My Daughter's Screen

My daughter is a luddite.  She keeps her footprint on the internet to a bare minimum, has no facebook account, barely tolerates email.  She doesn't even want me to say her name online because she'd rather not be found.

But once in awhile she gets an urge to share.  So here is a post written by her, expressing a recent experience she had.

"I would like to scream and rant about all the obvious reasons not to use a DM's screen: the expected elitist perspective of the upper hand that most DM's seek to provide themselves, by providing yet another layer of control to compensate for more BS railroad storytelling ... but let's put that down.

"For the first time in about eight years I unexpectedly found myself playing with a screen.  Currently my party is facing a giant owl and after some debate on how I wanted the "arena" to feel, I decided I would build a three-dimensional landscape. This would allow the owl to move up and down the 3-D plane. 

"Normally, I play very traditionally; hex grid vinyl mat, miniatures, no fog of war.

"Not wanting to put my players where they wouldn't be able to see, I decided I would be the one blocked by the solid side of the cube.  Suddenly, I was in my own isolated world.  Not only was I playing towards them with my arms reaching like a puppeteer, but I was losing their attention in pulling my gaze away, as I ducked behind the screen.

"I remember the days of a screen ... I do.  Hiding behind that orange wall with tables staring me in the face, papers and notes everywhere.  I don't look back on that memory with a fond gloss; I'd rather look back on it like one of many things I did early in the game ("Remember the days I needed a screen?  Haha ... ya, well, I was still learning).

"I pose this to you: how honest are you really?  Both to your players and yourself: have you ever fibbed a roll?  I would be lying if I said I hadn't.  Sometimes you just don't want to kill someone.  You roll the die and pick it up again, pretending you didn't see it.

"That's what a screen is to me.  I separate myself from the player, I see myself as a greater entity rather than a conduit for the game.  I know this is a point of debate, but regardless of how you see yourself, you owe it to your players to be there with them.

"The truth is you are selling them your world and no one would buy from someone who kept saying, after every question,"One second, while I look behind this screen."