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Its a screen. What could go wrong with that, you wonder? Well, you'd be surprised. Often GM screens seem to be little more than a few tables lifted from a rulebook with some generic artwork slapped onto the front, and with little else to offer, coming across as a rather poor, expensive supplement instead of an invaluable gaming aid.
Its fortunate, then, that Shadowrun's 4th edition screen doesn't fall into that definition. Not quite, at any rate...
First, lets forget the screen itself for a minute and look at the booklet it comes with, where the real meat of this product is. You get a smattering of semi-developed adventure ideas, along with a few errata which probably should have been in the main rulebook (conversion notes from 3rd to 4th edition, for instance) and some extra tables. No, its not the most fully-featured supplement around, but all these are pretty handy, and the adventure ideas are interesting, even if they do require a bit of work.
The screen itself, from the GM's side, looks lovely. The tables and charts are actually *useful*- which in a complex game like Shadowrun is hugely important- and they're all presented in the same stylised techno graphics that the rulebook features, and look rather nice for it.
Where the whole package falls down though, is the players side. It seems like Fanpro ran out of effort when it came to this, and rather than opting for some high-quality wraparound artwork to help set the atmosphere, instead we're treated to a selection of bordered pictures taken from the core rulebook. And... thats it. No scene setting, no logic or sense to them... just some random pictures, some of which aren't even that good. A pity, really, as the rest of the package has promise, and considering some of the high-quality artwork Fanpro have commissioned for the 4th edition it feels like a missed opportunity for some lovely art.
Rating: 8.2
Reviewed by:
splinter
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