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RPG Reviews
The following document is only a guide; it’s been written for curious, whether they’re other reviewers, angry authors or busy fulfilment houses. GameWyrd’s been posting reviews since late 2001 and in that time the Wyrdmaster has put together a system, a check list, that tries to fairly condense an opinion of a gaming product into a numerical score.
There’s an incredible range of rules, supplements and accessories; it’s not easy to rate a hardback of 300+ pages on the same scale as a 16-paged quarter size booklet, or a full colour and cheap PDF on the same scale as an expensive, lightly illustrated paperback. It’s not easy to rate a product as a score out of ten at all.
It’s impossible to compare these widely different products. Apples and oranges. There’s no such thing as Average.
It is possible to compare what a product actually manages to achieve with what it promises to do. This evaluation provides the core score, anywhere between 1/10 and 5/10. A product that professionally manages to achieve that it sets out to reaches a starting place of 5/10 but one that misses the boat entirely suffers an initial score of 1/10.
Examples
| 1) | “Popeye: An introduction to sailor classes” contained only water based magic, stats for dolphins and ship floor plans then it would receive an initial score of 1/10. Water magic, dolphins and ships are all things we might associate with sailors but the book doesn’t have any information on sailor classes and therefore failed to achieve its basic requirements.
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| 2) | “Popeye: An introduction to sailor classes” begins with game mechanics for a sailing character class, contains some examples of the sort of tasks and challenges a sailor faces on any voyage and then the bulk of the book continues to describe aquatic monsters and water deities. We might award this book an initial score of 3/10. There is some sailor class content here; it’s more than just lip service but only just.
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| 3) | “Popeye: An introduction to sailor classes” explains the role of typical sailors, the first mate, the ship’s captain and carpenter. Game mechanics for all four roles are provided. The book provides rules for seafaring aquatic fantasy races. This time Popeye’s achieved the best possible start of 5/10.
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Successes and problems in the product are used to modify this starting score. Successes increase the score and problems decrease it. In the first example Popeye gets off to an awful start but if its rules for water magic, dolphins and ship floor plans are especially useful then the product is likely to climb higher than 1/10. Similarly, in the case of example three, the book costs twice as much as products with similar page count, cover, colour and bindings and if the main rules for sailor classes are incomplete or unbalanced then the overall score may go down.
Not all successes are equally important nor are all problems equally severe. It should take a notable success to push a product high up the scale and it should take a particularly serious fault to drag a score very low.
Examples
| Serious Problems: | Inappropriately expensive, “Hey! I could have written this!”, product falling to pieces, indecipherable/broken game mechanics, regurgitated content, useless. |
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Problems: | Expensive, Excessive typos, poorly illustrated, poor cartography, unoriginal, dumbed-down, hard to navigate, poor layout, clumsy mechanics, encourages or rewards poor gaming habits, over complicates the game, dodgy advice for the GM, boring. |
| Successes: | Original, top quality illustrations, top quality cartography, slick and smooth new game mechanics, solves a tough problem, rich and engaging flavour, intelligent, good value for money, lots of open content, easy to read, encourages or rewards good gaming habits, helpful advice for the GM.
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Strong successes: | Slick and smooth new game mechanics that solve a particularly bad game fault, cliche busting, great value for money, inspirational. |
Putting the examples together
“Popeye: An introduction to sailor classes” begins with game mechanics for a sailing character class, contains some examples of the sort of tasks and challenges a sailor faces on any voyage and then the bulk of the book continues to describe aquatic monsters and water deities (3/10). The sailor class works well and is genuinely different from the other classes initially available in the game (4/10). The chapter on water deities provides a neat answer for why the aquatic gods don’t appear to be in the main pantheon and make it possible to now play a sea priest (5/10). The monsters are wonderfully illustrated and are complete with game balanced stats (6/10). The book seems too expensive for a 64-paged supplement (5/10).
Observations
There’s room for subjectivity; a reviewer may disagree with a reader as to what represents good value for money or what’s a poor gaming habit.
Accessory products will find it easy to reach the initial score of 5/10 but then find it difficult to move up from there. The Tome of Cheesecakes will be able to reach 5/10 by professionally listing a collection of cheesecakes but will struggle to come up with original content or solve a nagging problem.
Translating the scoring system to a 1-5 scale really only involves halving the 1-10 rating.
The numerical score isn't half as important as the actual review.
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