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GM screens are funny things. In many ways, they belong to the past of our hobby, a time when games were puzzles to be solved, and players were men and GMs were gods and fudging dice rolls wasn't as socially taboo as eating babies. By the 90s - middle school, I guess, if before that was old-school - they were kind of a novelty product, and tended to come bundled with optional extras like adventures or GM guides to make them worth the purchase. Although DWAITAS is very much a middle-school game, given how important mystery and strangeneess is to the Who genre, there's nothing very odd about the release of a GM's screen. Unconventionally, however, it does not come with optional extras. It's just a screen, a concertina of A4 cardboard, following the classic mode of awesome art on the "players" side and tables on the GM's side.

One day, somebody's going to realise that the other way might work just as well, but I digress.

The thing is, without the optional extras, there's not a lot for me to review here. A screen is a screen is a screen, an all I can really do is describe it. But I'll do my best to evaluate and critique it as exhaustingly as possible.

Appearance: Folded up, the screen is of course A4 size, or 28cm x 21cm and, counting all four panels, 1 cm thick. That's about 11 inches by 8 inches by half an inch, or slightly smaller than a small cat.

Folded out it looks like this:

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If that picture doesn't load, the panorama depicts an army of Daleks and Sontarans striding towards the viewer. Flames, explosions, flying Daleks and meteors fill the skies and foreground. It's all very exciting.

Structure: At a quarter of a cm thick, it stands up extremely well. A friend and I threw dice and pencils at it for about ten minutes and it didn't even budge, let alone topple. In fact, the dice ricocheted off at high speed, which would teach a lesson to any player who thinks it's funny to throw dice at you. It also proved strong enough and tall enough to trap a timid fox terrier.

Tables: Inside, we have a hell of a lot of tables for such a simple game. They are done in the familiar white text on blue from the rulebooks, with the TARDIS interior behind. Working left to right, we have:

Panel One: At the top is a reminded of the basic rule for everything: Attribute Skill ( Trait) 2d6 = Result. Below is the table of difficulties and their examples, and below that is the result table, explaining the results from "Yes, And" down to "No, And". The examples for these are really important to have at hand, so well done on this panel.

Pictured: Panels One and Two.

Panel Two: This panel has six tables, expanding on the rules. Top left we have the success ladder in simple form, with just the numbers. To the right of that we have examples of things that might cause modifiers. Next row down we have the initiative order and random hit locations, and below that, weapon damage and examples of the kind of stats to use in different conflict situations. The last there seems a bit unnecessary but it could help a newbie who was suddenly lost about how a PC throws a punch. It would have been more useful if it had been closer to the table on Panel four which lists all the stats and skills, but anyway.

Panel Three: Now we move on to rules sub-systems. Top left we have examples of cover and armour stats. Top right is what happens to you when each of your stats hits zero. The bottom half summarises the Chase rules (although the rules for stunts and fighting during chases are reduced to a page reference) and these are accompanied by a table listing the terrain difficulties for said Chases - if you really want to complicate things up at high speeds. This seems a little unnecessary to me since there's already a modifier table above.

Pictured: Panels Three and Four.

Panel Four: Finally we get one of the most important tables of all: the tech level table. Since most PCs and NPCs will have this written down as a number and you need to know in an instant what modifiers to apply this is the Big Kahuna and good to see it here. To its right we have a summary of how much effect on the story you can achieve by spending various amounts of Story Points. This is fine but it's a very big table covering lots of examples and it is only half the job. The omission is a table summarising what else you can do with Story Points besides just story editing, such as getting clues from the GM, healing attribute losses, adding 2d6, etc. There are many of these and they weren't summarised in the RPG nor here, which is a missed opportunity (and it could have replaced the superfluous Terrain table, or the enormous and not nearly as useful armour table.)

Pictured: Too many tables. Yeah, I went there.

The very last table is a short but comprehensive index which almost makes up for the omissions. Which is nice.

Effect: Ideally, you want your screen to make you, the GM, appear sinister and mysterious, even malevolent. Here, you may be the judge:

Before screen: All smiles

After screen: Menacing mystique.

Taste:

My kitten finds the corners useful for cleaning her teeth but after only two licks of the surface, abandoned it in favour of licking her butt. You'll have to draw your own conclusions there, but thanks to the silky but strong gloss covering, cat spit wipes off very easily with a dry cloth. Coke would likewise do very little damage and wipe clean.

Can You Use It To Pretend to Be David Tennant and Impress Girls:

No.

Can You Use it To Pretend to Be the Flying Nun?

Oh hell yes.

Will Girls Be Impressed By Your Flying Nun Impression?

No.

Herendeththelesson.

Style: 5 (beautiful and sturdy as a fortress) Substance:4 (a good selection of tables) No animals were harmed in making this review.