My DM Screen

This is purely me sharing free resources with my audience.

This is my DM screen.

Now let's talk about DM screens!

Love them or hate them, the DM screen is symbolic of the hobby. Look, I'm just going to assume that if you read a blog that gets as technical as mine does, you know about these things. In fact, I'm going to assume you even have an opinion about the value/usage of the DM screen. (On the off chance that you're new, the topic of whether a DM should use a screen is actually a bit of a debate.)

So, here's some links to other people who love/hate DM screens and what they think of the topic. Then I'll throw in my 2 cents, and finally I'll explain my personal DM screen.

Matt Mercer is pro-screen

Matt Coleville uses the screen

This n00b (sarcasm) doesn't use one (and covers the values of them more clearly than the big guys)

So, when I started playing RPGs, I didn't have a DM screen. (Or miniatures, or dice for that matter!) In fact, I didn't even know a DM screen was a thing that I could have! Then I saw this:

...and I realized this was a real thing, not just some silly nonsense game my friend was making up. D&D wasn't just a kind of vague meme-like idea. It was a real game.

Still, Dexter's performance as a GM was reason enough for me to avoid the screen for many years. It wasn't until I started reading blogs by really old gamers that I decided to give it a try. And I was very happy with the results.

The biggest complaint I hear people have against the DM screen is that it creates a barrier. I don't know about you guys, but at my table, the DM chair is almost always vacant. I spend almost all of my time standing, moving around the table, interacting with the players, dice, props, etc. So, my DM screen is mostly just a shade for my notes. This is important because, yes, I run crawls, and that means there are detailed maps with keys that the players should never see- not even by accident.

I developed this active DMing style from the early days when I played the game.

We didn't have a table. Or a good comfortable space to play in. Sometimes we didn't even have chairs. It took me years to finally find a store that carried weird dice to buy. So my games usually looked like this:

...except, imagine there are no windows, the lights are dim, the furniture is all aging garbage, the room is a pig sty, and there is nothing remotely cool happening in the real world.

My family didn't have any main tables except the kitchen table, and this kind of play was not welcome in the main areas of the house. So, we all sat on the ratty old furniture in the storage space and drew numbers out of a bowl instead of rolling dice, and wrote on lined paper character sheets with dusty old books as lap-desks. The room was not spacious or organized, and everyone was all over the place.

To keep people in it together, I had to stand up. I had to be in the center. I had to move and involve everyone. (I didn't get any good at it until just before my friends all stopped playing RPGs) (The idea of using my whole body game from an interview with some old rock star I saw, he was talking about how to create stage presence that involves everyone, even the people in the nose bleeds at a stadium show.)

I keep doing that to this day.

My inability to become active with the group is the main reason I dislike DMing online. THAT is a real barrier.

My first DM screen was a prototype of the one I made a tutorial for on this blog early in its development. (That is also my single most popular blog entry.) I made it primarily as an oversized notes folder for carrying stuff to other peoples houses. It never got used as a "screen" because I rarely had a table, and otherwise just forgot to set the darn thing up.

As I got older, I also became increasingly interested in RPGs as games, rather than just a fun form of collaborative fiction. I got into game design as a hobby and started learning game design history and theory. As this happened, I became more interested in running the games as they're written. (Or, at least, rewriting the rules and then sticking to THAT.) As this interest developed, I began to become increasingly concerned with all the charts and mechanics that I used to fudge my way through.

That reached its peak when I started running hex crawls. I made my DM screen back then because I needed all the important stuff in the books without any of the explanation. I knew the explanation. I knew the rules. I did not have the charts and tables memorized. I didn't need a cheat sheet. I needed a massively compressed corebook on constant display.

I've been working on that screen for years now, and it has changed a lot. In fact, in the time it took me to write this article, it's already changed a lot! And I have plans for further changes to make! Here's a look at my working file as it exists at this second. You know, if you want to see how this thing grows and changes over time.

So, let's go over the details of what my screen is seeking to achieve.

The first 4 pages are the DM side.

The first page is a compiled class table. All of the PHB class tables collected into one, including xp threshold per level and tiers. If anyone asks, "Hey, how many [resource] should I have?" I KNOW.

The second page is a guide to setting DCs. It gives benchmark examples. Almost all of the examples in there are actually from the PHB mechanics, like that stuff about foraging and tracking. The rest is me making shit up and jokes it fill slots. I know what's what. You have fun with that mess.

The third page is a combat flowchart. It shows how the combat turn structure works. That's... uh... yeah. That's it. I forget this shit constantly. Having it laid out in a clear simplified format is helpful.

The last page is a giant fucking mess. It is everything I thought might be useful as a DM at one point or another. I have since realized that all the wealth stuff should be on the player side. Also, the secondary stats should probably be... like... manditorily recorded on charsheets... Whatever. This part is under construction.

The second 4 pages are the player side. I try to put player-relevant stuff here.

Someone might ask why I set it up like this, rather than alternating for 2-sided printing. Here's why:

Sometimes I only want to print one half. Like, if I want to attach them to the outside of an existing screen. Also, I can do double-sided printing by just manually putting the printed sheets back into the printer tray.

Ok, the pages.

Page 5 is a step-by-step guide on making a PC. It is a direct rip of the guide from the PHB! Except I fixed it, because whoever wrote that was an idiot! This is the first page because I always try to put my newest player on my left.

Pages 6 and 7 are just a combination of all the random DM philosophy stuff I've absorbed into the way I run games. I've become a lot less crunchy since my hex-crawl spike in 2015, and have reincorporated some of my fluffier beliefs from my younger days. (Like the rule of yes). I have also grown as a human being since my youth and have realized that you need to force people to treat each other with dignity and respect or it won't happen. These are now 1 page. I'm trying to add the condition descriptions into the 7th page along with the player-relevant info from page 4. Right now, I'm struggling to fit it all. The DM philosophy crap might just get filed in a notebook to make more room.

The 8th and final page is a price guide to all the PHB gear. No more page flipping. It's on my right, because that's where it wound up!

Yay!

D&D 5e Houserule: Paladin Shifts

There's a lot of lore associated with paladins, their oaths, and what happens when those oaths are broken. This houserule applies all of the mechanical information regarding this lore to the players characters.

Breaking Your Oath

Players who take Paladin must detail the specifics of the nature of their oath with the DM. This oath must be written up with clauses and restrictions as if it were a contract. It must be clear enough that a divine entity can hold their paladin accountable for their action. If a player breaks their oath, they become an oath breaker. If they have a subclass, they lose all of the features associated with that subclass, then gain the villainous sublcass of Oath Breaker from the DMG, gaining all of its features up to their level.

An Oath Breaker can atone for their sins by taking the Performing Sacred Rites downtime activity from the DMG. If they spend at least 10 days repenting, they can change their subclass to Oath of Redemption. A new oath contract is written up, specifying what needs to be done to have redeemed themselves- if true redemption is even a possibility. If the character completes their redemption, they may then take a new oath of any type other than Oath Breaker or Redeemer.

Death Knights

If a PC dies as an oathbreaker, they return as a death knight villain NPC. The DM should enlist the original player of the character as an assistant in running the NPC, having the player perform the NPC's speeches and plans, possibly having the player control it in combat, and asking for guidance on how the NPC should think and act, as well as ways they might atone for their sins in death. The players may be tasked with a quest of guiding their undead friend to redemption.

Eidolons

If a paladin does not waver in their convictions before death, they may have the option of becominbg an eidolon after death. The conditions to do so are as follows:

1. The character must worship at least 1 deity.
2. The character must never have ceased or altered their faith.
3. The character must never have changed alignment.
4. The character must never have become an oath breaker.

5e AP: Waterdeep Campaign

So, the D&D team at WotC has managed to publish a large collection of highly versatile adventures all set in Waterdeep. I've been reading through these adventures, and I have come to a realization: THIS IS A CAMPAIGN. In the spirit of one day actually running a waterdeep campaign composed of official modules, I am putting together an Adventure Path. An AP is an old fashioned way of describing a framework that controls the order in which official modules will be played in a campaign. Without further ado, here is the adventure path.

0. Sword Coast Adventurers Guide

You will need this for flavor content. The adventures are all set in the Sword Coast of Faerun. Having this information will allow you to run adventures in the setting more easily, and will add context to the setting of the city. Since many of the adventures in this AP are set all across the Sword Coast, you'll need that to manage their travel around the wilderness between adventure sites- most of this is dungeon crawling.

1. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist

This module is listed first because it has all of the content about the city. It is the root of your campaign. You will use this as the foundation for all the rest of the books. It is, effectively, your campaign guide. It also includes a major adventure starting at 1st level and taking characters to 5th. From here, we will be adding other adventures. Set the characters in the city, have them living at the Yawning Portal as guests. Give them free reign to move around the city a bit, but make sure they live at the YP to deliver adventure seeds.

2. Starter Set: Lost Mine of Phandelver

This is added as a secondary optional adventure. Simply place Gundren in the YP and make up some other minor chore-adventures to introduce him to the players before he delivers the quest hook, "Meet Me In Phandalin". This gives players a secondary option to get to level 5.

3. Tales From The Yawning Portal

This adventure seeds the YP with 7 new adventure, scaling up in player level. Seed the YP with The Sunless Citadel for 1st level players. This is an optional minor adventure to introduce players to the game. Also seed it with The Forge of Fury. This is a third option to carry players to 5th level. As the party reaches higher APLs, simply seed the higher tier adventures into the YP. Seed The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan at 5th level as an optional adventure for that tier of play. Seed White Plume Mountain at level 8. Add Dead in Thay at 9th level. Throw in Against the Giants at level 11. Finally, add in a seed for Tomb of Horrors at level 15-ish.

4. DDAL06-1 A Thousand Tiny Deaths

Add this in as an alternative way to begin Forge of Fury for 1st level characters.

5. DDAL06-2 The Redemption of Kelvan

Add this in at the same time as White Plume Mountain at 5th level as an alternative seed to White Plume Mountain.

6. DDAL06-3 Crypt of the Death Giants

Add this in at level 17 as an expansion for Against the Giants, to cap that story off.

7. Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Add this in at 1st level. Undermountain is added to the YP. If the players decide to delve undermountain, start running this dungeon crawl. It is always available, but people in the bar will laugh at them for trying it under 5th level.

Roll Play, THEN Role Play!

Before we dive in to this, beware: I'm a harsh kind of DM. I'm a hardcore Dwarf Fortress fanatic who takes the saying "Losing Is Fun" to heart. I believe in PVP, deadly campaigns, evil PCs, split parties, dungeon crawls, hex crawls, and wargaming. To begin with, I am very much outside of the mainstream when it comes to gaming philosophy. So take my words with a grain of salt, but please take the time to consider what I have to say.

There exists in the gaming hobby a philosophical saying which states, "Roleplay, not roll play!". It is a rebellion against the old-school, "Gygaxian" competitive format of play. It is championed by narrativists who believe story integrity should come first. It is sang by softies who can't have fun the hard way, who get deeply hurt any time they "lose", who think no character should die unless the group agrees on it. The saying is closely related to the sentiment in the Gamer's Manifesto of Whitewolf fame. ("Rules written on paper not stone tablets [...] when dice conflict with the story the story always wins [etc.]")

And yet, as far as I can tell, it is nothing more than an eloquent expression of the Stormwind Fallacy.

This is perfect, except that Superman is a piss-poor character.

Why, pray tell, do these things need to be mutually exclusive at all? Just as it is entirely possible to minmax a PC and still have a great time roleplaying them as a character, I posit it is entirely possible to follow the rules of the game to the letter and still have excellent roleplay- and even a coherent narrative! There is nothing about any game's system which is inherently anathema to roleplay.

An RPG system is (generally speaking) designed to facilitate roleplay. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be an RPG! Now, some admittedly do a better job of that than others, but that's beside the point: they all got into this for the roleplay.

Here's something that might surprise you: between the system and the roleplay, it's the system that is the most fragile. An RPG system cannot really exist in a functional sense without some degree of roleplay, it just becomes a boring process. Without fair play, the game system becomes a meaningless waste of time. Roleplay, on the other hand, can exist without any system at all. It is independent, and inherently as sturdy as the social bond between the role players at the table.

As an example, let's talk about some other games: Life, Magic the Gathering, and Checkers.

Did you know that the game of Life is a type of RPG? I didn't, at least not until I played it with a bunch of kids.

When you play Life with adults, it's a lot like silent D&D: you roll dice and move pieces and eventually the game is over. It's random, arbitrary, and pointless. A process with no purpose.

When you play Life with kids though, it's a completely different game. The kids make choices with details. They'll say things like, "I get the red car because it goes faster!!" and "my person has blond hair!" They make jokes about players who accidentally grab the same gender as their person for a spouse, then run with it anyways. They talk about the hows and whys of the things that happen to each other. They make decisions based on the kind of person they're playing, rather than based on what they think will win. They tell a story.

It's a ridiculous story, with some questionable commentary on modern values, but it is a story nonetheless. At the end of the game, it doesn't matter that the winner was mostly random, it doesn't even really matter who won. What they'll talk about later on, what they'll remember, is all the silly stuff they made up on the way. That's the game of Life. And they do it all without houserules, or homebrew cards, or fudging spinner results.

(Although the homebrew cards sounds like a fun project to try... Keep an eye out for that article. Give me a few years. It'll be a slow day item.)

MTG was originally designed as a convention game, and initially attracted primarily players of Dungeons & Dragons. While most people assume it was because D&D was also a fantasy themed convention game, but I think there's something a little more fundamental to it than that. Here's a question:

Would MTG be as popular today if the cards were nothing more than abstract game pieces with no thematic element, narrative, or artwork?

I highly doubt it.

If people didn't play MTG for the narrative component, there wouldn't be one. There wouldn't be books, or comics, or card art, or flavor text, or the Plane Shift supplements for 5e D&D. To a certain extent, the theme that you are roleplaying as a powerful planehopping sorcerer locked in mortal combat with other powerful magi, is the point of the game. Without it, it's just ink on cardboard and whiny man-children squabbling over petty minutiae.

The structure of the game inherently builds it's own narrative every time the game is played, even when the players don't notice or keep track of it. The composition of the decks involved describe the nature of the characters who are engaged in the wizard's duel.

Most players just leave it all as-is, but the narrative element is there automatically. Anyone could take advantage of it if they wished.

I don't know about you, but I roll with the kinds of people who DO take advantage of that narrative element. All it takes is for both players to attach the how and why descriptive element to game events. That's it. A little bit of first-person in-character banter never hurts either! Magic the Gathering can be as much of a roleplaying game as D&D- players can even roleplay the personalities of the creatures they summon if they wished!

And again, all of this works fine without having to sacrifice any of the integrity of the game's system or its components. (Although I have found that ignoring all the official card restriction rules makes for a better game as long as you aren't playing with jerks.)

I bet you see where I'm going with this now. I bet most of you probably even see how! But yes, even Checkers can function as an RPG system.

For anyone who hasn't noticed, Checkers is nothing more than an extremely simple, very abstract wargame. War is one of the most fundamental narrative devices in history.

The board represents a borderline. A large region over which there is conflict. The pieces represent military strength by mass. The players are the military leaders. Taking pieces also takes territory, pushing into enemy land.

Roleplaying this game takes a bit more effort. You need more than just how and why, you also need to fill in what. What lands are these? What types of soldiers make up the units? What is the conflict over? These kinds of questions are minor though, it only takes a second or two to make it all up.

Really, pretty much any kind of game, (with the possible exception of most sports, which tell the narrative of their reality) can be a roleplaying game.

The truth is that you don't even need a game system at all in order to roleplay.

Collaborative fiction can be created through a character based roleplaying process. It's commonplace on roleplaying forums, and individuals can do the same in person as well. I've run plenty of pure roleplays online, and I was a roleplayer long before I was a game designer.

Improvisational theater is another format in which roleplay can take center stage- this is basically what a kid's game of "Let's pretend" really is!

So I ask, if you aren't even going to actually use the game system in your roleplay, why have a game system at all? If you're just going to ignore it and create whatever story you want, why bother with the hassle of dice and character sheets and books? What's the point? What value is gained by including encumbrance rules that are ignored and lose conditions that never come into play? If all you care about is roleplay, and the game is an unnecessary thing tacked on to the side to be ignored whenever inconvenient, why bother with the game?

But there might be some out there, especially younger role players, who don't see how to roleplay without a system to guide them, or who don't understand how to tell a story when the dice seem to call the shots. So let's take a look at how things fun at my table. This is what actual roll play looks like when you don't sacrifice roleplay to do it.

1. The DM describes the SIS. Setting and situation explained.
2. Players ask for clarifying details to inform their decisions.
3. After the SIS is sufficiently understood, players describe the actions their characters attempt, with their desired results.
4. The DM determines the success/failure, then calls for rolls on anything uncertain.
5. The DM narrates the actual consequences of the attempted actions, possibly working with the players to construct the consequences.

For example:

1. DM: "You are all standing in a stone room. Exits to the North, East, and South. The room is empty aside from a stone table at the center of the room."
2. Player: "Are there doors on the exits? Do I remember how I got here?" DM: "Yes, theya re made of wood, no you do not."
3. Player: I go to the North door and check to see if it's locked."
4. *DM looks at the PC's passive perception score, compares it to the trap detection DC for the trapped door.*
5. DM: "Your character has found a spring-loaded trap mechanism. Describe to me how that looks." Player: "Guys! There's a bunch of clockwork stuff on the door hinges here! This door is trapped. Be careful, this place is dangerous!"

In the above method, there is an important distinction: The players consult the system FIRST, then use that system to inform the roleplay. Instead of giving your roleplay monologue and rolling the dice to see if you convinced the king to give support, you state your intention, roll the dice, and then deliver a monologue that matches the result you were given. In this philosophy, the game is a prompt. It is the foundation for a narrative that does not yet exist. It is schrodinger's story.

This method validates the game as a game. The system is understood, utilized, and followed- and the players still get to roleplay. It isn't a matter of one conflicting with the other, it's simply a matter of priorities.

To a certain extent, this is part of appropriate check calling. The DM should never call for a check to see the effect of roleplay. The DM should call a check and then ask the players to play out the consequences. Think of it as Matt Mercer's "how do you want to do this?" extended to every single check result.

Dungeon Mastering: Calling For Checks

The following is my guide to how to call for checks, saves, contests, and other types of die throws from your players. This is written from the perspective of check-based RPGs like D&D or Traveller. Non-traditional resolution mechanics are a different creature entirely.

Calling for Throws

Ideally, the DM decides when to call for a roll from the players. Players who call for rolls for themselves are trying to usurp authority over the nature of the setting. I cannot stress this enough: the person who controls the physics of the setting decides what is possible, what is impossible, and what the odds of success are. The players control their characters, you decide the consequences. You are the master of the game.

To determine whether a roll should be called for, consider the following question: Is the outcome uncertain? If a player describes doing something that is guaranteed to succeed or fail, there is no reason to call for a roll. Instead, the guaranteed results of their actions should be either described immediately, or the player's description of their actions simply left to stand as being true.

For example, most player characters can speak effortlessly. Unless something is interfering with their ability to speak, the DM can generally just allow the player's declaration of character speech to stand without interference. However, if a player says "I jump to the moon and karate chop it in half with my bare hands" the DM should then interrupt and describe how their character jumps only a few feet in the air and cannot reach the moon. When a player describes an action, but the DM isn't sure what the outcome should be, then a roll should be called. Once you have determined a roll is called for, simply consider what is being done, and decide on an appropriate roll type, modifier source, and set a DC.

A second way to guide your selection to call for a roll, is to consider how hard you think the task should be on a DC, compared to the statistics of the character doing the task. On a d20, if the character’s ability score matches the DC you would choose, that means they have a ~64% chance of succeeding. If their score exceeds it by 5 or more, then they have a 79+% chance of succeeding. It can speed play if you simply dictate success for rolls with a very low chance of failure- especially rolls where the player’s score exceeds the DC by 5 or more. In particular, characters with a total modifier exceeding a benchmark are guaranteed to pass any check at that benchmark- no check required. Likewise, if their maximum roll with modifiers is beneath a benchmark, they will automatically fail any check over that benchmark. An otherwise uncertain action is then certain for that character in particular.

Before a check is called, also consider what the ramifications of success and failure are. Don’t just call a check out of indecisiveness. If a failure would stall the game, or leave everyone stuck, then don’t bother inviting the opportunity. Narrate them out of it. If a check would produce ludicrous results on either a pass or a fail, again, don’t bother calling, simply narrate the only result that makes sense. The best checks lead to interesting choices, surprises, and adventure. The worst checks lead to empty rooms, blank faces, and confusion. Do not gate the progression of the adventure with a check.

Another problem frequently encountered in older editions was the issue of players attempting a check over and over again, or each party member taking a crack at it until they succeeded. This happened because people thought the check only described the effort the character put in on a single attempt. A check actually describes all factors applying to a situation, including the nature of the obstacle, the circumstances of coincidence, the time spent doing it, and character effectiveness. So, for instance, if a barbarian fails to kick down a door, that doesn’t just mean he didn’t put in enough effort- it also means the door was beyond his effort as well in the first place. Think of it as a sort of Schrodinger’s door: it wasn’t either weak or strong until the fighter kicked it; you used the dice to find out. In general, call checks once and let their results stand forever. If the thief can’t pick a lock, nobody in the party can. Furthermore, a party taking turns at a door could be considered as a group check or the help action, both of which already have rules to cover how they work in most check-based games. Even if the game you're running doesn't have group checks, a modified check mechanic is stupidly easy to houserule within moments. Instead of running multiple separate checks for the same task, run a single group check or add an advantage die to the original check for the help action.

The Point Of It

Because what is/isn't possible varies between DMs and settings, it should not be assumed that there will be any meaningful consistency from one game to another. One DM may decide running on water is possible with a very high DC in a wuxia style game, but then decide it is not possible in a medieval fantasy game. Two DMs running the same published setting might disagree on whether it is possible to swim across a particular river, or what the DCs for certain common tasks should be. This is to be expected, and is perfectly fine.

However, within this reasonable degree of variation, every DM should consider the experience of the players at the table first and foremost. Maintaining an internally consistent emulation of some form of "reality" is only valuable to the extent that it sustains the willing suspension of disbelief in the players. Slavishly emulating some dice-driven alternate reality for the benefit of the characters is a waste of time, because the characters cannot care- they are just numbers and paper. Player enjoyment should be considered overall in the long term.

While an individual success may be superficially enjoyable in the moment, it brings little enduring joy. Rather, when success is found where previously there was naught but failure, that is where meaningful enjoyment can be derived from the game. Overcoming legitimate obstacles is what drives engagement with the system. Furthermore, problems that can be overcome by the players' direct input and influence, rather than the random result of the die, provide meaningful depth and drive engagement with the scenario. If you fail to provide obstacles of meaningful difficulty and depth, your game will be flat and boring.

One final note on the subject of secrecy. Often, for the purposes of keeping players engaged with the game through suspense, and to sustain some degree of tension, it is necessary to keep certain information away from the players. For instance, a detailed map of the dungeon they are exploring would suck the fun out of exploring it, because everything has already been revealed, so such a thing should not be shown to the players.

Likewise, because the DM adjudicates the result of all rolls anyways, the DM should choose to keep their die rolls and DCs secret. The purpose of keeping mechanical statistics "behind the screen" is not to prevent metagaming, but rather, to keep the focus on the scenario, rather than the systems the DM is using to adjudicate it. Some DMs may employ a literal barrier of some sort, often a standing screen, to protect their notes and hidden die rolls from prying eyes.

This can lead to a certain degree of suspicion. If the DM has absolute authority over the setting, then the DM also has theoretical authority over all things. There is no reason why a DM couldn’t roll dice and decide the result without looking at them. However, one might ask: why roll dice at all if you're just going to ignore them? If you are going to call for a check, then actually run the check. Play it out, even if the results are not quite what you anticipated. Calling for rolls invites uncertainty into your game, and overcoming the gamble is as much a part of the challenge for the DM as it is for the players. In other words: playing fair is difficult but rewarding, and cheating is a waste of time.