This article originally appeared in d20 Weekly
Xcrawl GM Screen and Adventure Module
Published by Pandahead Productions
Written by Brendan J. LaSalle
Edited by Brett Brooks
Design by Allyson Brooks
Illustrated by Marcio Fiorito, Ed Ball, and Geb Buxton
GM screen illustration by Chris Appel
four-panel b&w screen with full-color players-side illustration, 32-page black and white adventure module; $19.95
Until the Xcrawl: NAE Sourcebook comes out this fall, most Xcrawl games will be relegated to the inside of the dungeons. Pandahead Productions knows this, so at least they're willing to play to the needs of the gamers . . . and everyone needs a gamemaster's screen, right?
The Xcrawl GM Screen and Adventure Module is in many ways your standard roleplaying product -- a cardboard standup behind which to hide your game notes, accompanied by a prepackaged adventure to get you started. First the screen.
It's quite sturdy, surprisingly so considering how thin it feels, and when you unfold it, it stays unfolded (it fans out like an accordion instead of folding end-over-end, should that be a selling point). From a printer's perspective, it's a first-class piece of workmanship. The shield has to get a little more creative with its content; not only is Xcrawl produced under the d20 System license, the game revolves around modern-day dungeon crawls and is closely identified with its fantasy forebear. Since there's already an official GM's screen for the d20 System, is a screen directly linked to Xcrawl really necessary, and does it offer anything . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: January 29, 2003
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