It occurred to me while reading Psion’s excellent review of the KoK Player’s Guide that the current product rating system (1-2-3-4-5) does not give me meaningful information about a product I may want to buy. I’ll explain.
I am not a Kalamar player, but I run a homebrew and I like to pick up setting books to raid for crunchy bits. Because I’m using them for cool new rules and ideas, their handling of the rules is paramount. I tend to throw out most of the setting fluff, and recycle just a few ideas. My guess is I’m not alone: there are probably lots and lots of DMs just as selective and omnivorous as me out there.
I was interested in the Player’s Guide but hadn’t been able to look at it yet, so I’ve been looking to reviews to help me decide if the book is worth my money. I’ve agreed with Psion’s reviews in the past, and jumped to his writeup as soon as I saw it. The rating was “good”, a “4”. Then I got to his critiques of the feats and prestige classes, the questionable spells and what sounds like wishy-washy design. For me, suddenly this product dropped to a “1”—I don’t need mediocre rules design. But for Kalamar players, this is a 4: it’s the book you need if you want to play in this setting.
Before a bunch of Kalamar players jump all over me, let me also say that I don’t mean to attack that book in particular, and I don’t think it’s a bad book, it’s just not for me. I don’t think the problem is the Player’s Guide itself; I think the problem is the single-axis rating system for all products.
Instead of ranking a product as “Good” or “Poor” in our minds, we’re really placing it on a matrix of three variables: quality, utility, and value. Quality in this sense means: How well did the designers execute on the product’s concept? Utility means: How useful is this product for its intended audience (not just for the reviewer)? Value means: how much bang do you get for your buck, in relation to comparable products?
Let’s imagine a product that doesn’t handle rules very well, but it’s a core product to a line and is priced well. It might look like this:
Quality: 2
Utility: 5
Value: 4
And then imagine a product that is designed and edited to the highest standard, but its subject matter is either so obscure (a mathematical analysis of divination spells) or so useless (96 pages of alternate uses for the Endurance feat) that it’s just not much use to the average D&D player. Assuming its price point is about average, it might look like so:
Quality: 5
Utility: 1
Value: 3
And finally imagine a product that’s dirt cheap—it’s photocopied on the school Xerox—but it’s only marginally useful to D&D players (its intended audience) and the rules and editing are only average. It might look like this:
Quality: 3
Utility: 2
Value: 5
I realize this system will never actually get implemented—there’s all those legacy reviews to worry about, and you'd probably need to at least tweak the existing code, plus change the back end to store and search on the additional data—but a guy can dream, can’t he?
I am not a Kalamar player, but I run a homebrew and I like to pick up setting books to raid for crunchy bits. Because I’m using them for cool new rules and ideas, their handling of the rules is paramount. I tend to throw out most of the setting fluff, and recycle just a few ideas. My guess is I’m not alone: there are probably lots and lots of DMs just as selective and omnivorous as me out there.
I was interested in the Player’s Guide but hadn’t been able to look at it yet, so I’ve been looking to reviews to help me decide if the book is worth my money. I’ve agreed with Psion’s reviews in the past, and jumped to his writeup as soon as I saw it. The rating was “good”, a “4”. Then I got to his critiques of the feats and prestige classes, the questionable spells and what sounds like wishy-washy design. For me, suddenly this product dropped to a “1”—I don’t need mediocre rules design. But for Kalamar players, this is a 4: it’s the book you need if you want to play in this setting.
Before a bunch of Kalamar players jump all over me, let me also say that I don’t mean to attack that book in particular, and I don’t think it’s a bad book, it’s just not for me. I don’t think the problem is the Player’s Guide itself; I think the problem is the single-axis rating system for all products.
Instead of ranking a product as “Good” or “Poor” in our minds, we’re really placing it on a matrix of three variables: quality, utility, and value. Quality in this sense means: How well did the designers execute on the product’s concept? Utility means: How useful is this product for its intended audience (not just for the reviewer)? Value means: how much bang do you get for your buck, in relation to comparable products?
Let’s imagine a product that doesn’t handle rules very well, but it’s a core product to a line and is priced well. It might look like this:
Quality: 2
Utility: 5
Value: 4
And then imagine a product that is designed and edited to the highest standard, but its subject matter is either so obscure (a mathematical analysis of divination spells) or so useless (96 pages of alternate uses for the Endurance feat) that it’s just not much use to the average D&D player. Assuming its price point is about average, it might look like so:
Quality: 5
Utility: 1
Value: 3
And finally imagine a product that’s dirt cheap—it’s photocopied on the school Xerox—but it’s only marginally useful to D&D players (its intended audience) and the rules and editing are only average. It might look like this:
Quality: 3
Utility: 2
Value: 5
I realize this system will never actually get implemented—there’s all those legacy reviews to worry about, and you'd probably need to at least tweak the existing code, plus change the back end to store and search on the additional data—but a guy can dream, can’t he?
