Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Screen

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing misprint mares otherwise useful screen
Review: Keepers playing Call of Cthulhu from behind a screen are doing it all wrong. They would have a hard time weaving a story with a barrier in the way.

However, screens have their uses, mainly as a quick reference for charts and as a means of hiding maps and dice rolls. The "Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Screen" does the job just fine, and organizes the charts in a logical manner. The artwork on the front is not great, and could use improvement. It can be distracting to players.

The main defect of this screen is the misprint where they did not add the numbers to the "Strength vs. Resistance" chart. This is one of the most important charts in the game, and I am gobsmacked that such a major defect made it onto the market.

If you are running "Call of Cthulhu," it will be useful to have a screen. Just beware of the limitations.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing misprint mares otherwise useful screen
Review: Keepers playing Call of Cthulhu from behind a screen are doing it all wrong. They would have a hard time weaving a story with a barrier in the way.

However, screens have their uses, mainly as a quick reference for charts and as a means of hiding maps and dice rolls. The "Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Screen" does the job just fine, and organizes the charts in a logical manner. The artwork on the front is not great, and could use improvement. It can be distracting to players.

The main defect of this screen is the misprint where they did not add the numbers to the "Strength vs. Resistance" chart. This is one of the most important charts in the game, and I am gobsmacked that such a major defect made it onto the market.

If you are running "Call of Cthulhu," it will be useful to have a screen. Just beware of the limitations.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, as screens go
Review: Well, a screen is pretty much a screen. This one has some really excellent art on the backside, and a lot of good info on the Keeper side. One of the best things, to me, on the Keeper side, is a list of sections in the rulebook, and what page they can be found on. That comes in handy a lot when you want to look up something not on the screen. They made effective use of the space on the screen, for the most part. My only beef is what I guess is a misprint, the result of poor editing/proofing. The handy resistance table is, of course, on the screen. This is one of the most important things to have on the screen for this game system, for me, since it's one of the very few charts or tables you are likely to use with CoC. And it's screwed up. There are black bars across the top of the table and down the sides, but there should be NUMBERS on those bars for you to cross-reference, but there aren't. I printed up new bars on my computer and glue-sticked 'em on, but this shouldn't be necessary, especially since a little more care put into proofing the material before sending it off to the printer could have avoided this glaring mistake. I love CoC, but this sadly seems about par for the course with Chaosium.

The screen also comes with a booklet containing a highly-decent adventure set in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It's nothing ground-breaking, nor is it particularly long, but neither is it fluff thrown in as mere filler, either. It's not at all a bad adventure.

Finally, there are also foldout charts, one with weapons, and one with spells. Both are pretty handy. Some of the "Spot rules for whatever" from the rulebook are reprinted on these loose pages, as well as some blank character sheets.

Overall, a decent product for the price, but a far cry from being "the essential Keeper's aid." If you like to have a cool screen to use, this is a good one, if you don't mind correcting the resistance table on it. You also get some handy stuff along with it, but there is nothing here that, to me, makes this product stand out as anything more than average.