





In August of 89, TSR released REF1 the Dungeon Master Screen. Why in the world am I reviewing this, you ask? Well, there is relevance to it. As a DM, this thing is probably the most used item in my collection, and mine is very beat up! Unfortunately, this item is also a collector’s item; I guess people used them up and threw them away at a tremendous rate, which sucks for us. There is some guy trying to sell it for $135, I hope that he never makes his money. To me, that is ripping off the public, pure and simple. But enough about that; let’s talk about the product itself!





A good screen should have all of the tables that a DM uses regularly, as well as a few that are rarely used, but when you need them, then you need them quick. This scene satisfies those demands. I’ve used it for years, and was one of those products that I had bought new, and I wish that I would have bought a couple of them. I own others, including the reprint, but I’ve never even looked at them! This is the one that goes with my books of choice.





It also came with a module called Terrible Trouble in Tragador , which I’ve never ran, nor even read, but I’ve kept it. Hey, a free module is better than a kick to the face any day! It can be said that Terrible Trouble is the first “True” 2nd Edition module to be released, as all of the other modules released that year were listed as compatible with both 1st and 2nd editions of AD&D.





IS THE SCREEN CHEATING?





There are lots of people out there that claim that it is. That the only reason why one would use it is to hide their rolls; well these people must have a much better memory that me, as I have always needed the facts on the screen, and THAT is why it is always on the table.





Every DM has to lie about die rolls from time to time, there isn’t anything worse than the dice killing a character in the first few minutes of a game, the player needs a bit of time before he can fully wrap their head around a game. Other times, we DMs probably shouldn’t have been rolling the dice in the first place, which we don’t figure out until something really bad happens and we don’t want to deal with it. So, we fudge dice! Granted! If you are rolling too hot on one PC, we’ll claim to miss. If we haven’t hit anybody at all, we’ll claim we hit. A good DM uses common sense when fudging stuff; we don’t want to manufacture obvious events. If we get caught cheating, then we are cheating. I think that it is a much bigger sin to disrupt the flow of the game, especially if everybody is having a good time; We use the dice to maintain an unbiased game and to keep some elements random, if this isn’t desired we sometimes pick them up anyway.





I don’t intend to hide my rolls. I need the screen to cover up all the stuff that I don’t want the players to see, such as maps, notes, creature hit points, and that kind of stuff. I roll behind the screen as a convenience to me, not because I’m cheating; but, there are times when you can get better tension from a struggle without the screen. When a fight is so evenly matched that there is a good chance that the player’s character is going to bite it, you might be able to get more drama from a scene if the player is aware of the enemy’s hp, as well as their own. You also want your rolls to be out there and in the open so that everybody knows that this is the dice making the decisions, not the DM. Actually, it is probably a good idea to always roll out in the open if a PC is in danger of dying because of events taking place on your side, but show all of your rolls? No! Keep the players guessing! If you’ve made your creatures saving-throw, and you want the player to think that you didn’t, rolling in the open is not something that you want to do, and you don’t want it to look weird by hiding just a couple of your rolls all night. The less a player knows what you are doing back there, the more fun he is going to have!





So, a DM Screen, in my opinion, makes the game better on multiple fronts. This one specifically is nice because it isn’t too large, and big screens can serve to alienate the DM from the rest of the table, which isn’t fun. I know that I don’t like to take up too much space. I’ve got a TV Tray with the books I need, and only what I’m using at that moment in front of me. A smaller screen also forces me to work clean and not have everything cluttered up, which I tend to do and I hate it.





So, rating the screens use. It didn’t push the industry into any new direction, but it did allow the user to. To me, this is an essential tool, and is just as important to the game as pencils and paper, but it is one of those things that is more of a convenience, it isn’t like we can’t make one ourselves, in times were I feel the that shield is just in the way, a piece of paper will do to cover my notes and stuff. As a new DM this thing was a life saver, and it still is, so, for that reason I’ll give it a B. I am not going to pay collectors prices to replace a product that originally cost so little, and is just there for convenience, so I’ll have to come up with an alternative.





One funny thing, before closing, is in regard to the PDF. Originally, I thought that it would be pointless to have this product as a PDF, but on rethinking, this would be a nice file to have open on the PC during prep, and it would also allow us to buy some supplies at the store and make our own copy, because even those like me, who takes extra good care of their books, this product still breaks down over time with just regular use. Perhaps it is the fact that I have sacrified this shield instead of having to look up the same tables in the books that has ultimately preserved my handbooks themselves? Why open a book, if you don’t have to?



