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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faraer" data-source="post: 2493746" data-attributes="member: 6318">The review is a time-honoured medium; unfortunately most online 'reviews' are nothing of the kind, these two among them.Ryan's précis of the Old World tacitly attributes its own simplisticness to its subject and entirely fails to discuss the way in which the Warhammer world combines its inspirations, i.e. its actual implementation. He similarly doesn't comment on the introductory short story or the adventure. The second two-thirds which ostensibly evaluates the game's mechanics -- which indicates Ryan's biases in itself -- reads like a thought-experiment in tunnel vision. Yes, you can interpret everything in relation to d20, but so what, and why does that perspective belong in a review? The 'derivative of D&D' comment is demonstrably wrong ('clever' is a classic snide put-down, and may be here). There are too many factual mistakes, undeclared biases (though Ryan sees fit to go into Chris Pramas's background) passed off as facts, and non sequiturs ('it remains to be seen if that tone still resonates with today's gamers... the game is certain to generate a large and active player network') for a piece which adopts a tone of objectivity.The first half of the Old World Bestiary 'review' is a reiteration of the book's contents (the current trend in RPG 'reviews'). The second half describes the main part of the book as 'average or below-average quality, stream of conscious, intentionally error-riddled fiction' -- a useless remark unless we're told how it is average or below-average -- gives a pointlessly brief evaluation of the Warhammer world, says 'The value for the price is just not justified' without saying why not, then lists things that Ryan would have liked to see in the book -- two of them fair requests, the others taking WFRP for D&D (a treasure-winning game with many magic items).The Renaissance is so called because members of the urban elite classes adopted the conceit that their age was a revival of ancient Greek and Roman culture; almost no one now thinks it actually was.</blockquote>

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