Dungeons and Dragons DM screens are a funny thing. In the age of laptops and tablets, they’re less relevant than ever. What rules can they hold that a digital screen can’t? What do they conceal, except for dice rolls? Despite this, us D&D fans are reluctant to give them up. In fact, we keep iterating on them, finding ever more elaborate ways to present and conceal information at the table.
BoxKing’s new DM screen is one of the most intricate I’ve tested. The whole thing is magnetic, so you can pin all sorts of notes – inside and out. BoxKing isn’t the first to sell a magnetic DM screen, but it takes the idea to interesting extremes. This is also a modular DM screen, so you can mix and match its components and capabilities. This modularity requires buying a few add-ons, but if you do, the things this screen can achieve are quite impressive.
I’ve spent some time testing various review samples from BoxKing to see if this might be the DM screen for me. So, let’s go through what I’ve learned.
The screen itself
Price: $89.99
This is a weighty faux-leather screen that, visually, is rather lovely. It’s better-looking than any other magnetic screen I could find on the market. The outer edges are embossed with fantasy script and illustrations that feel like you’re opening a storybook. The two central panels are left blank on the outside, and this gives you space for player-facing components – handouts, pictures, whiteboards, maps, you name it.
The inside of all four panels are similarly blank. That means no built-in rules reminders, but it gives you the freedom to customize your setup.
Everything (bar those two illustrative panels on the outside) is magnetic. However, BoxKing does not provide any magnets as part of the core package – you’ll have to buy them separately. That’s pretty disappointing, given the main selling point is magnetism. Still, magnets can be bought pretty cheap.
What BoxKing does provide is a 2-in-1 dice tower. This is a magnetic flap of faux leather that holds your screen in place when closed, and can be attached to the screen as a dice tower when open. It’s not a very good dice tower, mind you. To me, the whole point of a dice tower is to control where your dice land. This tower is a chute with no bottom, so your dice will go skittering off the table, just like if you’d rolled them by hand.
Review rating: 6/10. It’s stylish, but without paid extras, it doesn’t function as a magnetic DM screen. Plus, $90 is a lot to pay for aesthetics alone.
Magnetic Tabletop Markers
Price: $11.99
BoxKing sells a pack of three magnetic markers that are designed to complement the screen’s visual style. They’re detailed, brass-colored relics that function well as magnetic pins, and they certainly suit the rustic, fantasy vibes of the screen. The only problem is how little you get for the price. A quick glance at Amazon tells me you can get over 250 small magnets for about $10. That’s a lot more functional, even if it doesn’t quite match the ‘D&D’ aesthetic.
Review rating: 3/10. They’re very pretty, but you can get a lot more practical value elsewhere.
Modular Stat Tracking Panel System
Price: $29.99
This is where things get interesting. These stat tracking panels come with many pieces, which you’ll assemble to suit your needs. First, you have small magnetic boards to arrange in any size and shape you like. These have holes in, so you can attach whiteboards of various sizes or numbered dials. Both come with covers that help you highlight or hide specific details.
There are very few limits on what you can achieve here. Whiteboards can contain any information you can fit – Armor Class, Passive Perception, Initiative, HP, and more. If you wanted, you could construct a whole character sheet out of whiteboards. Some of the modular whiteboards do get very small, so space may be a challenge unless you have a very skinny whiteboard pen.
As for those dials, their numbers only go up to 10, so you can’t track everything a D20 might do. They are useful for tracking rounds and countdowns.
The customization is impressive, though the production values are less so. The modular pieces are made of lightweight plastic, which you’ll cut out of sprues and assemble yourself. They’re easy to put together and attach to your screen, but they’re quite flimsy, so a clumsy hand can easily knock them out of place.
It’s not clear from BoxKing’s website how many parts you get for the price, so I can’t comment on how much modularity $29.99 actually gives you. My review sample only had a handful of modular pieces to work with – not nearly enough to track complex campaign information – but BoxKing only sent me a limited selection to test, so this may not be representative of what buyers actually get.
Review rating:. 8/10. This is a really interesting idea for custom DM screens. They’re not the sturdiest bits of kit, but they’re practical and more than usable – especially if you can get creative with them.
Initiative Tracker Pack
Price: $25.99
This is by far my favorite part of the review sample. You built these initiative trackers in the same way as other modular parts – snapping together a few simple bits of plastic. The core is designed to slot neatly onto the top of your screen. There’s holes on the front and back sides for you to insert small whiteboards, dials, or additional modular boards. Plus, you can insert an extra whiteboard in a slot on top.
What I love about these initiative trackers is they’re double-sided. You can present names and initiative order to your players without losing track on the reverse side. Plus, you can hide extra details on the DM’s end – conditions, HP, armor class, etc.
Once again, the tiny whiteboards limit the information you can include (fingers crossed nobody in your D&D party has a really long name). Generally, though, this is less of an issue when tracking initiative – numbers and initials are usually enough to make sense of who acts when.
Plus, initiative trackers come with a unique modular piece that allows you to attack paper instead of whiteboard. That means you can add your own handwriting or character portraits as an alternate tracking method.
The initiative tracker pack includes six modular trackers. That’s more than enough to track your party’s initiative, but if you want to track monsters in the same way, you’ll probably need a second pack. Or, you could always rely on your other magnets and modular whiteboards.
Review rating: 9/10. Still not the best plastic quality, but an innovative and genuinely useful product – even if you don’t want to buy the full DM screen.
Character Portraits
Price: $9.99
From my favorite part, we move to my least favorite. BoxKing’s portraits pack offers 22 cards showing fantasy characters. These slot perfectly into the initiative trackers, but you could attach them to your DM screen in other ways, too.
This is a nice idea, but I think it’s an unnecessary addition. Even with 22 characters to choose from, it’s unlikely that BoxKing has guessed exactly what your D&D character looks like. Most players, I think, would prefer to create their own character portrait – especially when the selection is this limited.
My review sample included 22 character portraits, and all of them were of white humans. A few have elf and animal ears, but nothing more ‘fantasy’ than this (Dragonborn, Orc, etc.) appears. BoxKing tells me these portraits aren’t necessarily representative of the final product, but the lack of diversity creates a disappointing first impression.
Review rating: 2/10. Hand-drawn portraits are less flashy, but they’re infinitely customizable.
Conclusion
BoxKing’s DM screen is beautiful, creative, and pretty darn practical. It comes at a luxury price point (especially if you want the modularity that actually makes it special), but if you choose your add-ons carefully, it feels worth the price. This naturally won’t appeal to DMs on a tight budget, and it’ll be less useful if you’re working from a laptop or tablet. But, for analogue DMs who want something unique, this is an appealing option.
You can learn more about each of these products on BoxKing’s website. Want to talk more about D&D? Join the conversation in the Wargamer Discord. Or, if you want to shut up and start playing, our guides to DnD classes and DnD races can help.
Source: Wargamer
