The Physical Thing
The Mutants & Masterminds Gamemaster’s Screen presents a nice value for its $10 price tag. Vertically smaller than some older screens, this four panel screen features beautiful full color artwork and a glossy finish. The art features a great super hero melee, evoking thoughts of the game’s super hero roots. Even the side facing the GM is in color, with easy to read formatting. Similar in size to the Eberron screen (for those familiar), this may not be the most effective method of hiding dice rolls for those that use screens for that purpose. This product comes with no additional material, and for $10 represents a slightly above average value thanks to the high quality presentation.
The Ideas
There are six large panels filled with information, two of which are facing the players if the screen is used in the traditional manner. The only chart here that bears specific mentioning is the Tougness Saving Throw Results table. It contains a Damage Bonus row up to +20, and a Toughness Save column up to 35. Red, yellow, green, blue, and white colors designate the different status imposed by the results. All a GM needs to know are the two relevant numbers and a quick consultation confirms the results. Nice!
Here’s what you get:
The two screens facing the players include: Carrying Capacity, Extended Carrying Capacity (up to 150 Strength), Carrying Loads (relevant penalties), Extra Effort, and Hero Points. These are all very helpful. Questions such as “How much can I lift?” and “What can I use Extra Effort or Hero Points for?” are common in the game.
The four interior panels really shine as well. In addition to the excellent Damage table as discussed above:
Skill Check Difficulty Classes for: Acrobatics, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Disable Device, Drive, Pilot, Investigate, Craft, Search, Escape Artist, Gather Information, Interaction skills, and general skills. These provide quick answers and help GMs estimate DC requirements.
Combat: Actions in Combat, Substance Toughness, how to calculate combat values, Attack and Defense Modifiers, Concealment, Hampered Movement, Size, and Power Range. The Substance Toughness and Actions in Combat charts are particularly helpful here, since they both commonly come up and can be difficult to remember.
General: Extended Range chart and the must used Time and Value Progression chart. The Time and Value chart is used frequently, though it becomes less necessary once players get the values for their powers written down.
My Take
I chose to write a quick review because I had no idea what was included with the screen when I was eyeing it online. It was a shot in the dark, but turned out to be worth it. I will most definitely be using this screen with my new M&M 2nd campaign. While it is $10 for a screen and nothing more, I consider the money to be well worth it. All of the charts I need to consult are presented, the screen is visually appealing, and the composition feels sturdy enough to suffer usual wear and tear.
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