The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Overview

The GURPS Traveller GM's screen (heretofore referred as the "GM's Screen, for brevity's sake) is rather a mixed bag as GM's screens go; the Cardboard Heroes are wonderful (indeed, their art is probably some of the best I've seen from SJ Games), but although the Screen itself contains many useful tables, it doesn't quite work as well as it could. I'll start with what I liked about the whole thing first, so that the review begins on a positive note.

The Cardboard Heroes

The heroes consist of seventeen full-color heroes, ten upright bar tables, one overturned bar table, twenty-six dropped weapons of various types, two discarded helmets, two broken beer(?) bottles, and sixteen chairs. Alien races aren't terribly well represented, with a Hiver and its Ithklur escort comprising the token nonhuman presence. The fifteen remaining figures comprise two bar staff members (male and female), two locals in suitably exotic dress ( both male), a brace of belters (both male), a pair of engineers (one male, one female), a suitably grizzled spacer (male), a scout (male), a mercenary (male), a purser (female), two pilots (female), and a navigator (female). (For those of you concerned about such things, the ethnic mix is three African-descended, one Asian, and two hailing heroes from India.) I could have wished for a representative of all of the six major races, but the only heroes I really don't plan on using too much are the locals, and even they make good patrons, so I'm not complaining too much. These are all in full-color, and, as I have remarked earlier, are wonderfully well-drawn.

The map itself is pretty good; it doesn't thrill me as much as the cardboard heroes do, though. It covers a pretty typical bar in good detail, with plenty of places to hide behind and trade gunfire with mooks. It even includes two (cramped-looking) restrooms, although I'm curious as to why they still delineate between male and female when races with more (or less, cf. the Hivers) genders exist. It's a good professional piece of work.

The Screen

Oh dear. The screen consists of two seperate double-sided two-page pieces of thick cardboard. These are presumably meant to be put together, since one side of each hemiscreen has spaceship combat rules and the other has personal combat rules, sort of. The spacecract side also has the critical hit charts and falling rules, so if you're using the screen for that, you'll constantly have to flip it over while running a combat, which could get annoying exceptionally quickly.

Mind you, the information presented here is all good, useful stuff; but I would have been willing to shell out another eight bucks to have it all on one side of the screen and have it be one big screen, instead of two small ones. As far as utility (and me) is concerned, it'd just be handier. The cardboard itself is very nice; it's good thick stuff.

Summary

I would give the figures a higher rating for style, but it's cancelled out by the screen. I liked the product in general a lot, but I feel the screen wasn't done as well as it could have or ought to have been done; that being said, I don't in any way regret my purchase. It's a decent product, and its flaws are cancelled out by its virtues. It's probably not useful unless you're running a combat-intensive game, or one with a lot of minatures movement of any kind, but for those of you who are, the GM's screen should work perfectly well.

GURPS Traveller GM Screen
GURPS Traveller GM Screen Capsule Review by Ed McEneely on 27/04/01 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty) The Cardboard Heroes are wonderful; the screen will do. Product: GURPS Traveller GM Screen Author: Cardboard Heroes Illustrated by Tom Biondolillo, Color and Production by Alex Fernandez, Art Direction by Philip Reed; GURPS Rules by steve Jackson, Traveller Line Editor Loren Wiseman Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games Line: GURPS Traveller Cost: $12.95 Page count: 7 Map & Acessories Year published: 2000 ISBN: 1-55634-457-0 SKU: SJG01095 6619 Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Ed McEneely on 27/04/01 Genre tags: Science Fiction Far Future Space	Overview The GURPS Traveller GM's screen (heretofore referred as the "GM's Screen, for brevity's sake) is rather a mixed bag as GM's screens go; the Cardboard Heroes are wonderful (indeed, their art is probably some of the best I've seen from SJ Games), but although the Screen itself contains many useful tables, it doesn't quite work as well as it could. I'll start with what I liked about the whole thing first, so that the review begins on a positive note. The Cardboard Heroes The heroes consist of seventeen full-color heroes, ten upright bar tables, one overturned bar table, twenty-six dropped weapons of various types, two discarded helmets, two broken beer(?) bottles, and sixteen chairs. Alien races aren't terribly well represented, with a Hiver and its Ithklur escort comprising the token nonhuman presence. The fifteen remaining figures comprise two bar staff members (male and female), two locals in suitably exotic dress ( both male), a brace of belters (both male), a pair of engineers (one male, one female), a suitably grizzled spacer (male), a scout (male), a mercenary (male), a purser (female), two pilots (female), and a navigator (female). (For those of you concerned about such things, the ethnic mix is three African-descended, one Asian, and two hailing heroes from India.) I could have wished for a representative of all of the six major races, but the only heroes I really don't plan on using too much are the locals, and even they make good patrons, so I'm not complaining too much. These are all in full-color, and, as I have remarked earlier, are wonderfully well-drawn. The map itself is pretty good; it doesn't thrill me as much as the cardboard heroes do, though. It covers a pretty typical bar in good detail, with plenty of places to hide behind and trade gunfire with mooks. It even includes two (cramped-looking) restrooms, although I'm curious as to why they still delineate between male and female when races with more (or less, cf. the Hivers) genders exist. It's a good professional piece of work. The Screen Oh dear. The screen consists of two seperate double-sided two-page pieces of thick cardboard. These are presumably meant to be put together, since one side of each hemiscreen has spaceship combat rules and the other has personal combat rules, sort of. The spacecract side also has the critical hit charts and falling rules, so if you're using the screen for that, you'll constantly have to flip it over while running a combat, which could get annoying exceptionally quickly. Mind you, the information presented here is all good, useful stuff; but I would have been willing to shell out another eight bucks to have it all on one side of the screen and have it be one big screen, instead of two small ones. As far as utility (and me) is concerned, it'd just be handier. The cardboard itself is very nice; it's good thick stuff. Summary I would give the figures a higher rating for style, but it's cancelled out by the screen. I liked the product in general a lot, but I feel the screen wasn't done as well as it could have or ought to have been done; that being said, I don't in any way regret my purchase. It's a decent product, and its flaws are cancelled out by its virtues. It's probably not useful unless you're running a combat-intensive game, or one with a lot of minatures movement of any kind, but for those of you who are, the GM's screen should work perfectly well.

GURPS Traveller GM Screen