We had the chance to chat with MasterScreen all about their work!
1. How long have you been in the dnd space?
I was introduced to D&D around 5 years ago. I knew about it before, but the books were kinda hard to get where I am from, and also my English was not that great (it still isn’t :). So when I got my hands on the books, obviously I was the one who would DM for my friends. We had a lot of fun, and I love D&D for that.
2. What inspired your work?
So, I started my first homebrew world and campaign. On session 20 or around that the amount of info I needed to keep around me and the amount of different books and sources was so big that it was really hard to handle. So I started to look for something that could cover all my needs: keep notes, link content, manage characters, tell stories, roll random stuff, manage combat… And I found nothing that was good enough. So I started to create the tool I needed by byself.
3. Tell us everything about MasterScreen? Everything?
Huwh wow that’s a lot, but I’ll try. MasterScreen is a tool for dungeon and game masters that has the goal to make running big campaigns easier. It is a web app (no installs needed; works on your phone too), that you should keep open during your session and the idea is that it has everything you need in it: dice roller, combat tracker, character builder, wiki-style content interlinking, you name it. You can prep before your session, and save all your notes in MasterScreen, and the best part of it is that everything is interactive. In contrast to normal notes, here you can increase the health of a character, or create an item that gives +5 to strength, or create a map with clickable locations, or view your battlefield in 3D. It’s like a super cool interactive DM notebook! Also, it can run fully offline, and none of your content is stored on our servers. Everything is saved locally in Markdown files, which you can edit even without MasterScreen, in any other text editor. I can talk a lot about all the features, but that would take ages, so here’s a short video overview:
4. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into dnd?
Don’t wait for someone to be the DM. Just learn the rules, gather your friends, and start playing.
5. Goals for 2023?
Revolutionize the market. The RPG content market is boring: either you get PDFs from one of two websites (I’m sure you know which ones) or you buy digital source material from Wizards. And if you get the PDF, you still make notes somewhere, and keep track of characters somewhere, and get random encounters/items/spells from somewhere, and run your maps somewhere… That’s a lot of somewheres if you ask me. So we want MasterScreen to be the #1 place where you can buy content, and then immediately use it in your game. Absolutely no other tools needed. That simple.
6. Where can people support your work?
Just start using MasterScreen and tell your friends. That’s the best support we need right now. Other than that, join our Discord: https://discord.gg/D3pfa8t9R6 and follow our Twitter: https://twitter.com/MasterScreenApp. And we will launch a Patreon account soon(ish).
