I had been playing DND for 3+ years, and making some projects that transitioned from in-game lore to reality, before I both had an interest and opportunity to step into the GM chair in starting in late 2023. The GM for my longest running campaign (as a player) had been struggling with work travel schedule-itis putting that game on temporary hiatus, and another friend group had recently finished a gateway game series in Massive Darkness 2 and was interested in something that kept decisions-with-dice but allowed for a little more improvisational adventure.

So while I was learning up on how to GM campaigns and deciding where I wanted to land on the Rule of Cool / Rules as Written spectrum, I also started to design a set of GM screens to keep things hidden from players and in easy reach for me. I haven’t found my comfort/balance yet between things on paper for reference on the magnetic strips vs a laptop + monitor for searchability, but every session I run it gets a little smoother. And let’s be honest, with a screen looking as sharp and shiny as this starting them in the face, knowing what I can usually come up with off the cuff if the players try to take things off the rails, are they really going to know how far in advance a part of an encounter was planned out? I need you to roll for an insight check to find out.

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