DM screen help!

[elanfanboy]

I am trying to make a homemade cheap and effective mini-screen that is dry-erase compatible. Also functional, and probably durable. : }

[RazorChain]

Or you can just buy a customizable one and print out the pages you need and put them in the screen.

Have never regretted that purchase

[elanfanboy]

I dont have lots of money at the moment, already have printouts, just looking for a cheap wat to replicate what you decribed, otherwise i would really like to have such a screen in the future, but i need something that i can use now

[Knaight]

You can get a set of three dry erase boards for $16. Attaching these by the backs to a heavy cardstock strip with enough room between them to fold it should produce what you're looking for.

[Mutazoia]

You might want to think about something like this, and I usually recommend china markers (wax pencils) over dry erase. They are cheaper and won't accidentally wipe off if you look at them cross-eyed.

[Calthropstu]

The whiteboard was a truly remarkable invention.

[Bulhakov]

If you really need on, then as @Knaight suggested - bind two or three small dry-erase boards together. Make sure they're magnetic, that way you can attach stuff to them with kitchen magnets.

However, I strongly recommend against using a GM screen at all. It automatically puts you in a "you vs players" position and you have to constantly peek over or around it. Instead, use a simple 2 or 3 ring binder to store your notes/printouts/tables and occasionally stand it up on the table when you need to hide your rolls.

[Tinkerer]

Well you have a wide variety of options here. Any GM screen can be made dry erase compatible by attaching a piece of plastic over it. I have used scrap wood before, I was going to use cardboard however that wound up looking a little too ghetto for my tastes (I've seen people do amazing things with cardboard however I am not one of those geniuses).

Perhaps my favourite one was when using a wooden base I added 6 card slots and wrote the vital info for each of the characters onto a card. Then on the left panel I added my combat quick reference guide and on the right panel I added my adventuring quick reference panel. Then I attached a one page plastic sleeve over each of those panels so if I was running combat I would drop a relevant page in the adventuring sheet and if they were adventuring I'd drop a relevant page in the combat sheet. I attached the three panels using hinges and wound up with a quite pretty looking thing for next to nothing. Attach some nice artwork on the back and you're good to go.

Menu sleeves can be nice if you can get ones with the right sort of edge on them and not too tall. At one point when I was working in retail I made up some with half page signage sleeves and flat mount sign holders. It was really nice because at that point I was running a system where I wanted to be able to swap out quick reference cards depending on the activity. Umm, one alternative option that I saw a fellow use was he took the corner spot at the table and actually attached the quick reference sheets to the walls next to his head so he would have 6 reference pages available at a glance.

Of course most of these options are a little superfluous, I ran without a screen for about 15 years and never (okay rarely) ran into a problem.

[MintyNinja]

I took a cardboard box, unfolded it, cut off the extra bits, and covered the edges in duct tape. It's fairly effective and holds tacks great.

[elanfanboy]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback, i found an idea im gonna try first though that seems very cool as it uses cd cases, something i have a lot of lying around, and it stands pretty low thus eliminating a wall between gm and players.