PUBLISHER: WIZARDS OF THE COAST | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Dungeon Master’s Screens are a classic addition to the arsenal of any games master. They tend to be a robust cardboard screen, with a pretty picture on one side and useful information on the other. The idea is that you can hide your notes, models and other useful game tools behind the screen, making it easier to surprise your players at the gaming table. The Dungeon Master’s Screen Wilderness Kit is a stand-alone screen with accessories designed specifically for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.
The core draw for this kit is the screen, and it’s very good. Heavy stock cardboard hinged with thick paper. The outer illustration is a large fantasy landscape with dragons, mountains, kraken and long forgotten ships. It isn’t too bright or flashy, which is important as your players will be staring at it (or in its general direction) for hours.
Inside the screen we get the rules for the various status effects in the game, so you can see at a glance how being stunned or turning invisible works. Rules such as weather and suffocation are listed; basically all those fiddly little rules that you don’t use that often but will use. You can avoid slowing the game down simply by glancing at the chart. It details stuff such as cover rules, light sources and so on. Basic stuff, but nice to have to hand.
We get some dry-erase sheets for tracking party resources and reminders for wilderness survival rules, which is very useful is your party decides to go trekking up a misty mountain. A summary of the actions you can take in a turn are also included.
Finally we get a self-assembly box for cards, and sheets of perforated paper that can be carefully folded to create a deck of cards. These can be used to track initative order in combat, track status changes and remind players of environmental effects. This is useful if you have forgetful players, or ones who find it tricky to track stuff like being stunned or extremely cold.
Overall, it’s a nice set and it would delight someone new to the game. The status cards are nice though it will require a little bit of skill to ensure they have smooth edges once you take them off the sheet.
