Why I don't do reviews.

[jester47]

I have an opinion on most gaming products out there, but yesterday I realised why I don't write reviews.

I was looking over Complete Divine, thinking "hey there is information on relics in here. Well warrior was useful and I got it, so I might want to check it out." So I was paging through. At this point, I realised that I had some interesting criteria.

Can I do this book with another book I already have?
Does implementing stuff in this book make the game more complicated?
Are the rules elegant or are they Kludged?
How long will the book hold up?
Are they ignoring the last revision and printing anyway?
Can I make most of these monsters with slight variations of MM monsters?
Is this a nice to have or a good to have? (variation of need and nice often found in business spending)

But you are saying "but jester, those are great questions to ask and answer in a review." You are right. But guess what? If for me any of the answers to these questions is no, I don't buy the book. I stop reading the book. I put the book down and walk away. Complete Divine struck me as "I am never going to use this book extensively" and it had a rule in it that I thought complicated the game too much (relics).

So no review gets written.

But in the course of writing this I think I might write some reviews using those criteria. We'll see.

Aaron.

 

[BSF]

So you have an implied assertion that you will only be reviewing products that you will be coming at with a positive bias? I suppose that is true. In many cases you are not going to flip through a book and think "This looks like something I would never use. I'll buy it so I can find out how bad it is." So, it would be hard to have a negative review of a product because if it looked useless to you, you would never have bought it. Thus, the only negative reviews would be for books that looked promising and you felt cheated after the fact, bad gifts, or stuff that somebody might have sent you specifically as a review copy.

If nearly all of your reviews are going to begin with a positive bias, then it would seem to invalidate the review to some degree.

But if you have well-thought out opinions, and the desire to write reviews, I would still say you should do it. You will be growing the collective pool of knowledge for somebody else to look at and decide if the book might be for them.

Of course, this comes from somebody without any reviews. I just haven't been confident that I can coherently write out my thoughts on a book.

 

[jester47]

Thats exactly why I have not done any reviews. I was like, well, for what I own I already think its good cause I own it. So my review could simply be "here are my criteria. I own this book." and mark everything at a 4 or 5 star.

However as I was composing my first post, it struck me that I look at stuff a lot of other reviewers don't talk about, and I like a lot of books that other reviewers don't. So, in the end, I SHOULD be writing reviews. The other thing I am going to add to my reviews is Crunch, Fluff and Portability (that is how well can I integrate this into another campaign setting) factors.

I think my first review will be Serpent Kingdoms.

However, I do not think think I will follow the clear collected reviewer format. I think I will make declarations like "This book is smegging terrible." and then back them up. Or use phrases like "Who gives a fark about this?"

I think that will spice things up.

Aaron.

 

[Crothian]

Most people write postive reviews because of this very thing. People buy books they like, so reviews of said book tend to be favorible. There is nothing wrong with that. So, go write a review.

 

[philreed]

Most people write postive reviews because of this very thing. People buy books they like, so reviews of said book tend to be favorible. There is nothing wrong with that. So, go write a review.

And if they buy a book they expect to like, and then find it lacking in any way, the review turns into a rant. And providing reviewers with product doesn't always solve this problem (if they review the materials at all).

 

[Crothian]

And if they buy a book they expect to like, and then find it lacking in any way, the review turns into a rant. And providing reviewers with product doesn't always solve this problem (if they review the materials at all).

Ya, reviews are not always a solid way of figureing things out. I can unstand people spending 40$ on a book and being mad and ranty if they don't like it. It is unfortante when the review reads like that though.

As for the Staff Reviewers, ya it is a problem that we don't have enough time or ability to review everthing we are sent. I think this paractice has really given the Reviewers in gerneal a bad reputation from publishers. Hero games recently stoped sending to Reviewers and recruited specifically from their fan base for people to review their product for instance. As always if you have anyproblems with me specifically, fire off an e-mail to me. I am more then happy to talk to the publishers about reviews if they wish.

 

[philreed]

Ya, reviews are not always a solid way of figureing things out. I can unstand people spending 40$ on a book and being mad and ranty if they don't like it. It is unfortante when the review reads like that though.

As for the Staff Reviewers, ya it is a problem that we don't have enough time or ability to review everthing we are sent. I think this paractice has really given the Reviewers in gerneal a bad reputation from publishers. Hero games recently stoped sending to Reviewers and recruited specifically from their fan base for people to review their product for instance. As always if you have anyproblems with me specifically, fire off an e-mail to me. I am more then happy to talk to the publishers about reviews if they wish.

I don't have any specific problems with anyone. I've pretty much stopped sending any review copies after over 50 different PDFs sent to a few dozen reviewers -- in one month and at the request of the reviewers -- turned up less than a handful of reviews.

 

[Crothian]

I don't have any specific problems with anyone. I've pretty much stopped sending any review copies after over 50 different PDFs sent to a few dozen reviewers -- in one month and at the request of the reviewers -- turned up less than a handful of reviews.

Right and that's one of the problems and a big one at that. I personally rarely request a review copy from anyone. But the few times I do I make sure that I get a review of it. But I hear lots of stories similar to yours about reviewers that do not come through on reviews. I really wish there was a way to improve the responsibility of reviewers and hold them a little more accountible.

 

[Pramas]

And if they buy a book they expect to like, and then find it lacking in any way, the review turns into a rant.

Rant? Surely, you mean "valuable alternative opinion"?

 

[Bagpuss]

I've only written a few of reviews in my time (all before I changed my login name to Bagpuss), I sould really write more.

One OtherWorld Creations said they would send a review copy if someone would do a review, I got it for free and it took me a while to read through then I posted my review... it wasn't very favourable. Mainly because the adventure sold itself as stand-alone but really it was the third in a series (The Review). I gave it poor 2, but said it was probably worth a Good 4, to anyone that had played the others.

Another review was for Speaker in Dreams (My Review) which I gave an average, which is probably generous.

And a short one of Creature Collection (My review) which again was probably two generous, but there was little to compare it to at that time and in truth I still prefer it to the Monster Manual.

My experience with Acceptance of Fate, put me off ever asking for a review copy again, I felt guilty giving a bad review to something I got for free. Especially considering it wasn't that bad, just it was advertised on the back as being stand-alone when it clearly wasn't.

If I was going to review on how often a book gets used then pretty much everything would get poor marks since I haven't played D&D for near a year now.

Problem I find is I rarely feel motivated to review anything unless I really like it or really hate it so I think my review will alway be bias in some form. Adventures are the worse to review as how can you review it without giving too much away?