I was very disappointed by it, but it is not totally useless. I don't understand the reasons for selecting what went on it. Mind you, I find that to be a common problem with GM screens. Many of the things on the GM screen are things that I would already have in the description of the PC/NPC/creature. A GM screen should have things that I need in the middle of running a session, not things that are useful for prepping an adventure, character creation, or that are usually already on the character sheets.
Here's what is on it and my opinions on their usefulness for me. Your style of GMing may make them more or less useful to you.
My ratings are:
Useful
Okay (meaning there might have been something better, but its not useless)
Useless
Damage Modifier - Useless. (I suppose if your characters frequently boost their STR and/or SIZ in different ways it might help. But usually I would have that noted in prep for NPCs and the players would generally know what the improvement is.)
Difficulty and Haste Modifiers - Useful
Combat Actions - Useless (This is a character creation type table, but even if the characters boost DEX and/or INT, the calculation is easy and didn't need to be on the screen. It is a small spot and maybe they couldn't find anything else to put there.)
First Aid Actions - Useful
Armour Types and Costs - Useless
Close Combat Situational Modifiers - Useful
Ranged Attack Situational Modifiers- Useful
Sorcery Manipulation Table - Okay
RuneQuest II logo, copyright information, and credits. Takes up about 2 inches (5cm) across the bottom of one panel. I thought this could have gone on the player's side on the title panel and not used GM's real estate. Useless unless they were required by some law or publishing regulations to put it on the "inside" of the screen.
Close Combat Fumble Table - Useful
Natural Weapon Fumbles - Useful
Ranged Weapon Fumbles - Useful
Ranged Weapons - Useless (This is essentially the ranged weapons table from the Core rulebook.)
Close Combat Weapons - Useless (This is essentially the close combat weapons table from the Core rulebook and it occupies an entire panel on the screen.)
Other Positives
The ranged weapons table has an added column which lists the skill used for each weapon.
The close combat weapons table has an added column "Category" which was where I first found that club, mace, and morningstar are 1H Hammer weapons. (This had been an issue when I was doing a little MRQ2 test session and a player picked one-handed Hammer and Shield style from the Barbarian combat styles list, and then we couldn't find any one-handed hammers in the weapons list. I did find later that the description of Military Pick says it is also called a war hammer. I thought 1H Mace style was missing from the lists. He changed his weapon style.)
It is four panels on a sturdy cardboard like the cover of a hardcover book. This means it will be easy to use binder clips to attach the two things that I was really annoyed weren't there.
Combat Manouevres descriptions (clipped over the Close Combat Weapons panel)
Combat Activities list and descriptions (clipped over the Ranged Weapons table)
With apologies to Evan Shipard (the cover artist), I am planning to clip a list of the combat activities and a list of the combat manoeuvres (printed in a BIG font) on the players side of the screen. I may also put the Time Taken modifiers table there. This is just so the options will be in front of them while playing. I will probably not cover up the panel with the dragon's head on it because it is just too threatening to not have it staring at the players.
