Game Master Shield

[Messageboard Golem]

This monstrous 32-panel goliath is fully adaptable and customizable to individual GMs, including dry-erase marker compatible lamination in certain key spots.

The shield converts between Combat Mode and Non-Combat Mode using an ingeniously engineered series of flip panels. GMs will not need to reference the PHB and GMG for a single chart during game play!

It even includes the famous KenzerCo Pizza Matrix to track players favorite and least favorite toppings.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

HackMaster is an RPG that almost requires a GM screen. There are so many tables that you need to reference during a typical play session that being forced to find them all without the benefit of a screen could reduce a GM to tears. Well, dry your tears because Kenzer has released the HackMaster GameMaster’s Shield and it is unlike any GM screen you have ever seen before.

The GameMaster’s Shield has a total of 32 panels (you heard me right) of gaming delight. The base is four sturdy cardboard sections with four additional sections that flip over vertically as needed. There are eight additional sections stapled inside that can be folded out horizontally inside the shield. All sections are color coded and fully laminated so that you write on them with overhead markers.

You use the Shield in-game by setting it to one of several ‘modes’. There is standard combat mode with to-hit tables, saving throw tables, etc. There is dungeon mode with random dungeon generation tables. There is City/Town/NPCs mode with city/town encounter tables and the all-important bartender generation tables. There is even a post-game mode with experience point tables, the alignment graph, etc. You set the various modes by simply flipping panels to the proper configuration. Color-coding makes this a simple process. You can keep the panels open to the chosen configuration with binder clips or even by gluing Velcro tabs onto the screen. The Shield is sturdily built and besides a potential weak point where the staples attach the horizontal panels to the base screen, I think it should stand up to many years of gaming use.

If you are a HackMaster GM, go ahead and put down your twenty bucks. You need this Shield. Even if you play 1st/2nd Edition AD&D, you should give it a look. Many of the tables can be used in your game with little or no modification. If you are still unconvinced, however, check out the clickable web tour of the shield on the Kenzer and Company website.

If you play Third Edition D&D, don’t despair. Kenzer has released the Kingdoms of Kalamar Dungeon Master’s Shield so that you can join the party as well.

 

[baakyocalder]

The Hackmaster game has the best Gamemaster's Shield ever. This 32-panel cardboard shield is a great aid to the Hackmaster GM in all aspects of gameplay. The screen is four panels wide, but using internal folding pages attached by a staple and folding pages for the main four pages, 32 pages fit into this screen of dooom!

Panels of artwork: there are three artwork panels, well illustrated (probably by the Fraims, the house artists for Hackmaster), which depict the combat you expect in Hackmaster. One panel, the main panel on which the words "Gamemaster's Shield" are written, focuses on a human fighter with a longsword and a comely auburn-haired women. In the background are a castle being raiding by a man on horseback and a bunch of lizardmen. When you flip the screen into combat mode, the other two art panels reveal a battle scene to the players. Now the lizardmen are slaughtering castle defenders, the horseman has been killed and is falling off his horse, a big raid dragon is breathing fiery death upon the castle, and in a close-up shot, the fighter is skewered by a drooling lizardmen wielding a spear. The deep entry wound from the spear spurts blood on the woman who looks shocked. Amazing work by the Fraims.

The rest of the screen is text, which might not be that interesting to look at, but really helps the GM. Each section of text has a color-coded border to make finding it easy.

The red section, combat, has to-hit tables, rules on to-hit modifiers, initiative rules, saving throws for characters and items, and the critical hit tables. This takes six full panels, the main four across and two seperate panels. Using it rapidly speeds up combat, since the only combat table not included is undead turning and rebuking; with this table you can quickly figure out what happened on a critical hit or fumble and keep the PCs guessing as to what they need to hit a certain monster.

The brown section, general in-game, has armor, weapon, provisions, tools, transportation, cleric atonement, divine beseechment, encumberance, skill check modifiers, the Hackmaster Smartass Smackdown Table, and the PIZZA MATRIX. Since the Hackmaster Gamemasters Shield is constructed in a manner permitting you to use dry erase markers on it without ruining the screen, every game you can write your pizza choices or other important information down as notes on the screen.

The blue section, City/Town NPCs, takes up four of the staple-folded pages. It has the Hackmaster tables for alcohol potency and drinking, the random tavern and bartender generators, and a number of other tables useful for NPC interactions.

The yellow section, post game, means the GM doesn't need all those Hacklopedias to calculate EPs. This six page section has one page of tracking character EPs, a large alignment graph so the PCs alignment can be tracked to follow the alignment infraction rules, two pages of listing of monster EPs (so unless it is variable EP critter, you got it right there), and two pages for Honor calculations.

The wilderness section is a light green in color and its two pages discuss starvation and dehydration, movement in wilderness, outdoors pursuit, frequency of encounter checks, and population of regions.

The dungeon section, in purple, has six panels. It has both the treasure types and all the random dungeon tables a GM needs, including tables on mood enchancers and torture chamber furnishings. From this set of tables, you could roll up a great dungeon.

Except for missing the Undead Turning table, the Hackmaster Gamemasters Shield is the best GM screen ever.

As for dry-erase markers, they will not review the screen if left on for a few days. So if you play a game on the weekend and don't clean the screen till Monday, you're fine. There are many spots with numbers provided so you can keep track of important things using your dry-erase markers. At www.kenzerco.com you can also download skulls to show how many PCs you have killed.


Kenzer and Company allegedly based its Kingdoms of Kalamar screen design on this screen, so even if you're not a Hackmaster GM, take a look at a piece of gaming history and buy the Kalamar version for your 3e game.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This is probably the best GM screen I have ever seen before.

 

[lwmarti]

HackMaster is a game that continues the evolution of the AD&D game where the 2nd Edition of AD&D stopped. It kept lots of the more complex features that you might remember from the earlier versions of AD&D, like attack rolls and saving throws that you need to use both your class and level to look up in a table. Then it added a few more tables that you need to use, like the critical hit table, where you roll a d10,000 for the location and a heavily-modified d8 for the severity, or fumbles and mishaps, where you roll a d1,000, and so on. To play this worthy successor to AD&D you either need to keep track of dozens of charts and tables, or just have the HackMaster GameMaster's Shield in front of you. (You also need to improvise the results of the d10,000 and d1,000 rolls using multiple d10 since Lou Zocchi apparently hasn't focused his efforts on filling this small niche for a specialty gaming product yet, but that's probably straying too far from the subject at hand.)

The HackMaster GameMaster's Shield has 32 panels that are cleverly folded so that you can reveal only the ones that you need at the time, although this does indeed take a bit of getting used to, sort of like folding a road map does. The outside is covered with art that is oddly reminiscent of the art of the very first AD&D screen, but that's only when you're not in combat. What you enter combat you flip over four of the panels to reveal the charts and tables that you need for combat, different art on the outside panels is revealed. Instead of seeing a bold adventurer holding a sword or gazing in wonder at a chest full of treasure we now see the same adventurer dying a horrible death as the spear from his lizard-like opponent impales him! That transformation, plus the sound of dice rolling for initiative, and you know that the game's getting serious.

Besides all of the charts and table that you need to run combat in HackMaster, the other pages contain all sorts of information that comes in handy for a HackMaster GameMaster running a game: potency of alcoholic beverages, random tavern names, how to calculate experience points, random dungeon furnishings, and more. To make it easier to use, the numerous charts are even cleverly color coded to help you locate the information that you need quickly. Plus it's all nicely covered with a layer of durable plastic that lets you write note on it with dry erase markers. You can even download special skull stickers from the Kenzer & Company web site that you can proudly display your HackMaster GameMaster's Shield to demonstrate your proficiency as a HackMaster GameMaster: one skull sticker for each player character death that you cause.

It certainly sounds like the HackMaster GameMaster's Shield is about as close to perfection as a gaming product can get. No annoying typographical errors and the like. Sure, they priced it a bit too low, so that Kenzer & Company actually took a loss on making it, but to paraphrase Milton Friedman, I'd rather buy something too cheaply instead of selling it too cheaply, so that's fine by me. Is it perfect? Sadly, the answer is that it is not: as long and hard as I've looked I can't manage to find the tables for clerics turning undead. D'oh! But if you can overlook that slight flaw you'll find that the HackMaster GameMaster's Shield is going to be one of those products whose fame grows with age, much like the old AD&D Combat Wheel; so even if you're not going to run a HackMaster game, there's still a good reason to pick up a copy.