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Ref Screen |
2021-02-15 |
Ref Screen
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It is probably the first thing I noticed when I watched this documentary about role playing games on a french channel with my dad, around 1985.
The second thing I noticed was the total freedom in the story generated by the game.
I turned to my dad and said "I want to play this game". My dad responded "yes" and smiled, probably carried by my enthusiasm.
The first thing I had noticed was the game master screen, how it oriented the table, in a last supper way with a central figure behind some kind of fortification.
My first attempt at cargo-culting what I had seen on television failed, I had a screen, figurines (smurfs), players (my parents and the neighbours), rules (actually, only rulings), and it was not fun, my parents dismissed the session, liquor time. I think I had to wait one year before finding another entry point into role playing games.
The games I could find came with no screens, so I made one, or rather I made one for each game I mastered. Tape, old A4 notebook covers, accompanying my father to his office to photocopy tables and illustrations. Those screens are probably still waiting for the next game up in my parents' attic.
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Jump from the 1980s to the 2020s.
Last year, I came back to gaming via Héros et Dragons and since at that point it was all PDFs, I had no screen. PDFs, DropBox "available offline", and iPads are a great combination, until you start running the game, and want to keep the game running.
My 2020 game master screen started with a walk to the 1 dollar shop to get two A4 cardboard binders. I then removed the metal hooks and kept the two cardboards and taped them together.
I had seen videos of beautiful, modular, magnetic, wooden screens. I wondered how I could partake in that glorious, supposed, usefulness. I could have some ferrous layer on my screen to use magnets, then I found online some A3 whiteboard stickers with a ferrous layer. I bought two of them, cut them in two and I ended up with four A4 whiteboard stickers. I placed two in front and two in the back of the screen.
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I found some round, green, magnets at the 1 dollar shop, fine. Plumbers here leave magnetic business cards to place on fridges, I pasted a white sheet of paper on top of one of those cards, then cut it in slices. I can write names on those magnetic slices and I have an initiative tracking tool.
The two magnetic whiteboards came with gutters. I tend to use them behind the screen I place them mid or top level as platforms for dice, figurines, or pens.
Since we were playing 5th edition, I photocopied I printed some of the game tables and pasted them on the inside of my screen. I went for the conditions, the short and long rest descriptions, The vision and light section, the food and water section, suffocating and falling...
I had given my players copies of two cheat sheets, I had copies on my side too. The more I learned about 5th edition, the more I learned about Il Rinascimento della Vecchia Scuola, I included Moldvay's Reaction and Morale rules to our house rules and to the inside of the screen.
The top picture shows a briton hut. That's one way of using the screen, as a place to hang description items. I usually have printouts of Osprey saxon warrior illustrations to set the tone, no plate armor, no pointy hats.
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As an end of the eighties game master, if there is a thing that says "rite of passage" for me, it's the making of a gamemaster screen.
I like to set up the screen, arrange the scenario and the notepads, the NPC stat printouts. I am asking myself "What did I forget this time?". I place my GM dice behind the screen. In front of the screen, a small chest offers, candy-like, the dice anyone can use.
Most of the time, I am standing, hovering between the players, invoking Melpomene and more often, Thalia. Clio is not far off, no plate armor, no pointy hats, so she doesn't mind a bit of magic in our theater of the mind.
When spears meet and the battlemat is in use, I am definitely not behind my screen. When the sword is back in the scabbard, I get back in my lair, take a sip of the beer waiting there, check my notes, let the excitation of the players quiet down a bit. I stand up again, leave the security of the screen, the adventure awaits us.
Now that we are moving away from the 5th edition of the world's greatest roleplaying game, I will replace some of the charts behind my screen. The reaction and morale charts will stay.
I like my cardboard keep on the borderland.
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