The D&D 2024 DM screen: the reference sheets every DM needs
What belongs on your DM screen for 2024 5e. The rules worth keeping at a glance, why the printed panels fall short, and how to build custom DM screen inserts.
The DM screen is the most-used piece of kit on the table, and the most neglected. Most DMs run with whatever cardboard panels came in the box, quietly frustrated that the one rule they need is never the one printed in front of them. With the 2024 rules now settled in, it’s a good moment to rebuild your screen around what you actually reference.
What actually belongs on a DM screen
The goal of a screen is speed: the rules you look up mid-combat should be a glance away, and everything else can live in the book. In practice, that shortlist is smaller and more predictable than the official panels suggest.
The essentials most DMs reach for are: the conditions and what each one does, the actions available in combat (including the often-forgotten ones like Shove, Grapple and Help), cover and improvised damage, travel pace and light sources, a table of typical DCs, and skills grouped by ability. Get those six areas in front of you and you’ll resolve the vast majority of table questions without opening a book.
Why the store-bought panels fall short
Official screens aren’t bad, but they’re built for everyone, which means they’re optimised for no one. They spend space on rules you rarely check and skimp on the ones you check every session. And a screen printed for the 2014 rules can quietly feed you outdated wording now that 2024 has changed several common rulings.
That’s the case for custom inserts: a screen you assemble yourself puts your tables, for your edition, in your order.
Keep it current with the 2024 rules
Several of the things you keep on a screen are exactly the ones the 2024 revision touched. Conditions were tidied, hiding and stealth were rewritten, weapon mastery added new properties to track, and parts of the action economy shifted. If your reference sheets still quote 2014, you’ll occasionally rule against the current book without noticing.
A 2024-accurate set of inserts fixes that. If your table plays a mix of 2014 and 2024, sheets that show both editions side by side are genuinely useful, because you can point to the difference instead of arguing from memory.
Build it for how you run
The last step is personalisation. Beyond the rules panels, leave room for the things specific to your table: an initiative tracker you can wipe clean, a few blank name lists for improvised NPCs, a small loot or random-encounter table for the campaign you’re running.
Print your inserts on letter or A4 stock, slot them into a screen with clear pockets, and laminate the ones you want to write on so a dry-erase marker turns them into a working surface. The result is a screen that does what the cardboard one only pretends to: keep the game moving.
A ready-made starting point
You can build a screen from scratch, but a well-designed set of inserts saves the hours of formatting. The DM Screen Inserts and Cheat Sheets (£20 £6) cover both the 2014 and 2024 rules, printer-friendly and sized for standard screens, so you can assemble the panel you actually want and spend the saved time running the game instead of formatting tables.
Frequently asked questions
- What should be on a DM screen for 2024 D&D?
- The most-referenced rules: conditions and their effects, the actions in combat, cover and improvised damage, travel pace and light sources, common DCs, and skills by ability. The 2024 rules tweaked several of these, so a 2024-accurate screen is worth having rather than relying on a 2014 one from memory.
- Are the printed panels on a store-bought DM screen good enough?
- They're a start, but the official cardboard screens often waste space on rules you rarely check and omit ones you check constantly. Custom inserts let you put exactly the tables you use most in front of you, which is why so many DMs print their own.
- What changed in the 2024 rules that affects a DM screen?
- Several frequently-referenced areas were adjusted in the 2024 revision, including conditions like Exhaustion, the rules for hiding and stealth, weapon mastery properties, and some action economy. A screen built for 2024 keeps those current so you're not quoting outdated 2014 wording at the table.
- Should I laminate my DM screen inserts?
- If your inserts are printed on standard paper, laminating them makes them durable and lets you write on them with a dry-erase marker, handy for tracking initiative, notes or names. Many DMs print on letter or A4 stock, slot the sheets into a screen with clear pockets, and laminate the ones they write on.
- Where can I get printable DM screen inserts for 2024?
- MakeMythic on Etsy sells DM screen inserts and cheat sheets covering both the 2014 and 2024 rules, printer-friendly and sized for standard screens, so you can assemble a reference panel built around the rules you actually use.
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