Got my GM Screen! Here’s some thoughts (April Wave)

I ran my first game with my Black Walnut screen last night and wanted to give my thoughts as I haven’t seen a ton of in-depth feedback on the screens yet! Long post ahead.

For the record this is NOT sponsored, I backed the Screen myself during the second kickstarter after chickening out of the first one lmao. I’m an existing Wyrmwood customer and avid enjoyer of WyrmLyfe but this is the first kickstarter I’ve been involved with from them.

Right off the bat, the packaging was higher than I anticipated after seeing a couple nightmare stories about receiving damaged products. All the main pieces (Solid/Display Panels, 2-Way Tower, Tablet Tray and Hex Tray) came in their own custom boxes and the smaller bits — RPG trackers, Initiative/turn trackers — came in a little bubble mailer with a smiley face drawn on it.

Product quality-wise, I experienced nothing wrong with my Screen at all — no cracks, missing screws/magnets, tight tolerances, etc. Everything feels very solid and I don’t feel the need to baby it. There was a tiny bit of color variation near the bottom of one of my Solid Panels but I like it, I think it adds character!

For reference, my GM screen prior to this was simply one of those cheap cardstock ones that you get in the 5e Starter Kits, so this was obviously a big upgrade. The panels didn’t slide around on the table thanks to the thick rubber feet and they stick together quite well; the dice tower in particular had very strong magnets, and I attached a fairly heavy clip-on book light to one panel without any concern of it getting pulled down.

(Wyrmwood R&D if you read this, an LED light attachment for the top rail would be a killer accessory for 3.0 if/whenever that happens!)

In actual play, the Player Trackers on my right panel were the surprise MVP; Paladin did a great job determining valuable info to include as a cheat sheet for the party. The dials on the monster trackers need “broken in” a bit, they were stiff at first but rotating them loosens them up — not to the point of them moving around on their own, mind you. The two-way tower provides a smoother ride down for the dice than your average offering, which is nice for gemstone dice that I’m always a bit paranoid about dropping into a large hunk of flat, solid wood. Between now and the next game I’ll be printing off a reference sheet for some homebrew systems I use in my game to put behind the acrylic panel.

Criticisms — I’ll definitely be picking up the travel bag ASAP as I can see it being a struggle to move the screen around with all the stuff attached. Even moving it off the table after my game I had to do it bit-by-bit. The Magplate is also larger and heavier than I expected; it sort of slid down to rest on the table even without the trackers slapped onto it. Not really an issue during a game but it can make moving the full panel cumbersome when you pick it up. The one issue I had with packaging is kind of unavoidable when shipping acrylic, and that’s the protective adhesive paper that was seemingly molecularly fused to each of the initiative trackers, player/monster trackers and the acrylic panel. I had to use water and pick away at it for a while to get the film off. It is what it is and I understand why it’s there, but MAN was it a pain lmao.

Overall I really like my screen! It was a positive experience, it’s nice to look at and it legitimately provides a lot of useful functionality to what would otherwise just be a flimsy blank wall. It was well worth it for me as a forever-GM, and I hope to see its versatility grow with more stuff like the RAT tower and other new ideas in future waves.

If anyone has any questions about my specific experience with the screen, the Kickstarter, or thoughts about their own screen please feel free to share, I’ll reply to as many as I can!