3 out of 5 rating for Deluxe Dungeon Master's Screen
I've been using my old 90's era B/X screen to hide maps and secret die rolls, but I forgot it at home last night, so I popped into the game store on my way to the game last night and grabbed the official 5e screen.First of all, this screen takes up a lot of space. With 4 landscape panels, it fills a significant portion of my modest table. I like the landscape, because it's easier to faces over the top, but I still need to stand if I want to see anything that's happening on our tabletop. And since I like to do most of my rolling in front of the screen, I end up leaning out into the center of the table for my public die rolls. This would probably be less of an issue if we played at a large table, but we're gaming in the city and grand dining room tables are not so common in small NY apartments. I prefer my smaller B/X screen, which allows me to cordon off a section in front of me for maps and secret rolls, but also allow a "public" area, for most die rolls and clear sight lines to the tabletop surface. I could fold over one of the panels, but this would cover two pages of information, including half the conditions (which would be the most commonly referenced items on this screen.)The information given skews strongly towards improvisational aids for the DM, with a whole panel for quickly generating NPCs on the fly, and half a panel for random "developments." I like that focus, and could see it being very valuable in a pinch. I'd probably replace the super silly NPC name generator with a pregenerated list of NPC names more appropriate to my setting. 5 from each common culture and species in the current campaign area. The travel times are helpful, as are notes about outdoor visibility and audible distance. I frequently find myself making up audible distances on the fly, so it's nice to have something a little more consistent to reference. I would definitely use the blank space afforded by the artwork to tack on some common cost-of-living expenses, as those are something I find myself looking up frequently and awkwardly, but I appreciate that every DM will have different oft-needed and never-remembered factoids. For this reason, it's nice to have the extra space afforded by the artwork to do my own thing.I will say that, over the course of our session yesterday, I never once referenced the screen for anything. At the session before, I once referenced my B/X screen for a reaction roll.Given the size of our table, it's very likely that I'll go back to using the old and smaller B/X screen with some custom 5e information pasted on.
