The use of a GM screen can be a surprisingly contentious subject in the running of a roleplaying game. The critics consider them superfluous at best or intrinsically damaging to the dynamic of the game (due to inducing issues of trust and social separation) at worst. But I, personally, find them valuable more often than not, and I’d like to share my thoughts on how they can be used to best effect.

First, I don’t like the older style of portrait-oriented screens. Their height does, in my opinion, create an unnatural barrier between the GM and the players. They feel like a giant wall, cutting off the natural expression of body language.

Landscape-oriented screens, on the other hand, don’t have that problem. As the GM, I can see everything that’s happening on the table and the players can freely see my body language. As long as you’re playing with a table surface, there’s no meaningful disadvantage to the use of the screen and, in my experience, there are two significant advantages.

SIGHT LINE OBSTRUCTION

The most basic function of the screen is to block the player’s line of sight to my notes and maps. This is important to me not because I think my players are horrible cheaters who are trying to peek at my notes; it’s because I consider it a common courtesy. If I’m inviting people over to watch a movie, I don’t hang a poster with spoilers for the movie next to the TV screen and ask them to avert their eyes from it.

The same principle applies here. In fact, rather than inhibiting a personal connection between me and the players, I often find that a landscape screen enhances it: When you don’t obstruct your maps and such, players will often avert their eyes from your end of the table in order to avoid glancing at them.

VERTICAL REFERENCE

I’m a pretty huge advocate of being able to simultaneously display multiple pieces of information in order to facilitate rapid referencing and cross-referencing while running the game. (This is also why I don’t like running games from a laptop: The search functionality can be useful, but being able to only look at one page of information at a time while GMing is like trying to run a marathon with your legs tied behind your back.)

Therefore, being able to position reference material in a vertical place (so that it doesn’t take up surface space) is, in my opinion, insanely useful. In addition, positioning persistent reference material for the system and/or game world on the screen creates a consistent spatial familiarity that makes referencing that material faster and more efficient. (Instead of figuring out where the cheat sheet packet is currently lying on the table, picking it up, and flipping through it, I instead know that I can reach out to my right, flip up a piece of paper, and look directly at the skill difficulty guidelines. After just a couple of sessions, I basically don’t even have to think about it any more. It becomes autonomic.)

My typical table arrangement when GMing is:

• A customizable, landscape GM screen with four panels of information.
• 2-3 pieces of paper displayed behind the screen.
• One or more TV trays to my left side, which I use to hold my rulebooks and also display 4-6 additional sheets of information (which often includes one or more rulebooks flipped open to the appropriate page reference).

Without the GM screen, my quick reference material not only becomes less efficient, it also begins encroaching into the space I use for other reference material. This becomes a cascading problem, as useful resources get bumped out of circulation. With less information at my fingertips, it becomes more difficult to run complicated, interconnected scenarios.

MAKING THE SCREEN

As useful as the reference material on a GM screen can be, the sad reality is that most published GM screens feature a lot of non-essential information while not including material that would actually be useful when running the game. As a result, I use a modular, customizable landscape (like the ones you can buy here or here).

IMAGES: Buying the PDF version of an official landscape screen is often a good way to stock the player-facing side of your screen. But in an era of Google Image Search, the whole world of art and photography is your playground.

Personally, I tend to avoid trying to find single mural-style images that will go across the entire breadth of the screen. Finding multiple images to make up a polyptych is easier, and it also gives you the opportunity to highlight multiple facets of the game / world / campaign. I also recommend finding images that depict things the PCs could theoretically see, rather than images of main characters who aren’t the PCs doing awesome things. (It’s more immersive and suggestive of the game world that way, while allowing the table to remain focused on the narrative you’re creating instead of some other narrative that’s being depicted.)

(In the past I’ve also played with stocking the player-facing side of the screen with player-relevant reference material. But I’ve found that reading the material at any meaningful distance is usually difficult and, for players (who usually juggle less reference material), it’s easier to just use cheat sheet packets. Your mileage may vary.)

REFERENCE MATERIAL: I design System Cheat Sheets for many of the RPGs I run, particularly those featuring complicated mechanics. These reference sheets can then be conveniently slid into the modular screen.

A major conceptual breakthrough for me was the Hackmaster GameMaster’s Shield, which included flip-up panels:

Copying this same technique, I now use reverse-duplex printing to create sheets that I can tape together and flip up to reveal additional information behind them. This allows me to easily put 12 landscape-formatted sheets within easy reach. (And there’s no reason I couldn’t expand that to a third layer of information to give me 20 sheets, although I haven’t actually found a game so complicated that I would need to do that yet.)

FURTHER READING
Rolling Behind the Screen

One of the things I talked about in The Art of the Key is the conceptual organization of material from the general to the specific: What the PCs immediately see. What they might see. What they can investigate. What they see when they investigate X. This organization, in turn, naturally mimics the way in which the game space is explored during actual play. (Which means that the basic conceptual structure is useful whether you’re keying a location or improvising on the fly.)

I’ve recently realized that there is a specific elaboration upon this general structure that (a) I’ve been using in play for several years without really consciously thinking about it, and which (b) has proven to be very effective. I’m now referring to it as a Matryoshka Search.

Let’s say that PCs are exploring the bedroom of a serial killer. There’s a hidden trap door in the floor leading down to the killer’s mystic butchering chamber. The basic way of handling this scenario looks like this:

Player: There’s gotta be more here. I search the room.
GM: Give me a Search check.
Player: (rolls dice) 25
GM: You find a secret trap door in the floor.

That obviously works just fine. But what I’ll frequently end up doing instead is something like this:

Player: There’s gotta be more here. I search the room.
GM: Give me a Search check.
Player: (rolls dice) 25
GM: There are scuff marks on the floor around the legs of the bed.
Player: As if the bed had been moved back and forth a lot?
GM: Yeah.
Player: I shove the bed to one side and take a look.
GM: You find a secret trap door in the floor.

Instead of immediately discovering the item of interest, the character instead discovers an indicator pointing in the direction of the item of interest. The advantage is that it allows (and even requires) the player to receive information and then draw a conclusion. It’s a subtle distinction, but the result increases the player’s engagement and reduces the feeling that the GM is just handing them whatever information he feels like. I call it the Matryoshka search technique because it turns the interaction into a nested doll: One investigation “opens” new information, which can then be opened by another investigation in turn.

We could also look at this through the lens of the Art of Rulings: The GM is setting an initial threshold for player expertise activating character expertise which is fairly low. (All the player needs to do is say that they want to make a Search check.) But once the character’s expertise has given some sort of result, the GM hits the pause button, turns the interaction back to the player, and basically raises the required threshold. (“Your original declaration has taken you this far, but now I need more information.”) This can make the technique a good way of compromising between players who prefer a very low threshold of player expertise and GMs who want their players to engage more directly with the game world. It’s a naturalistic way of asking, “How are you doing that?” while still moving the action forward.

The Matryoshka technique works even when the indicator really only points at one possible conclusion, as it does in the example above. (Although even in the case of the bed being frequently moved there’s still the question of WHY the bed is moving.) But it can be even more effective if there are multiple explanations possible, requiring additional inquiry and thought before firm conclusions can be reached. As a very simple example, the GM might say, “Taking a closer look at the floor, you can see through the dust and grime clear indications of square-shaped seams.” Is it a pit trap? Is it a pedestal that rises up? Do the seams release poison gas or a force cage projected from below? The player is going to have to figure it out.

This technique is particularly valuable if you’re running the GUMSHOE system: Because every skill use in GUMSHOE is guaranteed to succeed, it can be very easy for investigation actions in the system to feel like “laundry lists” with the player simply naming the skills they want to use and then the GM handing them dollops of information. Matryoshka nesting of information can prevent the automatic successes from becoming lifeless.

FURTHER READING
Matryoshka Hexes

Many people are familiar with the 5 Room Dungeon. It’s a simple little structure that you can very quickly pour content into, allowing you to create simple dungeon scenarios on the fly. Basically you design a dungeon with 5 rooms, and in those rooms you place:

• Room 1: Entrance And Guardian
• Room 2: Puzzle Or Roleplaying Challenge
• Room 3: Red Herring
• Room 4: Climax, Big Battle Or Conflict
• Room 5: Plot Twist

Depending on the system you’re using and exactly what you stock each room with, this should produce about 2-4 hours of game play.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the 5 Room Dungeon: Partially because its structure is too rigid (which results in effective material, but also very predictable material if you use it too frequently). And partially because a remarkable number of people preach it as the one-true-way of dungeon design (which isn’t really the fault of the structure itself, but combines rather horribly with the first problem).

But what the 5 Room Dungeon does a very good job of demonstrating is how valuable it can be to have a simple structure like this in your back pocket. Not only does it let you very quickly (and very effectively) prep simple scenarios, it’s also incredibly useful when you need to start improvising during a session: You can very quickly brainstorm ideas, paste them into the proven scenario structure, and know that the result is, on a basic level, going to work.

I’ve got a similar structure that I default to whenever I’m looking to whip up something simple and quick. I’ve come to call it…

THE 5 NODE MYSTERY

The 5 Node Mystery structure arose pretty much completely independently from the 5 Room Dungeon, but the repetition of the number 5 isn’t really coincidence: Five good, meaty chunks of interactive material is pretty much what you need to fill an evening of gaming. The interaction between five different elements is also roughly the bare minimum complexity required to create something more meaningful than a solitary random encounter. Nothing wrong with a random encounter, of course, but if you’re looking for the next step up — if, for example, you’re interested in what the random encounter might lead to — then this is basically what you’re looking for.

You use the 5 Node Mystery when you want a simple, fairly straight-forward investigation. It uses node-based scenario design and it works like this:

1. Figure out what the mystery is about. Was someone murdered? Was something stolen? Who did it? Why did they do it?

2. What’s the hook? How do the PCs become aware that there’s a mystery to be solved? If it’s a crime, this will usually be the scene of the crime. It could also be “place where weird shit is happening”. Or maybe someone or something comes to the PCs and brings the mystery with them. (Thugs kicking down the door is a classic.)

3. What’s the conclusion? Where do they learn the ultimate answers and/or get into a big fight with the bad guy? (Big fights with bad guys are a really easy way to manufacture a satisfying conclusion.) This will be your Node E.

4. Brainstorm three cool locations or people related to the mystery. Ex-wife of the bad guy? Drug den filled with werewolves? Stone circle that serves as a teleport gate? These will be your Nodes B, C, and D. (Hint: Brainstorm more than three items. Then pick the three coolest ideas. You’ll end up with better stuff. Also: Before you toss the other ideas, see if there’s any way that you can combine them with the three you picked and make them even cooler.)

5. You’ve got five nodes. Connect ’em with clues. The default structure looks like this:

The basic idea here is that Node A points you in three different directions (although, remember, the PCs might find only one of the clues). Then those three locations point to each other and also point towards the big conclusion. Simple.

You’ll also find that the precise structure of the 5 Node Mystery is easy to modify on the fly. In some cases, you’ll find that the nature of the scenario will pretty much dictate the pattern of the clues. (For example, while working on the Violet Spiral Gambit — which was designed in a few hours using this structure — I discovered that it made more sense for the initial node to point to two locations and then have those two locations point to a third. Then I loaded up that third location with a bunch of different clues all pointing to the conclusion.) About the only thing you should avoid as a general rule are clues pointing directly from Node A to your conclusion.

There is a possibility in this structure, of course, for the PCs to go from Node A to Node B to Node E (skipping Nodes C and D). In some cases, the scenario will be modular enough that this just means the conclusion isn’t what you thought it was. (You thought the conclusion was a big showdown with a bad guy in the violet tower at the center of the graveyard. Turns out, it was actually a rooftop chase as the badly injured PCs try to escape the werewolves from the drug den.) In other cases, the nodes left behind the PCs will metastasize into new adventures — either because the werewolves end up causing trouble or because when the PCs go back to mop-up the werewolves they’ll find clues pointing them to other scenarios.

THE 5 x 5 NODE CAMPAIGN

Seasoning your scenario with clues pointing to other scenarios is actually a pretty good way to start expanding from 5 Node Mysteries into designing more interwoven campaigns.

1. Design five 5 Node Mysteries. You might have some idea about how they all relate to each other as you’re designing them, but maybe not. Discovering how seemingly unrelated things are actually connected to each other is a great way to make both things richer and more interesting.

2. Arrange the 5 Mysteries into the same node pattern. In other words, Mystery A will have clues pointing to Mysteries B, C, and D. Mystery B will have clues pointing to Mysteries C, D, and E. And so forth. (If you didn’t already know how the mysteries related to each other, the process of figuring out how clues for Mystery D ended up over in Mystery B is the part where you’re going to figure that out.)

As you’re seeding your clues into each mystery, mix it up a bit. Some clues will be the “pay-off” for solving the first mystery: You’ve taken out El Pajarero, but who was he really working for?! But don’t fall into the trap of always putting the clues in the concluding node. Spread ’em around a bit.

And that’s basically it. It’s a very simple technique for you to use, but you’ll find that (much like the technique of the second track) it creates experiences for your players which are complicated, interesting, and ornate.

FURTHER READING
Game Structures
Node-Based Scenario Design
Gamemastery 101

There’s a particularly prevalent — but completely incorrect — belief wandering around that sandboxes don’t have scenario hooks.

To the contrary: A good sandbox has scenario hooks hanging all over the place. The successful sandbox will not only be festooned with scenario hooks, it will also feature some form of default action that can be used to deliver more hooks if the players find themselves bereft of interesting options.

For example, a typical hexcrawl sandbox features a rumor table (which serves up some arbitrary number of scenario hooks to the PCs) and a default action if none of those rumors sound appealing (wandering around the map until you find something interesting).

A megadungeon sandbox similarly features a rumor table and a default action (go explore some unknown part of the dungeon).

Prepping this plethora of scenario hooks can be daunting for a GM who believes that every scenario hook needs to be linked to a distinct, unique plot. The trick to a sandbox is that you don’t prep plots: You prep situations. And for the sandbox you’ll be able to hang countless hooks off of every situation. You’ll also discover how sandbox situations “stay alive” even after the PCs have interacted with them (instead of being completely chewed up and discarded).

For example, let’s say you’ve got a dungeon a fair distance outside of town that’s the remains of a Neo-Norskan temple complex. It’s currently being occupied by a Bandit King who has forged together an alliance of humans, goblins, and ogres. He’s also renting skeletons off a nearby necromancer.

In terms of scenario hooks, there’s all kinds of stuff you can hang on this situation: Bandit raids are terrorizing local villages. A powerful magical artifact was stolen from a local caravan. There are old legends about the Neo-Norskan temple and what it contains. Because of the skeletons, there are false rumors that the necromancer lives there. Or that the necromancer has allied with the Bandit King. (And you can salt these scenario hooks into the campaign in any number of ways: Rumor tables. Lore recovered from other locations. Allies of the PCs who are now in need. Et cetera.)

So one day the PCs grab one of these hooks and they go off and they kill the Bandit King and they take the magical artifact he was carrying.

Over and done with, right? Only not really, because the guy who originally owned the magical artifact still wants it, so now the PCs are getting attacked by bounty hunters attempting to recover the artifact. Meanwhile, they didn’t wipe out all the bandits and the remaining goblins are renewing their raids under the leadership of the One-Eyed Ogre.

So the PCs go back to the Neo-Norskan temple and this time they wipe out all the bandits, permanently ending their threat to the region. Except now the Necromancer sees a big, open dungeon complex filled with the discarded corpses the PCs have left in their wake, and so he moves in and animates the corpses as a skeletal army.

Which all sounds like a lot of work, but because you prepped the whole thing as a situation to begin with you haven’t needed to spend more than about 5 minutes “refreshing” this content between sessions: You’re reusing the same maps and stat blocks over and over again. You spent a little time putting together new stat blocks for the bounty hunters when they showed up. And there was probably some light re-keying necessary for the changes the Necromancer made when he took over the complex.

You didn’t have to buy a whole new set of tools every single time. You just occasionally added a new tool when necessary. (And occasionally removed a hammer that the PCs had broken.)

This can be easier to visualize with a location (which is why I use it as an example), but the same basic process holds true for, say, factions in an urban campaign. Create a gang that’s, for example, manufacturing and marketing a drug derived from blood that’s been harvested from vampires and you should be able to use that toolkit to generate dozens of sessions of play.

The other thing that happens in a sandbox campaign is synergy between the different elements of the sandbox: By holding onto the artifact that was stolen from them, the PCs make enemies of House Nobuzo. This unexpectedly earns them a patron in the form of House Erskine, unleashing a flurry of scenario hooks from the “feuding noble houses” toolkit you designed. As the PCs get drawn into that world, they’re approached by a minor house named Tannar: They’re currently allied to House Nobuzo, but their daughter has been murdered by the Necromancer who has now stolen her body in order to transform her into his Corpse Bride. If the PCs can rescue their daughter from a fate literally worse than death, they’ll break their alliance with House Nobuzo and pledge for House Erskine.

After that scenario has resolved itself, you might find that the players are now actively looking for minor houses that they can endear to their political causes by doing favors for them. (Which would organically create a new default action for delivering scenario hooks.)

In any case, once your sandbox toolkits start interacting with each other like this, you’ll quickly find that the sandbox is basically running itself.

Question: What do you do if you have players who refuse to engage the game? You’ve prepped a bunch of interesting content, but they aren’t biting at any of the scenario hooks.

I have occasionally run into individual players who do this. (Sometimes for legitimate reasons.) The most common variant is, “I set up a safe house and hole up.” The second most common variant is, “I want to be a special snowflake and go off by myself.”

The latter don’t tend to be a problem for me any more because (a) I actually enjoy running split parties, (b) I balance the spotlight time among players not groups, and (c) I don’t run “this is your path” scenarios. So the behavior isn’t disruptive and the “special snowflake” loner actually finds that they end up having LESS attention because they’re not getting penumbra spotlight from other players. So it either works out fine or they adjust their behavior.

The former is often perceived by the players as a legitimate recourse: “Oh, fuck. Let’s go hide.” Resolving that course of action simply requires the GM to practice good pacing habits. You need to move the action ahead to the next interesting action, which basically boils down to one of two things:

1. What do you want to do?
2. Something happens to you.

And this, ultimately, also goes back to the original problem: You’ve got something boring happening in the game world. That’s not really a problem. It just means you need to skip ahead to the next interesting bit. And, ultimately, that boils down to either:

1. Asking, “What’s the next interesting thing that you do?”
2. Looking ahead and seeing what the next interesting thing that is going to happen TO them is.

You should be able to look at your scenario notes and pretty quickly figure out which option applies. If you can’t, you’ve probably prepped your scenario wrong. Stop prepping plots.

If the PCs have simply failed to engage the scenario in the first place, that problem is ALSO solved by simply saying: “What do you want to do?”

The only way this should become an intractable problem is if they keep choosing to do things that you find boring. (This is the most likely version of the problem, since players generally pursue activities that they find entertaining.) If that’s the case, you need to have a frank meta-game conversation about what kind of game you can run that EVERYONE would enjoy.

Where the problem can be particularly frustrating is if they’re taking actions which they think should be resulting in entertaining activities, but because of how you’re interpreting those actions as the GM the results are boring for everybody. When this is happening it can be difficult to diagnose exactly what’s going wrong. But, again, the solution is the frank meta-game discussion.

Taking a further step back, you can also address this issue by encouraging the creation of characters who are (a) highly motivated to go out and do interesting things and (b) who have strong connections to the world around them (which can be used to motivate them).