D&D 5E (2014) What's on the Dungeon Master's Screen?

[Orius]

I like how it's heavy duty. The tables though left me unimpressed. They seem too fluffy. But I'm not running any 5e games, so no big deal too me.

And why the heck did it take WotC until January to release it anyway?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I have some pretty strong feelings about the 5th edition DM screen.

I've used DM screens for every version of D&D, and I've always had the official version and then decided I could do it better and taped my own tables on the interior of the screen, crammed more info into the space, used a smaller font, and so forth... and was always tinkering with new layouts, different fonts, refinements of the presented information, and so forth, never actually being satisfied with the screen and always having difficulty actually using the screen (it was often easier for me to just remember what page to turn to in the books themselves, especially once I trimmed the font size down to fit 'everything' on the screen).

Yet with the 5th edition screen I have only made alteration by way of sticking a couple post-its on it, and with all the art displayed on the screen I didn't even have to cover up one of the tables to fit the post-its. One, on the outer left panel facing a particular player's typical seat at the table, is the dwarf name details from The Dwarves of Rockhome to help that player come up with names for his characters and their family members. The other is the little table from the DMG for the optional rule of mobs of attackers (because I hate rolling out the attack rolls of every last one of the small army of goblins attacking the party).

That's all the fiddling that I feel is needed for the screen - everything that is on it actually sees use in more sessions than not, and nothing that isn't on it that comes up regularly isn't already committed to memory. It's the first time in basically ever that I am actually satisfied with a DM screen. The only thing that I might change is to hang some different art on the outside to keep what the players are looking at fresh/related to the campaign at hand.

And why the heck did it take WotC until January to release it anyway?

I think that was at least in part deliberately creating another visit to the friendly local shop, since WotC likes to do things to help out the brick & mortar shops, even above and beyond having them be the early access points for D&D products.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Well, I definitely like the visual appearance of the screen from both sides. I don't think it's going to work for me though. I need a DM screen that gives me the stuff that is a hassle to look up as often as a I need to look it up, rather than taking up space with things I can get in other places more effectively.*

I took a look at a couple of nice fan-made screens, but they seemed to have too much stuff I don't need on them. What would be wonderful is if someone made a modular DM screen. Basically, it would allow you to do something like choose which info you wanted, then drag and drop the various boxes of information onto the screen in the configuration you liked, and then print it out.

* Personal examples: I don't need anything involving character creation--this is for speeding up play. I don't need weapons and armor tables because I rarely need to find anything on it I don't already know during play. And when I do need to find it, those tables are very easy to bring up in the PHB or Basic Rules. I don't need tables of time to don/doff armor, because that's so infrequently an issue that it's okay to look it up. I do need things like object hp/AC, rules for improvising damage, effects of weather and other environmental elements, because even if I don't use them all that often, they are something I don't have memorized and when I want them I don't want to have to hunt for them (which I do). I need mob rules because when I want to use them I have to have that table in front of me--I can't just reference it and move on. Lingering wounds would be a good one to have, since I'm going to try using that module.

 

[Thymm]

I currently use TWGS by hammerdog games with whatever I need on my side and helpful infos for my players on the other side. Really easy.

 

[Scorpio616]

Also, the screen has a few tables on it that aren't in the DMG, like the Encounter Distance table, as well as the quirky Something Happens! table.

What a jerkass marketing move. Leaving things like that out of the DMG intentionally to put them on a peripheral product.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

What a jerkass marketing move. Leaving things like that out of the DMG intentionally to put them on a peripheral product.

Is there no other possible explanation?

I hadn't even considered it as being a "marketing move" since the DM screen didn't have any ads that I saw which listed those tables as included features.

I thought it was just a case of something along the lines of "Well, this is the kind of thing that some DMs could really use and could see a lot of use at the table during actual play, but there really isn't much to say about it or need for an explanation how to use it, so it'd be just some free-floating table in the DMG or worse, include actually wasted word count by explaining why the table it there... so it probably shouldn't go in the DMG, especially since the page count is already full of potentially more useful stuff." and someone saying "Yeah, but we are making a DM screen and the game is so simple this time around that we really don't need much to be on the screen, so why don't we stick this there?"

But hey, maybe you are right. Maybe I'm just too ready to believe the game designers aren't "jerkass."

 

[Scorpio616]

But hey, maybe you are right. Maybe I'm just too ready to believe the game designers aren't "jerkass."

Maybe I'm being too harsh, it's just typical encounter distances is something I'd really expect to be in the DMG. Now if the Distances are in the DMG, and it's just the chart that is screen exclusive, then I'm being way too harsh.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Maybe I'm being too harsh, it's just typical encounter distances is something I'd really expect to be in the DMG.

But... why would you expect it? It's one of the simplest things for DMs, new or otherwise, to adjudicate with zero help from the rule book or a screen since the purpose is only to answer the question "how far away are the PCs when they realize what they are looking at is potentially hostile monsters?" and that answer is usually obvious (especially when running a published adventure that already explains where creatures are once you see them."