Unpopular Opinion: People Shouldn't Review Adventures They Haven't Run

My take on this is that as long as I know where the reviewer is coming from, I can get something out of the review. If I know that the reviewer has only read the adventure, then I know I'm going to get an overview of the plot and some impressions that have no play informing them. If I know that the reviewer has played the adventure, then I know that I'll also get some impressions that have some play informing them.

But even in the latter case - I usually don't know enough about the reviewer to know if their "at the table" impressions are important for my consideration. Not everyone runs games the same way - the differences of opinion on how D&D should be played just on this site would be enough for me to know that a reviewer's impression at the table may not mean anything at all for how it runs at my table (if I didn't already have decades of experience with different tables also making that obvious, I guess).

So for me all reviews are valuable because they can give me an overall impression of the product but all reviews are also simultaneously nearly useless because they can tell me almost nothing about what my group's actual play experience with the product is going to be. Given that reviews for me essentially become "advertisements" - informing me about products that exist that I might not be able to get my hands on to flip through myself. (So reviews of official D&D adventures are less valuable than reviews of, say, adventures on DM's Guild because I can walk into literally any Barnes and Noble in town, buy a cup of coffee, and read it for myself and get a better impression of whether it will work for me than any review might give me. Reviews of DM's Guild products OTOH can help separate wheat from chaff).

I agree, Seth Skorkowsky's YouTube channel is pretty darn good - it's both entertaining and thoughtful. His War Stories are particularly amusing. The Scott Brown Incident is absolutely hilarious.

As for the topic at hand, I've got mixed feelings. On the one, with shorter adventurers, yeah, I think you should run it before reviewing it. But with larger modules, that's a tough call - would people be okay with waiting a year or more for the first reviews of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus?

I think it's possible to review an adventure without running it, but the quality of the review will be different. I could tell that Hoard of the Dragon Queen was a very linear adventure by reading it. What I couldn't have known was the stress that it would evoke in the players as they spent much of the module in fear of losing the trail when we played through it.

Arilyn said:

I appreciate Seth Skorkowsy's reviews on You Tube. He never reviews a module unless he's run it. And he has great ideas for tweaking or reworking things to make adventures better.

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Previews not reviews are a really good idea.

Unfortunately I think anyone out there reviewing these things are mostly at the mercy of the search algorithms. And if they want to stay relevant they must talk about a module while it is still "hot". And I am betting the word review is more search friendly then preview is.

Another irritating problem we have in the digital age.

Superbeast20 said:

Previews not reviews are a really good idea.

Unfortunately I think anyone out there reviewing these things are mostly at the mercy of the search algorithms. And if they want to stay relevant they must talk about a module while it is still "hot". And I am betting the word review is more search friendly then preview is.

Another irritating problem we have in the digital age.

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If your only goal is to get those hot, up to the minute pages views, likes or whatever, I probably don't care what you have to say anyway. In 5 years no one is going to go back and watch your 5 minute surface skim "review" of Descent into Avernus. But in 5 years people will go back to watch your 4 year old in depth review based on actual play because people thinking about buying it in 5 years will want to know if it's actually worth their time and money because it isn't the new shiny.

I generally don't review things as a policy, but I might make an exception for Dragon heist since running it illuminated a whole host of things about the module that were not obvious on a read through.

Reynard said:

If your only goal is to get those hot, up to the minute pages views, likes or whatever, I probably don't care what you have to say anyway. In 5 years no one is going to go back and watch your 5 minute surface skim "review" of Descent into Avernus. But in 5 years people will go back to watch your 4 year old in depth review based on actual play because people thinking about buying it in 5 years will want to know if it's actually worth their time and money because it isn't the new shiny.

I generally don't review things as a policy, but I might make an exception for Dragon heist since running it illuminated a whole host of things about the module that were not obvious on a read through.

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DO IT DO IT. REVIEW that so called Heist.

Reynard said:

If your only goal is to get those hot, up to the minute pages views, likes or whatever, I probably don't care what you have to say anyway. In 5 years no one is going to go back and watch your 5 minute surface skim "review" of Descent into Avernus. But in 5 years people will go back to watch your 4 year old in depth review based on actual play because people thinking about buying it in 5 years will want to know if it's actually worth their time and money because it isn't the new shiny.

I generally don't review things as a policy, but I might make an exception for Dragon heist since running it illuminated a whole host of things about the module that were not obvious on a read through.

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People looking at your article 5 years from now doesn't help them grow their channel today.

I totally want those in-depth reviews. It is hard to figure out what module is actually good. How was Saltwater Marsh? Who knows? Reading the module seems like the only thing anyone has time for.

I prefer to form my own opinion after Ive already bought something. Most online reviews, message board comments and articles seem to lean more towards the subjective side these days. There seems to be more and more "news" articles that lack any citations to fact check. Same could be said for some RPG reviews most of it comes down to personal preference.

R_J_K75 said:

I prefer to form my own opinion after Ive already bought something. Most online reviews, message board comments and articles seem to lean more towards the subjective side these days. There seems to be more and more "news" articles that lack any citations to fact check. Same could be said for some RPG reviews most of it comes down to personal preference.

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That's fine if someone is going to buy it anyway, but for folks on the fence and/or with limited disposable income good reviews perform an important function.

Reynard said:

That's fine if someone is going to buy it anyway, but for folks on the fence and/or with limited disposable income good reviews perform an important function.

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Fair enough, I'll concede as your point is valid as long as its from a reputable source. I suppose weeding out the reputable sources is the hard part. I always laugh when a product on Amazon has 2000+ 5 star reviews then the 3 people who give it 1 star; I equate those 3 people who give it 1 star to user error.

jasper said:

..Unbox? Excellent idea... BARF! I wish I could put people who post unboxing videos in a pine box, what has been boarded shut with rusty nails.

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Unboxing for books/adventures is stupid. Unboxing for board games, OTOH, is great. Reviews can tell you about mechanics and skill levels, but seeing the hardware is often the thing that pushed me one way or the other on a board game purchase. And unboxing videos for kids toys is an absolute must; they have literally saved Christmas for me.

R_J_K75 said:

I always laugh when a product on Amazon has 2000+ 5 star reviews then the 3 people who give it 1 star; I equate those 3 people who give it 1 star to user error.

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5 star reviews are the ones paid for by the seller. 1 star reviews are the ones who couldn't figure out how it worked or ordered the wrong thing. 2-4 star reviews are the ones that actually tell you something about the product.