It seems quite odd to be reviewing a Game Master’s Screen, but the reality is that I’m not so much reviewing the screen, rather than the 48-page booklet that is bundled within this package. To compound this confusion, the fact the core part of the package is a scenario that focused on the paranormal, rather than the Extra-terrestrial aspects (which I normally prefer), of the Conspiracy X setting, it initially worried me that I wouldn’t do this supplement the justice it deserves.

So, did I like the screen, the scenario and everything else that came with the Conspiracy X 1st Edition Game Master’s supplement? Read on, dear friend, and you will find out!

Please note, this review is written with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the setting of the Conspiracy X RPG (or Con X as it is often abbreviated). For those of you reading this review who may not be so familiar with the themes of this game, the one sentence summary would be – in Con X the players take on the roles of agents within Aegis, a clandestine organization tasked with hiding the truth of aliens, monsters and the supernatural from the fragile minds of humanity. Yes, yes, think X-Files, but an X-Files where you are the Smoking Man rather than Fox or Mulder.

This review continues my series of looking back on the various books, supplements and publications that have been released for Conspiracy X over the years, and in the processes looking at what insights this – once extremely popular – roleplaying game might reveal to us here in the 2020s.

Overview

The Game Master’s Screen was released on the 8th of July 1996 (yes, I can be that specific, as trawling through the old Eden Studios website via the good, old Way Back Machine the news item noting the production date is noted there). Appearing shortly after a second printing of the core Conspiracy X rulebook was released, the package consisted of a single 4-panel, full-colour, double-sided, Game Master’s screen and a 48-page, staple-bound booklet. Within this booklet, you find a short, but reasonably detailed and complex scenario, a complete pre-generated Aegis Cell (consisting of six detailed agents and a comprehensive background and record sheet), as well as the (then) newly revised blank character sheet.

The Physical Screen

Game Master screens have seemingly always been a staple for roleplaying games, regardless of the actual quality of the information they provide (I’m looking at you D&D 5th edition!). Some are great additions to a game’s line, but to my way of thinking most are superfluous to the actual enjoyment of the game – a way a company can eek out a few more dollars from their dedicated fans while simply regurgitating information already available to them. Maybe that’s why so many of these products include a scenario or some other addition material in them? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saint in avoiding purchasing these types of releases (in fact, a quick peruse of my ever-straining bookcase reveals that I have way too many of these three/four-fold menaces), but, hey, I can claim I’m driven by that demon known as ‘completionism’… can’t I?

In this case the Conspiracy X 1st Edition, its physical screen consists of 4 vertically-oriented panels printed on full-colour (although reasonably thin) cardboard. On the player facing side (in addition the panel forming the front ‘cover’ of the supplement), we have colour images depicting the three main extra-terrestrials threats facing the characters in Con X (the Saurians, Greys and Atlanteans). These are presented in a design style reminiscent of a computer ‘read out’ (in this case likely to be Hermes – the player characters’ in-game tool for communicating with Aegis’ leadership) and comes complete with facts such as their ‘threat assessment’, ‘vital statistics’ and other information the Aegis agents will likely know of their enemies. The Game Master facing side is – as expected – packed full of tables and charts useful for the GM as they run their adventures. This is well laid out and easy to read with white on black text, and each table is large enough that my ageing eyes, thankfully, don’t need to squint too much to make out their details.

All in all this seems a very typical 90s GM screen but it does lend itself to a couple of observations. First is the quality of the cardboard, which is not much – if any – thicker than a regular softcover book cover. I suppose it is typical of these sorts of releases at the time, but it does feel too flimsy for my likely. The second, the decision to align the panels of the screen vertically, rather than horizontally. Again, I suppose this might be dictated by cost or technology constraints, but I find that in this configuration the four-panel screen is both not wide enough to cover the area I need hidden from my players, as well as being too high, blocking my vision of the group (and vice versa). Finally, some of the GM charts, as I often find in these screens, seems extremely specific and not at all relevant to general play. I mean, here we have one for PSI drug effects, and two for going ‘out of control’ while driving and piloting (one for each land based vehicles and aircraft!). These feel like ways of simply filling in space on screen, rather than being anything actually useful to the Game Master. But to steer away from being completely negative, the other charts that do appear are handy to have, while the artwork (by Eden’s art guru George Vasilakos) on the player’s side, has the same high level of professionalism we see with all Eden products.

The Booklet

Right, enough rambling about four pieces of cardboard and onto the main course – the booklet containing the scenario A Night of Rage. The 48-page booklet itself is divided into a number of sections, commencing with a short piece of fiction (that is better than most, and could easily be used as part of one of the scenes within the game itself), the 16-page open, sandbox-style scenario, 15 pages of handouts and Non-Player Character descriptions, and being rounded out with a selection of pre-generated characters and their Aegis cell. As with all Conspiracy X products, there is plenty of quality art scattered through the booklet, all of it of the familiar black and white ink style from regulars such as C. Brent Ferguson, Heather McKinney, Robert Taylor and George Vasilakos. The same ‘quality’ comment can also be made of the layout, which is simple and readable with a single column of text on each page. This is supplemented by the occasional callout and sidebar as appropriate, and not too much going on the header or footer as to detract from the readability of the text. The only place where the design differs is in the expected places, such as with the Handouts (being well-designed to resemble printouts from the aforementioned Hermes system), and the character sheets, etc. Only the maps (which do include both player’s and Game Master’s versions) fails to impress, but even in this they are more than serviceable at the game table.

The Scenario – A Night of Rage

Written by Alex Jurkat, the scenario sees the Aegis agents drawn into a supernatural mystery developing within the fictional suburb of Still Grove. Designed for up to six relatively inexperienced characters, it also acts as a great gateway into the more paranormal aspects of the Conspiracy X setting. As always when you are reviewing an adventure, there is a fine line between revealing too much of the scenario’s plot, versus saying not enough to genuinely give the reader enough to see if they would be interested in running or playing in it. Here I will lean more to the former, as although A Night of Rage is twenty-some years old, I feel that the story could well be of some interest to the Game Masters of today.

In summary the Aegis (an organisation that has a fairly sordid past and numerous skeletons in its closet) agents are summoned to look into the mystery surrounding the reactivation of a sleeper operative. This leads the group to discover the mysterious history of the Still Grove that includes murders, ghosts and more than a few disappearances. The story relies heavily on the players to want to investigate the mystery, as while there is a definite thread that can be followed, the plot quickly introduces lots of seemingly irrelevant leads (from odd locations through to a numerous NPCs of interest). This might be annoying or confusing to players not so used to playing this style adventure, as with most sandbox-y scenarios, the Game Master probably makes or breaks the play at the table, with their ability to bring the setting to life.

What really appeals to me, though, is the both the openness of the setting and scenario, as well as the various layers of conspiracy going on in this otherwise quiet neighbourhood. As the agents investigate further, they can encounter operatives of their rival agency (still referred to as Black Book here) and even one of the very aliens that appears on the GM screen. The author has taken a lot of time and effort to provide many complexities into the plot and does this in a way that ensures that they either don’t burden the flow of the scenario or could be easily removed if so desired by the Game Master.

Summary

So I started this review by saying that I’m not usually that impressed with Game Master screens, but I think, in retrospect what you have here in the Conspiracy X 1st edition product is more than simply a few bits of printed cardboard. Instead your really have an introductory kit, just missing the rules themselves. Any GM worth their salt (and having access to the Con X 1st Edition rulebook) could easily pick this up and have session running within an hour or so. That to me is more important than any old Game Master screen!

Unfortunately, a pdf copy of this supplement isn’t available (curiously, much like a few of the 1st Edition products from Eden Studios that you thought would be) but physical copies can be tracked for a few bucks (interestingly either with the screen or as just the booklet). I suppose most long standing Con X GMs would already have this screen, but if you don’t and are interested in conspiracy-horror, the scenario – A Night of Rage – is well worth you tracking it down.

This review was originally published on RPGGeek on the 27th of September 2021, and is provided here as part of on an ongoing series of Conspiracy X reviews.