@@mkklassicmk3895Less definitive tho, could always back out of the deal last moment and get beat up by the guy you were going to sell it to as a Christmas present for his son. But you can't unburn your DMG if you've tossed it into a fire.
My dm screen isnt for hiding rolls. Its for relevant info, condition effects, hiding minis ill need for the next encounters and keeping notes i dont want out in the open. The screen is important. I play in person but we have a large tv table for maps/art/etc. I have a massive collection of miniatures and use condition rings, risers, aoe rings etc. Sometimes however, we go entire sessions without using them. Theatre of the mind has a place for certain things but all my shiny dm toys have a place too. They arent neccessary but man are they fun to use. Which is better? A paper 2d mini or d20 to represent the massive ancient red dragon or the 18inch "mini" that i put on the vtt with the 3d cave terrain i built? Its not neccessary but damn it sure is cool.
Same here I love my minis , and what I do is if I use random encounters I will roll up a few before the game and get the minis out, write down HP and all their goodness before hand so it never takes anytime during games for my random encounters :D. My screen is a 3d printed castle and so it has quick easy slots to hold info for initiative and and stuff plus little shelves to hide all the minis I may use that session
@laughingpanda4395 Sure, if you have it prepared, you can prepare it in the lunch or whatever break or have it on hand and are so proficient you can do it in a reasonable time (2 mins max) go and use it to your hearths content, but be reasonable and respect players time when choosing the right method for the next encounter, sometimes it really is best to make it simple or plainly in the theatre of the mind. Enjoy and bye 😃😇❤️
@@NeuralNotes5 no worries there. I've been DM'ing off and on since 2e. Around 28 years now. Building encounters is easy. Building something new that I've never done before is hard.
There’s a lot of stuff that goes behind the DM screen, not just secret rolls. Session notes you don’t want the players to see, cool minis you have lying in wait, hit points left on the boss, etc. And even ignoring all that, it’s an extremely valuable tool simply because it allows you to allocate a portion of the table to keep all of your DMing stuff. DMs need a lot more notes and books and stuff than players, and therefore need more space. However, players often have a tendency to make the table their own, spreading out their snacks, dice, doodles, and trinkets across the play area. Having a DM screen set up ensures that you’ll always have sufficient space to keep your stuff, and you don’t risk your players taking over space that you need.
Funny, I actually tried to roll openly with my own in-person games when I first started out as a DM, but my players actually requested that I use a DM screen so there could be an air of mystery of what the result is until I narrate it. But yeah, I'm very much behind the spirit of trying to play as simply as you can. Being a DM is complicated enough in your own head without trying to add in just as many props to the mix.
To me, my players asked me to hide my rolls because when I started rolling openly, I just got nat 20s on combat. Now, the universe has reached balance, and I can roll openly like a normal person again. But it was a funny 2 months.
Sorry I'm not Ginny, but for what it's worth, I noticed you! The "peeples" bit reminded me of many years ago, playing an action scene in a Call of Cthulhu game, where we used popcorn for a load of blobby monsters. It worked just great, but we didn't get to eat many of them before we had to run away. Keep up the great work!
I have started rolling in the open to as of late, especially saving throws. I have noticed my players are much more engaged when they get the chance to see the enemy’s save against their high level spell, and makes failing more exiting and succeeding feel less like a short coming, which they embrace way faster. It’s the same reason I like to announce the DC of a critical Check or Saving Throw. Also congrats on getting to 3.6k subscribers! Well deserved.
The part about using the ultra plain and generic minis is gold. think about this for one second.. when using minis, almost all of the time, The mini isn't exactly perfect. you might have six gnolls, but you need nine. So you throw in two bug bear and a town guard. and say that they're all gnolls. most of the time there's not enough connection between the mini and what you're trying to represent. those bandit minis all have swords. but these three guys we have to pretend have bows. this cool looking paladin mini is substituted in for an evil paladin. The mini has a shield with a dragon and is painted white. but we're going to imagine that he's painted blood red with a demon on his shell. almost all the time we are imagining something else then is represented on the table. So using the generic minis simply takes one level of imagination out of play.
I roll in the open in front of my DM screen. The screen holds useful references on my side and initiative cards on the player side, and it hides my notes and relevant miniatures.
The very first session I did that to avoid the temptation of fudging and making players see that but I realized that going over the screen to roll was more annoying than rolling in my secret space. I would still use the screen just to hide notes, hp and the like. Also I may try to fake secret rolls or have contested rolls that the result isn't obvious.
Your singing voice is lovely sir. I prefer still having a dm screen, not because of secrets but because my neurodivergent little brain likes having a space thats my own with clear borders and edges. No touchy, its mine! Also a fellow non minitaure user here, we use bottlecaps and candy!
I feel you on the figurines. Our dm when we started Dnd used a box of old game pieces, I.e. plastic checkers and mini cheap chessmen. As we went we got miniatures and more "official" stuff. Fast forward 4 years, we are back to the chess men, and to be honest, that's our tables style. We have our personal figurines, but a couple of us have gone to custom coins we use as our place holders.
Back before i gave it away, i would pass around my DM screen as a reference material for players. It had some good stuff that the players needed to know.
Back in the 4e days, Wizards shipped a sheet of circular punch out tokens in different colors that said "monster" and a number and could be flipped over to a bloody side to show they were below half health. I still use those generic tokens, even if I did buy a set of laser burned wood ones to look nicer.
I ran Dnd for a long time with a $10 treant looking guy as my "all purpose npc." If the players were talking to an NPC, boom... that guy hit the table. Granted, the players were my kids, but we all found it amusing. I lean a lot closer to storyteller than sand-boxer, but my stories have a lot of room for weird and unexpected stuff to happen at the table.
I started DMing without a screen, but now I worry my players will see my notes and my secrets will spill out! That being said, having no screen feels more inclusive and inviting. I love the videos!!! Great content as always
I make all the rolls open, however, I still have a screen cus the players love it and it makes everyone feel better. Plus it reminds me which skills have which ability score for the like 4 or 5 I can never remember, and little things like conditions we rarely use rules.
Kids today. Back in the day I'd play D&D with my brother and friends while doing chores. Hands busy, so we had no dice, no paper. The mechanic was that you'd describe what you're trying to do. If it was cool enough, and your description over-the-top enough, it worked. Not exactly standard D&D, but it was fun, and we got the chores done.
I mean, that’s just role playing. DnD is a set of rules to facilitate role playing in some ways, so you do need to follow some of the rules if you want to say you are playing dnd. Nothing wrong if you aren’t and are just role playing your homebrew game based on dnd ideas and having fun! But it’s not the same thing.
we had pc miniatures for our first ever campaign but as we got through it, we ended up just using dice. nobody pulled out their mini when i called for initiative, i just put out a grid, drew some boxes and then we placed various d4 there, worked all the same. i‘m not ready to ditch the screen and i‘m not sure that i want to, i like laying out my materials without my players seeing them, it adds mystery and uncertainty.
I think if you are rolling off a random encounter table, you should have the minis or tokens already set aside for any possible random encounter the part could face.
I am one of those meticulous DMs that feels completely unprepared if I don’t have the mini’s I need for an adventure to include random encounters. With that said I absolutely love your Meeples idea for common townspeople or unarmed innocents that need rescuing in the middle of an adventure/fight. Thank you for that idea! One idea I recently saw someone else using that I plan on implementing is buying a bag of 1 inch blocks. The blocks quality can vary but you can easily stack and store them (unless you glue them), they can be painted and they match the 1 inch grids for grid maps and can help visualize 3d terrain for those maps that don’t do a good job describing things because they are a 2d map of a 3d castle with murder holes etc
DM screens are an absolute vibe. It's not even about hiding things from my players. Its like a form of recognition whenever anyone in the group runs a game, of all the effortthat goes into setting up and DMing a campaign; you did the hard work, you get the cool screen.
100% on chucking the fancy dice. Readability is king. I like the yellow chessex dice with black letters. They are cheap and legible from long distance even in dim light.
Dude has got a serenading voice lol. I am out hear barely able to hold a note and this dude is singing as side quest to keep us engaged. Show me your ways Deficient Master XD
Fancy Dice: Rule #1 is "Can you read the die from across the table?" If you can't, then it stays in the jewellery box with the Superbowl ring from eBay and the mint-in-box E.T. 'action figure'. Once you've met that requirement, go nuts. I think solid colours are usually easier to read than swirly mixes and if the die is too small you won't be able to read it, but weird shapes, unusual materials, and funky lettering are all fine if they're legible.
An alternative to a typical DM screen is a document display holder. You know, they sit on or are mounted onto a desk/wall and you slip pages into them? They can hold more info than a DM screen and you can put tabs on them. This is great for rules, tables, important NPCs, etc. If it's a free-standing one, the two outer pages can face your players with useful info, and they can be shifted around more easily than a DM screen. This is also better than your typical DM screen for people who are sight-impaired because you have more space with which to use larger fonts.
About the DM screen it's not just about trust and hide your throws, it's about not knowing what you are doing behind the wall, it's about hiding notes and things you don't want your players to see before the time (just because it can happen to drop an eye and see things unintentionally)
Incidentally, the Pathfinder Pawns are way easier to find when needed if you keep them in their original punch-out sheets. You can store those in big 3-ring binders using sheet protectors, so you can page through in an organized fashion rather than rummaging around in a box. I even rearranged mine to sort them by monster type, though pulling that off in a way that everything fit was a fairly time-consuming endeavour, so may not be a good option for everyone. That said, I'm definitely a fan of generic tokens for most cases. Personally, I use those little flat-bottomed colored glass beads for 80-90% of enemies in my games.
I use the GM screen for two things. It has commonly used spreadsheets on it and it ensures that I have enough room at the table. As for all the stuff... as a theater of the mind player who started playing roughly 20 years ago, it amazes me how much money people think they have to spend. When I started as a player, I spent about 3 Euro for some dice and was set for abkut a year.
something even easier you could do is instead of minis you could just get change. Pennies are minions dimes and nickels are higher level enemies or spell charters and quarters are good for any medium sized boss. And they already have two sides so you can make enemies on tails have sword and shields and heads have pikes or whatever you need. I started doing it when I ran a 400 enemy encounter out of desperation and really haven’t looked back.
just stopping by to say your channel is absolutely fantastic. having watched 3 of your videos so far, you have information that actually benefits DM's on a fundamental level (reminds me a lot of Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master), your comedy, editing and presentation is pretty good, and you're putting out videos at a regular pace. looking forward to more of your videos, I see a bright future for your channel!
Hey Deficient! Thank you again for another informative and highly entertaining video (loved the Little Mermaid bit) I hope you go into more into your Schrödinger’s Scenarios. I know you talked about it in your improve video, but I would love to run a sandbox game myself. Keep up the amazing work! My games have already improved under your tutelage!
I've been a forever DM since 1989. We didn't have as many accessories back then. I've never used fancy dice. I have used miniatures on and off, depending on the game. And I typically use a GM screen. I make the vast majority of die rolls in the open, though. I use a lot of generic miniatures or coins for bad guys, and setting up an impromptu battle means giving the players a snack break while I get the miniatures out. These days I prefer to roll with theater of the mind.
Aside of being helpful information, the delivery was hilarious. Smashing post its with the book and then blowing up the book is hilarious. The choice to use the chatGPT text was hilarious, but deleting "how do I get Ginny Di to notice me" was absolute genius!
This is more or less where I'm at (minus ditching the DM screen). Like my players brought me in a little set of dry erase tokens I can stand to use as bad guys (before I was using random dice so I could put the enemy number on them for hp tracking) and it's nice. And I appreciate them doing that cause it's cool that they do. But it slowed down set up cause then I had to make them all in advance so I wasn't doing it at the table. I'm going to give it a shot again this week but I might wind up just saying I'm more comfortable my way.
I have way too many d6s and I just use those as miniatures 😄 Though last week I did get a pack of themed minis for the PCs since it's a longer running game and they can connect with them more, but NPCs and monsters are still, "The skeletons are these generic colored dice, the cultists are these wooden dice, and the lich is represented by this die with a dragon on the face. Let's go."
Ngl I like my screen. I like to build suspense and I think a fun aspect to the game is trying to keep a straight face when I roll and know the outcome to something everyone's waiting for. Then I can describe it in story. If a roll is crazy I move my hands away from my screen, tell what happens and as I get to the pinnacle of the description, move the screen to reveal the roll. Idk I think it adds something but to each their own :)
Hey, Just wanted to say I really like your videos. I found you like, an hour ago and I've already watched everything on the channel. XD And like, I think the advice you're giving is super helpful; I quite frankly haven't found anyone else giving this advice, but it resonates with me. I actually am an author and your approach to taking the storytelling out of D&D feels more right than what I can put into words. (At least, not without parroting you lol) Thank you, and happy holidays
I find the dm screen invaluable. Not only does it have a bunch of information on how different conditions work, it also helps hide planning. The DM and the players arent equals, the DM carries the responsibilities of making sure the players have fun, sometimes that means fudging dice or keeping secrets. Whats important is making sure your players trust that you're on their side.
Deficient: isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Me: that's weird... reminds me of the line Ariel says in The Little Mermaid. Surely just a coincidence. 5 seconds later: ah, I guess not. 😄
In person: Ok, friends we using mind theater, generic figures, markers and our imagination! In VTT: *spends 3 hours figuring out how to do a macro so the token gets on the horse by the push of a button...
I use chess pieces instead of minis. I bought like 3 sets of smaller pieces, and use whichever ones feel appropriate, and then swap to dark pieces when they're bloodied. Players can tell from a glance which pieces are more threatenig, and more hurt
My DM screen is to hide the fact that I'm not taking notes about the 40 minute planning discussion about how to fight the one goblin in the room and I'm actually just doodling a little goblin getting hit by an axe. They must never know.
I keep the GM screen because it's handy to have that information handy, I can hang stuff from it for the players to get info, and yes, I cheat. If my players are having a hard time against a monster and they look miserable, then guess who has failed to hit as the monsters so they feel like they have a chance and feel more engaged, I.E. having more fun. If they can see the dragon just critted them all to a char for the umpteenth time, then they're not having fun unless we're playing 1st edition.
As a burn it all down because I've done it all before style of GM, I really appreciate these videos. I personally love game accessories, but I absolutely only use them to facilitate the game. Sometimes I bring them into give new players a taste of table top they haven't experienced. Sometimes, I bring them in to create an atmosphere, but mostly, if I use them its to either streamline a process or create an experience outside of static numbers on written pages. I also have no problem going unscripted, theater of the mind. As I did a 6 hour once a week improvised (no prep, no pre-written) campaign that lasted a nearly solid 2 years before concuding the game.
I like the way you think. I’ll probably keep my screen just so I can have a place to put up maps that show all the secret doors and stuff. I have downsized to grid paper, pencil, dice, and screen
I like my dm screen, not for privacy, but because I'm still new to the game and have to keep track of a lot of things, having stickynotes and all that jazz clutters up the table less when it's on the screen and not, well, on the table.
Reading all the comments on why you should be using a DM-screen: I agree that having information like passive perception and the like on there is very useful but I agree more with Deficient here, because I also believe that you distance yourself too much from your players. In no other system that I played did it feel like I was playing or plotting against my players and I never used a DM-screen when playing these games. To me it makes the DM more of a player and also in my style of DMing the players into more of a DM, too.
I like to roll some dice occasionally behind the screen, just to add some low cost mystery. The players need to learn not every dice roll will be followed by an overt outcome. sometimes the unknown lurks in the shadows...
I don't need to hide my notes from players behind a screen because no one can read my handwriting as it is horrendous. I think the worst about the screen is that it is bad for conversation to cover yourself so much in my experience.
I had a piece of hex graph paper (8 1/2" x 11") laminated at a copier place. It had one large hex on one side divided by 1/4" hexes and just quarter inch hexes on the other side. I bought a set of "alcohol pens" (permanent but NOT sharpies) and a set of felt tips. You needed Windex or the like to erase the permanent markers, but just a dry Kleenex to remove the felt tip markers. I would draw a copy of an encounter map on the laminate with permanent markers, and draw the characters (player and non) with the felt tips. The PC's could keep track of the encounter with the laminate map and the felt tips; using Kleenex to move their characters around and drawing in area effects of spells. I never got into miniatures. Dabbing in details through a jeweler's loop with a 3 camel hair brush on an Arch Lich...just...no!
I would honestly argue that using a screen shows more trust than having things in the open. I know my screen is one of the key things to me running games, not for "hiding" things, but being able to surprise my players with cool things. I also have gone lush with my screen, so I'm also biased here. lol But I adore having a space to keep things sorted and laid out as I need so I can easier grab what I need. I've also switch to tokens though instead of minis, mostly because I don't run games at my own house, and transporting minis is a total pain, so I found a seller on Esty that makes custom 3D printed tokens with different symbols/numbers on them to be different things, and the numbers are so helpful with tracking monster health.
Yeah.... I'm keeping my DM screen. It holds information that I need to know and the less I have to keep in my head (which is already full of everything that I need to run circumstances before me) or look up mid-game, the better. Also, sometimes fudging rolls is the BEST thing you can do in a situation. If they have a series of bad rolls and are about to get annihilated by a random, nobody monster - I may give them a break on that crit I just rolled on the cleric for the party. And likewise if my BBEG turns out to be a pushover because his dice just aren't falling on anything, I may crank up the heat a little bit and decide that this crucial, game turning thing needs to happen instead of the nat one he just rolled which would send him bumbling over his throne for the final death blow. I suppose the no DM screen DM has its place, but I'm not doing it any time soon.
One of the things about playing online during the pandemic (and half of us being unable to use roll 20) we've switched to full theatre of the mind for all of our games. Honestly, I think it works better for the most part. And you can convene games a bit more easily and use your players minds to fill in all that detail you couldn't be bothered to prep! It's a win win!
A player’s opinion. DM screen: I kind of like it, it symbolizes the unknown faced by the adventurers; Minis: fine with the essential (we used beer caps for a long time) as long as I have my historical one; Fancy, unreadable dice: I hate them, they slow down the game (a fellow player spends on average 4 seconds to figure out the white number on each white sparkling die, and his pc is a rogue with tons of damage dice every f***ing round…)
I can't ditch the screen, it's my quick reference sheet for many things, if i need to call a dc check on the fly it's got a table for that going from very easy (dc 5) to near impossible (dc 30), it's got conditions, obscurity, lighting, exhaustion, a less useful panel on combat and a player/boss monster reference panel. I primarily play online, zoom/discord, but the game I'm DMing i use a vtt (d&d beyond) which my players like and i like the tools available. I roll openly though i have to set it so everyone can see my rolls as DM every time, I don't discourage players from rolling physical dice if they're more comfortable with that. Also I'm not giving up my shiney metal math rocks.
The DM screen is for when the players look over a see the brand new fully painted beholder mini in front of me and then wonder what might hide around the corner of the dungeon. Trust is not established by the screen or lack there of. I'll frequently opt to make things like saving throws public rolls especially if its an intense situation. At the end of the day players can tell when you fudge dice rolls, and its less fun that way regardless. Also it looks cool and makes me feel like I have control of this hot mess of an session I prepped 2 hours before game time
Every session I tip my DM screen when I lean over it. I own thousands of minis but lack the organizational ability to use them, when when im not runnign sandbox. True stuff man :)
I always roll in the open but keep a small screen to cover notes. Also, the Shadowdark screen has everything you need: 1 of the 4 panels is devoted to making up names one syllable at a time
Look. Lissen. I've been playing D&D since I was 9 years old (circa 1983) and as an old, dusty gamer I have something to ask about your videos; Where in the 9 Hells have you been for the past 40 years? I'm never watching another RPG Tuber ever again. Who is Ginny? Who is Mercer? And who needs them? You alone are the Savior of our Hobby. Never upscale the pRoDUctIon VaLuE of your videos because they are perfect the way they are. I better not see you covered in silver jewelry, sitting in front of a faux stone wall, in front of a $20k maple wood game table, behind a custom $2k maple wood DM Screen, rolling real gem dice, smoldering for your celebrity players, and forgetting the simple things that make you great. Because you are great. Seriously, I love your content.
Thank you for this. Made me grin all the way through. The response has been great and I plan to be in it for the long haul. Unless RAID Shadow Legends offers me a big fat check. 🤡
when I started playing D&D all we had was the internet and char sheets, not even a BATTLEMAP. lol and that game was so far the MOST memorable to me. lol
I use the DM screen but it's on a side table. It's good for reference. But the physical barrier between you and the players can hamper their willingness to really get into the game because you appear more like an adversary than someone who is there to play the game with you.
In response to advice number 2. The 'mini' that I have found to be the most useful for me is a cheap chess set. I got them from a thrift store for like $2. They are already color coded for allies vs enemies. They are each unique (I marked the duplicates with a permanent marker to distinguish them). They makes communicating super easy. The fighter will just say, I go attack the rook and everyone immediately knows what they meant. There is some decrease in immersion but the time and money I have saved not using 'real' minis is 100% worth it.
