D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[FitzTheRuke]

I know. It wasn't an entirely serious post.

You're right that it seems to look like that's the method. Having a store, I always laugh at Google Out-of-Five Reviews, too. Most of the time, we get 5-star reviews: "Great Selection well organized!" or we get 1-star reviews, "The guy at the counter was eating his LUNCH! AIIEEEE!!" (True story).

But, I mean, c'mon - we probably deserve 3's and 4's, really don't we? To me, 3 oughta be "perfectly fine" and 4 oughta be "better organized than most places, staff helped me out". 5 really oughta be "Above and Beyond". But that's not how the world works these days! If it's not 10/10, IT'S CRAP.

 

[Burnside]

I agree with a fair amount of the Alexandrian's adventure critiques, and in each one there is stuff I don't agree with.

What I really, really appreciate, though, is that he actually reads the adventure, cover to cover, before reviewing it. For some reason, so few "reviewers" of WotC stuff can actually be bothered to do that. So often something billed as a "review" turns out to be a "quick flip-through" looking at some art and the table of contents and making uninformed pronouncements about what might be going on in the book. I have no idea why that's considered acceptable at all.

 

[edosan]

What I really, really appreciate, though, is that he actually reads the adventure, cover to cover, before reviewing it. For some reason, so few "reviewers" of WotC stuff can actually be bothered to do that. So often something billed as a "review" turns out to be a "quick flip-through" looking at some art and the table of contents and making uninformed pronouncements about what might be going on in the book. I have no idea why that's considered acceptable at all.

Usually when I try to research a product I get exactly that - really more a press release that a review.

I know they’re not going to actually run the adventure before writing something, but I’d like a little more than the first impressions I could get while flipping through a book at B&N.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah, I mean, JA is certainly abrasive, but his review seemed like some good criticisms on what might make the DM's life harder if they try to run this adventure. Unnecessarily harder. Most of what he advocates just seem like Best Practices to me. Obviously the "F" letter score is hyperbole, along with a lot of other hyperbole, but I find that kind of exaggeration easy to ignore myself. I don't need to agree with the entire article to agree with some of the points he's making.

 

[jasper]

He missed a big one. Chapter 2 and 5 have towns people. Some of chapter 5 people are not mentioned at all in Chapter 2 but they should have been. Like the owner of the Sleeping Giant.

 

[MerricB]

I agree with a fair amount of the Alexandrian's adventure critiques, and in each one there is stuff I don't agree with.

What I really, really appreciate, though, is that he actually reads the adventure, cover to cover, before reviewing it. For some reason, so few "reviewers" of WotC stuff can actually be bothered to do that. So often something billed as a "review" turns out to be a "quick flip-through" looking at some art and the table of contents and making uninformed pronouncements about what might be going on in the book. I have no idea why that's considered acceptable at all.

RPG reviews are so incredibly hard to do well. Even Justin's review is based on a read-through, not on how it works in play.

Have I managed to write a review of a 5E hardcover? I don't think so - though having run Tyranny of Dragons and Curse of Strahd three times each, I think I could do them now. (I might have done so... can't remember).

It's important to remember that there are four categories of RPG products (simplified, I know):

• Reads well, plays well
• Reads well, plays bad
• Reads bad, plays well
• Reads bad, plays bad

And those can really trip you up when reviewing. I've spent a lot of time paying attention to the computer game space recently, and there are massive amounts of hours that go into the game reviews, especially when you get games like Baldur's Gate 3. And those are relatively easy, since they are just one person spending the time - consider that to properly do a playthrough review of a 4-hour adventure, you probably need five people to spend 4 hours each! (At the same time).

But most of the "reviews" that get posted on big gaming sites for the new hardcovers aren't much in depth. They probably haven't had the book for that long, either.

I run adventures much faster than most people, and it still took 40 hours to play through Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Once I finish writing up the session reports, I really should get around to writing a proper review of it.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Stormonu]

That's a shame. When I became the head of purchasing for our library, I made sure that we started getting more gaming books.
You can likely check the website of your library to see if there are online request forms for Interlibrary Loan. I may end up sending you a book from our library.

If anything, I have books to loan them. Honestly, about a month ago was the first time I stopped by my local library in the last 10-15 years as my personal library has always been more extensive than anything I could get from them (gaming or non-gaming). As of my last visit, that still seems to be the case, though I was shocked that they actually had any gaming books at all. Which is sad, as I used to love going to the local library back when I lived in California - and I distinctly remember checking out the 1E DMG from that library in Prunedale.

Doing a bit of checking, the city library does have an Interlibrary Loan system. Don't see one for the rural one, however.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

• Reads well, plays well
• Reads well, plays bad
• Reads bad, plays well
• Reads bad, plays bad

And then you gotta think: Did the DM MAKE it play well, using their own skills, and did the adventure actively fight them doing it - but they pulled it off anyway? Or did it help them? AND what part of THAT can be properly objectified (and not just DM-preference or Table preference).

 

[Burnside]

RPG reviews are so incredibly hard to do well. Even Justin's review is based on a read-through, not on how it works in play.

Have I managed to write a review of a 5E hardcover? I don't think so - though having run Tyranny of Dragons and Curse of Strahd three times each, I think I could do them now. (I might have done so... can't remember).

It's important to remember that there are four categories of RPG products (simplified, I know):

• Reads well, plays well
• Reads well, plays bad
• Reads bad, plays well
• Reads bad, plays bad

And those can really trip you up when reviewing. I've spent a lot of time paying attention to the computer game space recently, and there are massive amounts of hours that go into the game reviews, especially when you get games like Baldur's Gate 3. And those are relatively easy, since they are just one person spending the time - consider that to properly do a playthrough review of a 4-hour adventure, you probably need five people to spend 4 hours each! (At the same time).

But most of the "reviews" that get posted on big gaming sites for the new hardcovers aren't much in depth. They probably haven't had the book for that long, either.

I run adventures much faster than most people, and it still took 40 hours to play through Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Once I finish writing up the session reports, I really should get around to writing a proper review of it.

Cheers,
Merric

I do appreciate the difficulty, and yours were some of the earliest and best 5E reviews I've read (mainly for DMsGuild stuff). But while recognizing the difficulty and knowing that playing through before reviewing is too much to ask, I really don't think it's too much to ask at all to have the reviewer at least have read the book they claim to be reviewing. If they haven't had the book long enough to read it, okay - then they haven't had it long enough to review it, and shouldn't.

 

[mamba]

RPG reviews are so incredibly hard to do well. Even Justin's review is based on a read-through, not on how it works in play.

not sure how much more value one playthrough adds over a thorough read-through, playthroughs can vary widely between groups and DMs