, if a player wanted to know something theyd just ask or Id pass it to them. Worked for us. Until this thread I never even considered or heard of another player besides the DM trying to read the screen unless it was in front of them.

 

[MNblockhead]

I really like The Worlds Greatest Game Screen by Hammer Dog games. You can buy them in portrait or landscape and also in smaller sizes. They have clear pockets for each section, on both sides, that you can insert sheets into. It allows me to swap out reference material based on the game and the campaign. Even the session.

On the players side, you can slip in reminders, or if you really want to have a reference for certain rules, you can print them in large enough fonts to be readable from the far side of the table.

But I stopped using it for D&D as my laptop is my DM screen and I share my D&D Beyond account with my players.

 

[R_J_K75]

I really like The Worlds Greatest Game Screen by Hammer Dog games.

Someone here told me about this. After looking into it quite a few reviews I read said it didnt hold up well so I decided against buying it. Is it sturdy or relatively fragile?

 

[MNblockhead]

Someone here told me about this. After looking into it quite a few reviews I read said it didnt hold up well so I decided against buying it. Is it sturdy or relatively fragile?

For me it held up but I don't travel with it and I tend to be careful with my stuff.

Another option, if you don't mind a tall DM screen is to take three three-ring binders that you hold together with binder clips. You fill them with page protectors, so you can change your DM screen for each game, session, and even during the session.

Some examples:

 

[R_J_K75]

For me it held up but I don't travel with it and I tend to be careful with my stuff.

Another option, if you don't mind a tall DM screen is to take three three-ring binders that you hold together with binder clips. You fill them with page protectors, so you can change your DM screen for each game, session, and even during the session.

Some examples:

I saw a few videos online of people who made 3-ring binder screens, thought about making one but never got around to it.

 

[Keldryn]

Not mention there seems even to be lots of wasted space on the side with tables as things are spread out. I think comparatively 2E DM screens seemed to contain alot more information on 1 page than anything 3E or beyond.

It's not wasted space, it's negative space. It's an important element in visual design. I find the 4e and 5e screens much more usable in play than any of the older screens, as I have a much easier time finding what I'm looking for. You can tell they're designed for ease and speed of use in play, while older edition screens seemed to simply try and cram us much information as possible into a limited space.

The 3.x screens were the worst IMO. The densely-packed, uniformly-formatted tables give me a headache just looking at them. Back when I played 3e, the screen was mainly useful for hiding my maps and notes. I rarely actually looked up anything on them.

Back in the early 90s, I used to print out my own sheets to slide over the panels of my old 1e and 2e screens. My dad was starting up in desktop publishing at the time, so I used PageMaker on his computer to create the layouts (and print on his laser printer). Without knowing the term "negative space", I intuitively gave my layout a lot more breathing room than TSR's screens.

Looking back, I've never gotten much use out of GM screens with densely-packed charts and minimal whitespace. Seems like I've always found them too much trouble to bother with.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I strongly prefer screens in landscape orientation to the old portrait ones. Research does indicate that humans demonstrate stronger performance on visual scanning tasks requiring horizontal eye movement than they do on tasks requiring vertical eye movement. So that may very well play a role in the move to landscape screens.

 

[Zarithar]

The curent rules in 5e doesn't make it particularly hard to find food in the wilderness, so I cant imagine a huge need for ration tracking cards.

Maybe if they revamp the travel rules and up the cruch it make sense.

a
Agreed - Cleric for example made tracking rations/water trivial in Tomb of Annihilation. The Chult hex crawl was a huge part of that adventure and they spent a lot of space talking about food, water, survival checks, etc. Cleric and paladin made most of that irrelevant.

 

[jasper]

Did you ever use the either of the 2e DM screens that were released? I very rarely had to open a book besides to look up a spell or magical item when I was using those. I even continued using them well into 3e.

Okay who had or still have the old 1E 4 and 2 DM screens.

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