D&D (2024) Are you going to buy the new 2024 D&D Core Books

[Incenjucar]

We can generally assume that, once someone has an option, they do not like having it invalidated or taken away, regardless of what that option is.

 

[tetrasodium]

If you don't intend to base your decision on reviews, and also have not absolutely decided one way or the other, then no accurate answer is possible and you're left with picking the least-wrong option.

I wish people would stop inserting unnecessary qualifiers/explanations into poll options. It almost always results in a poll that excludes a big swath of options.

gaming journalism tends to have a well deserved reputation with "reviews". Word of mouth community interaction* & observed discussions tend to hold much more weight with good reason. It's a reasonable nit to pick.

* like local gaming community we interact with

 

[Ruin Explorer]

gaming journalism tends to have a well deserved reputation with "reviews". Word of mouth community interaction & observed discussions tend to hold much more weight with good reason. It's a reasonable nit to pick

I mean, that's not really true with TT RPGs.

There is almost no gaming journalism with TT RPGs except, pretty much ENworld's coverage and Linda Codega's coverage for Kotaku, and the occasional article in videogame-oriented sites. Maybe Bell of Lost Souls, but they tend to be shallow as a puddle.

So there's no "well deserved reputation" with hate-quotes "reviews". That's just simply not true.

The problem we do see with community reviewing is that with D&D, 90% of the people who "review" D&D products are hyperfans, and not interested in any kind of serious critique or analysis, usually just in listing all the stuff that's in a book, and maybe saying who it will most appeal to.

Community word-of-mouth and discussions can be frustratingly similar to that, with a lot of people who feel the need to be aggressively dismissive towards critiques or analysis of new products, and only interested in litanies of features or "positive discussion" about those products. Neither is of which is necessarily really helpful to actually understanding their value.

 

[tetrasodium]

I mean, that's not really true with TT RPGs.

There is almost no gaming journalism with TT RPGs except, pretty much ENworld's coverage and Linda Codega's coverage for Kotaku, and the occasional article in videogame-oriented sites. Maybe Bell of Lost Souls, but they tend to be shallow as a puddle.

So there's no "well deserved reputation" with hate-quotes "reviews". That's just simply not true.

The problem we do see with community reviewing is that with D&D, 90% of the people who "review" D&D products are hyperfans, and not interested in any kind of serious critique or analysis, usually just in listing all the stuff that's in a book, and maybe saying who it will most appeal to.

Community word-of-mouth and discussions can be frustratingly similar to that, with a lot of people who feel the need to be aggressively dismissive towards critiques or analysis of new products, and only interested in litanies of features or "positive discussion" about those products. Neither is of which is necessarily really helpful to actually understanding their value.

That bold bit was my point, I was including things like the local gaming community of people that a lot of us interact with under "community interaction" though.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I mean, that's not really true with TT RPGs.

There is almost no gaming journalism with TT RPGs except, pretty much ENworld's coverage and Linda Codega's coverage for Kotaku, and the occasional article in videogame-oriented sites. Maybe Bell of Lost Souls, but they tend to be shallow as a puddle.

So there's no "well deserved reputation" with hate-quotes "reviews". That's just simply not true.

The problem we do see with community reviewing is that with D&D, 90% of the people who "review" D&D products are hyperfans, and not interested in any kind of serious critique or analysis, usually just in listing all the stuff that's in a book, and maybe saying who it will most appeal to.

Community word-of-mouth and discussions can be frustratingly similar to that, with a lot of people who feel the need to be aggressively dismissive towards critiques or analysis of new products, and only interested in litanies of features or "positive discussion" about those products. Neither is of which is necessarily really helpful to actually understanding their value.

The biggest issue with AP and adventure reviews is that, they are written by people that have never run them and if they did would be unlikely to run them straight. This is partially the nature of the product and partially the nature of the type of people that have an online presence.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The biggest issue with AP and adventure reviews is that, they are written by people that have never run them and if they did would be unlikely to run them straight. This is partially the nature of the product and partially the nature of the type of people that have an online presence.

Indeed, and what we pretty much always see, a few months after an AP comes out is people writing threads about how they fixed the AP, or asking for help fixing it and often talking about the huge gaps in it. I do think it's very much part of the "People who have an online presence" issue too, because a lot of them have a brand, and that brand would be damaged if they rubbished a WotC AP, even if they were right to do so.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Indeed, and what we pretty much always see, a few months after an AP comes out is people writing threads about how they fixed the AP, or asking for help fixing it and often talking about the huge gaps in it. I do think it's very much part of the "People who have an online presence" issue too, because a lot of them have a brand, and that brand would be damaged if they rubbished a WotC AP, even if they were right to do so.

Well yes, but based on my (albeit limited) experience with APs, they often do not need the fixes provided as the thing fixed are issues relating to specific playstyles, lore, onboarding etc.
None are of the type that would be actually useful. Like "The Boss fight at the end of chapter 4 is really good if the party is of level X but can be shut down by a cleric with spell Y and if you want to make it more dynamic use the following tactics...."

 

[Parmandur]

The biggest issue with AP and adventure reviews is that, they are written by people that have never run them and if they did would be unlikely to run them straight. This is partially the nature of the product and partially the nature of the type of people that have an online presence.

More like cookbook reviews than fiction or movie reviews.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well yes, but based on my (albeit limited) experience with APs, they often do not need the fixes provided as the thing fixed are issues relating to specific playstyles, lore, onboarding etc.

My experience is more that the fixes are necessary, and are things like "the adventure abruptly stops at this point and essentially says "fill in the blanks" at this point, for like two levels of XP, then starts up again".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

More like cookbook reviews than fiction or movie reviews.

Cookbook reviews by Michelin Starred chefs that never use cookbooks.