I was just thinking about how I would like to redesign my DM screen and my mind wandered as it is often prone to do.  I thought, instead of the usual artwork boring itself into my player's brains, what if my screen looked like something instead.  Something like a castle, or a cliff, or a city street.  Wouldn't that be cool?

Then I thought of your wonderful paper models and voila! I thought of you.  Would it be possible to make a paper model DM screen to look like something.  Perhaps with a slip-in screen feature so the DM could put in different screens for different modes, one set for combat, another for adventures, another for treasure and magic items, etc.  I'm thinking three sheets wide with landscape orientation on the sheets.

Another cool idea that I thought of while considered this was if you could make a dice roller.  Part of the screen (like a tower) that a player could enter a die in and the DM could see for those really important rolls the player cannot see.

Well guys, you can definately say that no one has tried this idea before.  How about it?

John

It would take a customized screen to fit into it, but such is already quite possible.  A few sections of CastleWorks walls could cover a DM's entire "play area" quite nicely, and be very cool to look at.  

As far as a "kit-bash" for a rolling area, leaving the top off of a CW tower would provide plenty of room for a player to toss a die into.  Cutting out the back of the tower, and putting a sloped piece of cardstock to chase the die out the hole (perhaps even, fancyfied, a bit of fence from VillageWorks to pen the die in) would round out the rolling area nicely.  Heck, you could have one such tower on either side for the convenience of all the players irrespective of the side they're sitting on.

Another approach would be a set of ArenaWorks stands, using any of the various high-backed stands.  You can either do them facing inwards (towards you), which gives you very limited space for charts, but plenty of places to array your miniatures for the evening's use...or you can face them outwards for a much more impressive looking DM screen, and more chartroom.

Then again...if you're willing to wait just a bit, I suppose the players could each have a SiegeWorks Catapult to hurl their dice at the DM...er...nevermind that idea.

How about one of those kid's "pop-up" books, except in reverse! Folds up flat to a regular 8.5x11 or somesuch size, but when you open it up, a 3-D castle wall jumps out at the players. Shouldn't be too hard to do. A little trickier than having things popup on the *inside* like with the kid's books, but entirely feasible. You could even have a little dragon that jumps out from behind the wall when you open it up.

What a cool idea!

It needs some way to print your favored tables and lists on the backside and different setting-flavored sides.
I really like the idea of a castle tower as dice roller.

Kit-bashing.....mhhh, seaworks cliffs as base and a cw-wall on top, the dice roller-towers build from castlework.

I have many other ideas for GM-screens, not all tried out.
For example a little thing that shows the daytime.
I imagine a paper wheel that shows different sun and moons, one for early morning, with red sky, one with the sun high in the sky for midday, on evening and so on.
A other, similiar idea would be a wheel for weather settings.

This is a really silly idea! Wish I'd though of it...

Might make a great gift for someone too.

The Auld Grump

Wish I'd thought of this, too. I remember a commercial version, some 10-15 years ago, made out of wood. It was far too expensive, in my opinion, but to make one out of card stock... Thanks for the ideas, fellows! Cheers!

I gave one away as a Christmas present, along with a couple of dice towers (one built in).

The Auld Grump

I am seriously thinking about building one of these based on Grump's description. I would have two dice towers. One for rolls for the player's to see (hey, it might happen) and one for the DM to see.

Weird, the server states that the photo is no longer in its database. Anyone have an idea about that?


Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

Strange. It was there about an hour or so ago around midnight PST.

This morning 7am EST no pic....

Nope! It's gone. Good thing I downloaded that sucker for my personal collection before it disappeared!

P.S. Hey Phatz! Nice new avatar! I changed mine yesterday morning, did a little P-shop work on it first.

I noticed yours this morning and decided to grab a new pic... I'm at work, so I only have gimp to edit with... so I left it be until later...

Well, it's there now, as far as I can see. Hmm. That's weird.

I don't see it anymore either. Did the link change?

Still nothing....

Gone.

The Auld Grump