Is the Narrator's screen helpful to have?

[Feeves]

Title says it all. All I want to know is if the Narrator's screen is worth the buy and what's in it.

[Tomcat]

I do not have the Narrator's Screen, Feeves, but I think that it is rude that 23 people have looked at your post and not written you a reply.

That could mean, 23 people don't have it and don't know, or the above .

Anyway, I have been GM'ing now for over 25 years and have never owned any screen. It has the charts you may need handy but that is the only benefit I can see.

So, you can make your own choice obviously, but I personally believe it is not needed. There are some .PDF files that you can download from Valinor, MEGG, and Scottomir's sites that are game aids - basically have all the tables on them. I printed them and put these in a binder and it gives me the handy recource I need.

I can bundle the files and e-mail them to you if you would like. The file would be realitviely large (3 MB) so let me know what you would like me to do, if anything.

I hope this helped...

[Jason Durall]

Originally posted by Feeves
Title says it all. All I want to know is if the Narrator's screen is worth the buy and what's in it.

The Narrator Screen contains:

- a four-panel Narrator screen
- an adventure ("The House of Margil")
- character sheets printed on glossy paper - which is a bit foolish because they're difficult to write on with pencil, and most inks will smear or won't sink into the paper.
- it does not contain the Grimiore sheets which were advertised and it claims to contain - these have never been provided the purchasers in a physical form - instead, they were made available to all via pdf.

As for quality:

- Some of the info on the screen is out of date and has been errata-ed, but nothing that can't be fixed with a pencil (or whiteout and pen, if you're particular). Most notably, the weapon damage has been replaced.

- the image on the Narrator screen, while nice, is fairly bland and is very blurry.

- the adventure is fairly basic and introductory - your mileage will vary.

My estimation is that it is not really worth what they're asking for it. If it were down in the $9-12 range, then maybe.

[ben hur]

Originally posted by Tomcat
I do not have the Narrator's Screen, Feeves, but I think that it is rude that 23 people have looked at your post and not written you a reply.

That could mean, 23 people don't have it and don't know, or the above .

I plead 'not guilty'... I don't have it either. Come to think of it, I don't have anything but the Core Book! Though I may get Fields of Battle, it looks super-sweet...

[JonA]

I'll be honest here.

It's not worth it really. Personally I bought it for completists sake. The character sheets are useless, the booklet is poor quality and still contains the errors in the rulebooks (it's like someone just copied and pasted the charts and tables from the rulebook without editing them). The narrators screen interior IS useful for quick reference however (although it still has some errors).

On an aside I dislike screens anyway as they're a physical barrier between the GM and PCs and I don't like barriers.

[Tomcat]

when it comes to Decipher products, is any of it worth it!

The reason I say this is that Decipher is setting a new standard in terms of cost to product - and I am, of course, buying into it!

For $25 (American), we are getting 96 to 128 page books (the supplements) - hard bound and beautiful - yes, but at a high cost.

And me, when I like something, I become an avid collector, so I am purchasing them - but my thought is how many of these "small" books am I wilingly going to purchase. I keep reading the UPCOMING PRODUCT pages and there are a ton of new books coming, but most of this stuff could have been condensed into a fewer books. Hell, even the Star Trek game books are thicker and with more content.

There is also the competition - I look over and see D&D selling at roughly the same cost with double the size. D&D sucketh though, so unfortunately, they are not going to compete with Decipher for my dollar.

Anyway, this is not a bit** session, just a note to those people in charge at Decipher - don't take the consumer too much for granted. Middle-Earth is a fantastic place to game in - I would hate too see it be shelved again, as ICE/MERP was, but this time because there is not enough draw for the game because of cost.

Thanks - just my penny of thoughts

[Feeves]

Thanks to all who replied. I just saved myself some money because of you . I think I'll save up to buy the moria set with the money I have instead of getting the narrator's screen. By the way Tom, I read you're chronicle, and I must say it looks to be highly enjoyable. My question is, is it possible to play without all the PC's or do they all have to be there?

On another thought, I found the Grimlore sheets, where else can you find the info you need that came with the narrator sheet? (I have the tests sheets and char. gen. sheets. Is there anything else?)

[Mitchell]

I recommend getting some way to hide dice rolls, so you can cheat for the story.

Let's say, if the players get a critical against the Witch King, or Saruman, or some orc rolls a critical against the player, or Aragorn, or something.

[Tomcat]

I can upload all of the PDF files of the Game Aid and Char Gen that I have.

If you have a Yahoo ID, I can give you access to my Briefcase which has them.

Let me know

PS - thanks for the comments to the Triumph Chronicle - part 3 wil be spinning out here soon. I am going to add some more GM information for set-up and objectives, etc.

Anyway... let me know about a Yahoo ID if you want access to that file repository.