What do you need on your screen to effectively run a game (system neutral) in your opinion?  

We are constructing one for Salem World, and your opinions will help us quite a bit.

Quote from: rway218;937981What do you need on your screen to effectively run a game (system neutral) in your opinion?  

We are constructing one for Salem World, and your opinions will help us quite a bit.

This should come out of the playtest.  Have someone run the game and note all the things they go to the rule books for to look up in game.  Put those on the screen.

I have some of those notes...  Good idea.

Anything you never see you want?

I never see one where I can attach my own photocopied pieces of paper with the stuff I actually use.

My go-to GM screen was the old yellow Judges Guild OD&D one for years. In my ideal RPG session, the only resource I need would be a GM screen.

I think that the secret is to have material that I need in-play and not things that I would need in between adventures (I assume that players can consult a rulebook in between adventures). For example, combat charts and/or modifiers come up in-play but buy-charts aren't immediate and wouldn't be as useful. Having basic monster stats was always good for me, but in OD&D a monster stat-line was very brief -- if a game is complex having monster stat blocks may be too much used space.

I agree with the playtest idea, however, since each game runs differently and so what's useful for one system might not be so useful for another. Just keep font size decent enough, because there is nothing worse than having to lift up the GM screen to squint at some tiny writing. That breaks up the flow and makes me want to reference the book instead of the screen.

The DM reference/screen needs any tables required to run the game. Preferably, there really shouldn't be many of these.

In my game, all the individual character sheets have pretty much all the references needed for an individual. (Magic/powers. Summary bonus/penalty for attacking barehanded or with weapons, etc.)

So, the GM screen might have the magic/power tables for NPCs (or the GM could use an NPC character sheet).

A GM screen would probably have the bonus/penalty table for actions, Monster Reaction Table, and the Wandering Monster Wandering Reasons table (from a thread on this site), and any other desired random tables, such as an NPC Personality Table.

But I think, beyond whatever is *required* to run the game, what is wanted, as opposed to needed, on the screen is going to vary greatly.

Quote from: Skarg;938125I never see one where I can attach my own photocopied pieces of paper with the stuff I actually use.

Pinnacle sells an empty GM screen in which you can put your own stuff.

As for me, I would want 2 sheets of rules, and 1 free sheet to have the essential informations about the player-characters.

I talk about this a bit in "Hierarchy of Reference": The stuff that's useful to include on a reference sheet when you first start playing a game is generally different than what's useful to include after you've played a dozen sessions (because you'll have mastered a lot of material and no longer need a reference to it). Finding the right sweet spot for a commercial product can be difficult.

Personally, I like to have a GM screen that contains a complete mechanical reference. This has generally required that I design my own cheat sheets and then use a customizable screen. I'm okay going to the book to look up some specific spell or piece or gear or whatever, but as much as possible I want my screen to simulate system mastery -- to help me fake it until I make it. (Which is also useful when I go to pick up a game I haven't played in awhile.)

When I was playing OD&D I, like finaryvyn, found putting the monster stat blocks on the screen was super useful as an improv tool. But I think that's the only system it would work with because the monster stats are just complicated enough to want the reference, but simple enough that they all fit on a single sheet of paper. More complicated, and they won't fit. Less complicated (like, say, Numenera) and it becomes irrelevant.

Speaking of which: Some people may find a screen with lots of improv tools more useful than one with system reference material. Names of people or taverns; evocative dungeon trash; etc.

If you're designing your screen as a PDF product, it may be most useful to include a variety of individual sheets and let the GM decide which ones are most useful for them.