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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MThibault" data-source="post: 399227" data-attributes="member: 7971">The publication I write reviews for is a print quarterly, devoted mainly to fantasy literature, but with a nice sized section for game reviews.  I get a small stack of review copies in the mail every 3 months or so, as do the other 3 or 4 regular reviewers, but we are asked to only write 2 or 3 reviews each.  (And being in print our editor cannot make exceptions for number or length of reviews, there are only so many pages to work with.)By necessity the reviews will see publication no sooner than 3 months after the freebies are received by the company (and usually closer to 6) -- if your product isn't going to be on the shelves in 6 months, or if it is a timely publication that will lose its relevance in half a year, we can't review it.Then, given the limited space, I really don't feel the need to write reviews for products that I don't like or I don't think are well done.  Why take the publicity away from what I feel are the better products?  So it might look to the reader as if I like almost everything I read, that is not the case, I just don't have the luxury of writing about things that I don't like.Believe me, if I were able to review everything I would have lots of opportunity to apply the harsher adjectives in my vocabulary.One final point, I don't write for publishers or necessarily even for hard-core gamers.  My audience is a casual gaming group at best -- they buy the magazine for the short fiction (Moorcock, DeLint, Richard Parks, et al.) and hopefully stick around for the game reviews.  So really, the majority of my readers aren't interested in hearing about elegant adaptations of the d20 mechanics, or the merits of a armor as damage avoidance vs. damage reduction or anything too technical.  They want to know if it is an interesting read and fun to play.  That's it, that's all.  My job is to try to elucidate why I enjoyed reading and playing it and guess what sort of other tastes it will satisfy.I know that doesn't sound terribly useful to the savvy publishers and players on these boards.  But, optimistically, if RPGs truly entered the mainstream with fantasy fiction, these sorts of reviews would be more and more common.  Just my 2 cents of experience.</blockquote>

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