We have commented in-house that Game Ideas Unlimited Volume 1 has not gotten much attention, at least in terms of sales.  It was admittedly an experiment–those of you who visit this site are undoubtedly aware that this book contains twenty-six of the roughly two hundred articles in that series, all of which are available on this web site for the individual patient enough to seek them, and indeed the ones included in this first volume easier to find than most, as work has already been done to clean up the articles themselves and the access links to reach them.  Thus on one level we’re not all that surprised that the book, available here directly through Cafe Press, has not been selling well.  On the other hand, we’ve also wondered whether we had adequately promoted the tome, indeed, whether gamers were at all aware of the effort.

One way to raise awareness is by getting reviews posted.  It is not always easy for authors to get reviews of their works; however, in the role playing game world there are sites eager to post reviews, and one in particular which is rather popular and which guarantees that any game-related books it receives will be reviewed.  We have dithered about sending a copy, because of course we have to pay for copies and are still uncertain how the book will be received by gamers generally (and reviewers in particular), but at this weekend’s Annual Stockholders Meeting, after being elected one of two new directors, former and now returning director Evan Young directed me to stop dithering and get the book to them.  After all, even a bad review would promote the availability of the book, and we do have confidence that the contents of the book are particularly good.  The doubts which arise come primarily from the question of whether anyone else will think it a good idea to release in print for money what is already available free electronically and has been for most of a decade.  Thus today I finished packing and mailing a copy of the book to the site in question.  It will take this week to arrive, additional time to be assigned to a reviewer, and ultimately will be reviewed.  I am watchful.

As long as I was sending a package anyway, and paying for postage and packing from my own pocket, I included a copy of Faith and Gaming, which is available here, for which I have similar concerns, although this has sold a few copies probably to members of the Christian Gamers Guild who consider the series one of their strongest assets and view the availability of the book as a boon even though the series has long been hosted in the Chaplain’s Corner of their web site.  Thus this has the double whammy, first that it is a collection of materials already available free on the Internet, and second that it is very clearly a Christian book about role play gaming, which can very quickly garner animosity in the gaming community.  But again, a review will put the book in the public eye, and to some degree a reviewer who is not “religious” himself cannot slam a religious book without blackening his own reputation, so hopefully it will get a fair treatment.

On that note, I wait.

–M. J. Young

Sometimes it feels to me as if I have not accomplished much–particularly when I wind up collapsing early, then going on late-night errands, then sleeping well into the next afternoon only to commit to long errands on behalf of others.  However, review of the facts suggests otherwise.

At some time within the last twenty-four hours I finished reading a book I have promised to review.  It was an allegorical science fantasy illustrated novel by a writer I know somewhat personally (never met but have corresponded), whose work I have reviewed before.  I’m not certain when I’ll get to the review, as I’ve a lot on my plate at the moment, but I will get to it.

I also returned my attention to the Multiverser Triple Play:  Horror supplement.  What I did was copy all the notes from the development forum to a document on my hard drive.  I was fighting a headache yesterday which is attributable to the fact that the disruptions of the day prevented me ever from getting a cup of coffee, and so I did not feel up to making all the checks as to what still had to be done with those notes.  However, it’s a step in the right direction, and as things appear now sometime after Ubercon I may be able to make progress on it.

I also provided an extensive response to questions about a developing temporal anomalies analysis of The Last Mimzy, which took probably an hour or so from today’s precious time but will mean a new page on the Temporal Anomalies site which might garner some traffic and interest in turn in the Multiverser books.

I’ve agreed to pick up the girlfriend of one of my sons tonight; he has agreed to help keep the dishes under control all weekend.  If he hasn’t got them under control before nine I guess I’m not going, and I’ll have more time to work, but I am hoping that he is sufficiently motivated by the desire to have her visit that he will get to them in time.

I’m also committed to a Collision concert tomorrow night, sans drums or major amplifiers, at the church coffeehouse.  They do this once or twice a year.  Brittany has a school assignment that requires her to be at another location fairly early, so we’re going to have to ask to be at the beginning of the night, but I think they’ll accommodate us.  Last night’s rehearsal went quite well, thank you, and I’m comfortable with our ability to do these two songs at a performance quality level.

I’m not as confident in my ability to finish everything else that must be done, however, so I’d better get to it.

–M. J. Young

Hi, all.  Walter O’Hara here, the GO miniatures reviewer.  I’ve
just received my first shipment of minis to review for the GO site.  As I
was unpacking the box, I realized that there is such a wide variance in the
size, heft, and quality of miniatures that would I need to establish an
body of metrics for judging miniatures by.  Hopefully
you’re so awed by my casual use of the word “metrics” that you won’t realize
this is just a fancy-schmancy term for a “yardstick.”   Can you tell I’m a
consultant in real life?

The first rule of doing anything well is to see if there’s somebody who
thought of it first.  Fortunately, in this instance there was.  Mr.
Toby Barrett, philosopher, gentleman, sculptor, ACW Naval Enthusiast (and,
important to this article frequent contributor to the Courier Magazine) is
the head of the one-man band operation known as Thoroughbred Miniatures. 
If you haven’t seen Thoroughbred ACW Minis, visit the website, they
are a treat.   Toby often wrote for the miniature wargame magazine COURIER
in the past, frequently expressing confusion and frustration with the incredible
scale variance between two figures that purport to be cast in the same
scale.  So, at editor Dick Bryant’s suggestion, Toby developed what’s
commonly referred to as the Barrett Measurement Scale
(BMS).  Toby’s scale is quote widely in the hobby press, even if
his initial goals in creating it were more modest than what has developed
later.

The BMS measures a figure from the bottom of the foot to the eyes. The
stand itself is omitted in the measurement, however, an over thick stand
should be noted in any review. The eye level was chosen simply because it was
impossible to establish the top of the head of figures due to the fact that so
many different caps, helmets, and headdresses were being wore thus obscuring
the top of the head. This measurement (in millimeters) can best be derived by
choosing a figure standing reasonably tall and straight versus bending over. A
second - and more abstract - value is assigned to the figures heft; light - L,
medium - M, or heavy - H, and only describes how thin or chunky the figure
appears. (These codes basically match what is used today in describing a man’s
build, light, medium or heavy.) Thus, a 26H rating means the figure is 26
millimeters in height from bottom of the foot to the level of the eyeballs,
and is relatively a thick casting when compared to most figures……. 19L
means 19 millimeters and a light or thin casting…..and so on. The heftiness
rating is more arbitrarily derived. (Toby’s words, from a recent
email) 

We will adopt the BMS as a method of reviewing miniatures (hopefully)
somewhat objectively.  To recap, the data elements we capture for reviews
are:

Height (BMS): A numeric value derived from measuring the
figure with a ruler (a number)
Heft (BMS): An
subjective value that the reviewer assigns meaning how “chunky” the figure is
(L,M or H)
Thick Stands (Y/N)? Does the figure come
with a thick stand, thus affecting its overall height measure? (Y or
N)

To this lot I will also add a few of my own:

Quality: Defined as the physical quality of the casting…
any flashing that needs cleaning? Did the piece arrive intact?  Anything
missing? (1-5 on where 5 means “Best”)

Proportion: Is the figure proportioned correctly?  Are
all body parts in scale with each other?  (1-5 on where 5 means
“Totally in Proportion”, 1 means “Disjointed and Wacky”)

Line: Is this miniature part of a supported series? 
Will there be more of them?  (narrative answer)

Sculpting: Is the figure animated correctly, based upon the
description of what the figure is supposed to be doing?  Is the sculpture
crude, or detailed?  Does the artist convey what the designer’s intent?
(narrative answer)

Painting: Any difficulties painting?  Are there
painting resources included with the minis (or available separately?)
(narrative answer)

That’s that.  Hopefully the adoption of an objective set of metrics will
make miniatures easier to review, not harder!

This week’s column was supposed to be about genre. You know, picking a genre for your game that’s expansive enough to fit a wide audience so you can actually make money in this little hobby of ours.

But then things came up.

Those of you who check out rpg.net on a regular basis may know what I’m talking about.

I wigged out.

Lost my temper.

Made an ass of myself.

But before we go too far in that direction, let’s talk about one aspect of game design you never consider until it’s far too late.

Let’s talk about reviews.

First off, I never read reviews.

At least, until recently, I never read reviews.

The reason is simple. I don’t like the assumption that I need someone else telling me what to like.

And, let’s face it, that’s the whole purpose of a review. “Should you buy this? Yes or no?” That’s the game.

Of course, it’s a lot of fun encouraging other folks to go out and buy something that you really liked. When I was working at SHADIS, I had a lot of fun reviewing games under many different pseudonyms. The SHADIS policy was simple: “If you can’t find something good to say, don’t say anything at all.” The worst kind of review in SHADIS was not finding it in the pages of the magazine. That meant we couldn’t find anyone in the office to write a positive review.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with that policy. In fact, if we want to be honest with each other, which I think we do, it’s a whole lot more fun writing a bad review than a good one.

Trust me.

It’s a whole lot of fun to trash a book/game/movie/TV show. Tear it down, smash it up, stomp on it, pull out it’s heart and eat it for breakfast. That’s what some people think a review is for: getting their jollies off pissing in somebody else’s Cheerios.

Well, I’m here to let you know that is not what reviews are for.

I could talk to you ‘till I was plaid in the face about the difference between a good reviewer or a bad reviewer. Instead, I’ll show you the difference.

Right here, I’m making history.

I’m going to review 7th Sea.

My own game.

In fact, I’m reviewing it twice.

A bad review and a good review.

I don’t think anyone’s ever done this before. I may be wrong, but then again, it doesn’t matter. The whole point here is to show you what a reviewer’s job is. To show you the difference.

So…

On your mark…

Get set…

Go!

We’ve heard a lot about the 7th Sea roleplaying game over the last few months. Designed by the same people who made the L5R CCG and RPG and the Doomtown CCG, 7th Sea has a lot to live up to.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stand up to the hype.

The game comes in two books — a Players’ Guide and a Game Masters’ Guide. This means you have to shell out $60 in order to play this game. In the atmosphere of Cheap Ass Games and Baron Munchausen, this isn’t a good choice for AEG. It demands a great deal on their customers and delivers little.

7th Sea takes place in a world called Théah. Don’t let them fool you. It’s Europe. They’ve just changed a few of the names and faces, but it’s Europe. Instead of creating a new world to discover or presenting us with a world we’re familiar with, they’ve done a little of both, amounting to a lot of nothing. And, the world section of the book is pitifully small. You don’t know anything about the world of Théah after reading the first chapter. All you know is that it’s supposed to be a lot like Europe, only different. However, AEG promises to deliver more in “Nation Sourcebooks”, a familiar scam to those who have been in the gaming industry as long as I have. I for one am sick of roleplaying game companies using this tactic. If you want to present us with a roleplaying game — a $60 roleplaying game — give us what we need in the basic books.

The rules for the game are presented in the same AEG fashion: “If you don’t like it, don’t use it.” This translates into: “We didn’t playtest this, so it’s probably broken and you’re going to need to make up your own fixes.” The 7th Sea system is based on the system AEG used for L5R and it has the same problems. It uses only d10s (a steal from White Wolf), involves a Trait + Skill mechanic (another steal from White Wolf) and a Target Number resolution system (a third steal from White Wolf). It also uses something called “Raises”, a trick I never understood, so I won’t comment on that aspect of the game system.

Character generation is complicated, the pages you need are spread out all across one hundred pages and they reflect AEG’s fascist attempt at telling us how to roleplay. One of the best examples is the Faith Advantage. When you read it, you’ll know what I mean.

Sorcery, on the other hand, is the worst part of the game. You have one hundred points to spend on your character and in order to be a Sorcerer, you have to spend 40 of those points, making sorcerers absolutely useless in game play. I haven’t played the game yet to say for sure, but when compared to all the other stuff you can buy at character creation, it sure looks that way to me.

Finally, there’s the “Player” section. This is where the All-Mighty John Wick tells us how to be a Good Little Player. He tells us not to min-max our characters (duh!), not to cause interparty conflict (duh again!) and to think of the other players when we make our characters. The fact that characters are called “Heroes” is enough to show you how pretentious Mr. Wick thinks he is.

7th Sea isn’t a bad game, but it isn’t a good game either. You don’t lean anything from the book about the world, the game system takes up over one hundred pages (a vast change from L5R, and one I don’t like at all) and it force-feeds you John Wick’s opinions about roleplaying. AEG better start looking for a new Game Designer, because they just lost a customer with this game.

Not too shabby, huh?

I should do this for a living.

In fact, I did!

But enough of that. Writing scathing reviews are easy. Taking them apart and analyzing them is even easier. But why should I take apart my own review? Let’s take apart someone else’s? How about that?

I’d like to use one of the reviews from rpg.net. Unfortunately, that would be breaking copyright laws. Instead, I’ll give you the address for it:

http://rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_1836.html

and you can read the thing for yourself. Then, come back here, and we’ll talk about it. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.

All done? Well, then, let’s talk.

First off, he lists the authors as “Jennifer Wick and John Wick”. That ain’t the case. Right there on the spine it says “Wick Wick Wilson”. That’s intentional. You think he even saw that?

Then, there’s the typos.

There’s “arrrived”, “pages,just”, “turmiol”, “academis”, and “and and”. All in the span of less than 900 words. Not bad. You’d think a reviewer could spend the five seconds it takes to spell check his review, don’t you?

Anyway, here are a few more observations for you to consider.

He talks about “lackluster effort” put forth in the game. This is something I’ve never been able to understand. How does he know how much effort went into this game? The truth is, he doesn’t.

If AEG used the Palladium or White Wolf format for this book it would’ve only been about one hundred pages

Can you smell the agenda here? Obviously, our humble reviewer is a White Wolf/Palladium fan. In fact, check out his reviews of White Wolf/Palladium products. All of them rank up in 4/5 and 5/5. His average point spread for such a review is, in fact, 4.77/5 for such products. He comments on the “poor format”, but then never tells you what the format is. That’s not an isolated incident.

Now, I realized before I got into 7th Sea that it would be based on Europe during the 17th century and would share many ideas, but I had no idea that AEG was so unoriginal as to copy and paste a European History book and simply change the names and call the world Theah

We didn’t call it Theah, we called it “Théah”. But that’s nit-picking. Not that you’d ever find nit-picking in an rpg review, now would you?

Again, he makes claims but never backs them up. He never gives examples. He could have said he thought the Fate Witches were boring. He could have said the Guilder didn’t make sense to him. He could have said he didn’t like an Elizabeth-like character in a Restoration setting. He could have said that El Vago looked too much like Zorro for his taste. Instead, he rambles on about how boring it is without ever telling you what bored him. Bad reviewer! Bad!

system are both done very nicely.

So, we did something right. I’m glad. Unfortunately, he’s got the same problem here. He tells you what he likes without telling you why. So, if you pick up our book, decide you love the world and hate the system, you know who to blame.

seemed too mundane for this action packed/cinematic setting. With the exception of Porte(Dimension Magic) and to a lesser degree Laerdom(Rune Magic)it seemed to a bit bland and tasteless.

This is the paragraph that really caught my attention. In essence, it reads “I didn’t like this.” Well, good for you. I’m glad you didn’t like it. How does that inform the reader? What are you telling the reader? You didn’t like it. Well, I didn’t like Wild, Wild West. Does that mean a few million people shouldn’t spend a few million dollars to see it? I also don’t like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Disney’s Tarzan, Disney’s Inspector Gadget, The Runaway Bride and Ultimate Soldier: The Return. Does that mean I have a moral obligation to tell other people not to see them? That’s a question we’ll answer at the end of this little tirade, so stay with me.

By the way, did you figure out which part of the sorcery stuff was tasteless? I thought about it all day and couldn’t figure it out. Maybe if he told us… but nah! That would make things too easy.

The mechanics for 7th Sea is a variant of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG system. L5R had a very deadly system so 7th Sea has changed the wound system around and has made it harder for you to die and has also introduced Drama Dice… The villains also get drama dice to use against the player character and this can be tons of fun.

Tons of fun. How do they work? After reading that paragraph, I still have no idea. Even when he likes something we did, he still fails to tell you why he liked it.

Once you get passed the boring setting you really do have a good game… If anything sells the amazing pencil work of Palladium/L5R artist Ramon Perez … For the first time you can say that AEG has thought with their wallet with little care for the gamer.

This last paragraph really chaffs my hide. Again with the boring setting. He mentions “Palladium artist Ramon Perez” — another give-away to his tastes in games — and says that 7th Sea could have been one book. He’s right. It could have been one book. One five hundred and fifty-five page book that cost $55 in order for us to make even a smidgen of profit on it (see Episode One for further details). And then, at the end, he makes his value judgment. We thought with our wallets with little care for our customers.

Let me ask you a personal question. If you designed 7th Sea, how would you take that comment? Would you shrug if off? Or would you do something about it? You get one guess what my choice was.

Style: 3 (Average)

Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Now this raises an interesting question. All through his review, he said the world was “boring” but the system was cool. But here, he lists the “style” being better than the substance. Now, wouldn’t you think the world would be the style and the rules would be the substance? After all, you can’t play the game without the rules, right? You can make up the world on your own. Or is it that you can make up the rules on your own and use somebody else’s world? I forget these days.

Now, look at those two reviews.

Do either of them tell you anything about the game?

Not really.

You do know one thing, however. You know what they think of the game.

And isn’t that the whole purpose of a review? Isn’t it?

Or…

Is a reviewer supposed to show you how the game system works, and fill you in on the details of the world? Isn’t the reviewer supposed to go into in-depth discussions about the system’s strengths and weaknesses, how they work in certain situations, what they accommodate for and what they lack?

Isn’t the reviewer supposed to be objective?

(I’m gonna say that one again.)

Isn’t the reviewer supposed to be objective?

Here’s an example:

As a gamer, I like to play Heroes. I do not want to roleplay anyone from the world of Unknown Armies. Does that make it a bad game? Hell, no. It’s one of the best games on the market. It’s smart, witty and damn clever in places. It’s also very icky, and every time I try to read it, it makes me want to take a bleach bath.

Just because I don’t want to play it doesn’t make it a bad game. My subjective tastes have nothing to do with the game’s design, layout, format or objective. In fact, I sympathize with its objective. Many of the things Tynes and Stolze are doing with Unknown Armies are the same things we’re doing with 7th Sea. We’re just going about them from different directions.

So, now you’re asking yourself, “How the hell is John going to make this relate to game design?”

Easy.

When you sit down to design your own game, there’s only one person in the world you can make happy.

That’s yourself.

Thinking you can make anyone else happy with your game will lead you down the dark path of disappointment and depression.

Trust me. I just got back from there and my hands are sore and bleeding from the demons who tried to keep me from coming back.

And, the sad fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, you’ll never be satisfied with what you’ve done.

I’m not satisfied with 7th Sea. There’s a lot I would have liked to have done with the books, but I just didn’t have the time or energy. But we’ll talk about all of that in Part Two of this little discussion.

That’s when I’ll review 7th Sea for real.

Put your coats on.

It’s a hard rain that’s gonna fall.

As part of the process of getting the reviews ready to go on the Outpost, we have been contacting companies. Several have asked about our review policy and the issues that have come up have been quite interesting if a little disturbing. See, the Outpost has what has been called a Negative Review Policy, a term I’m not all that fond of. The problem seems to stem from a misunderstanding about the term “review.” Let me give my definition: A review is the opinion of the reviewer about the item he is reviewing. It isn’t advertising, it isn’t a manufacturer press release. It is an opinion. And that, my friend, is the root of the problem.

The reason you read a review (other than for the entertainment value) is to find out what someone else thought of the product, to help you decide if it is something you should spend you money on. You may be reading it to learn more about the product but the opinion is the important thing. Now, it would seem there are some people out there who think opinions presented in reviews should never be negative. That’s where I have to disagree. Below is a piece of the email I sent to one company when they questioned our review policy:

As to your main question, yes, we will publish negative reviews. I feel it is the magazine’s responsibility to give our readers the most honest reviews possible. After all, they are reading the review to (at least, in part) determine if they want to purchase the game. If every review is glowing, it lessens the ability of the article to have impact. I have found that most people want honesty and are reading the review to learn what someone else thinks of the product and not necessarily to gain a description of the product. However, if the reviewer sends me a review that has absolutely nothing good to say, then I’ll send a copy of it to the company and ask them if they want it posted. After all, this is a hobby-based industry and simply slamming someone’s hard work doesn’t seem fair. I also feel that I have a responsibility to post a review when a manufacturer sends me product. They have gone to the trouble of packing something up and mailing it to me so the least I can do is give them a write-up. This, coupled with the idea that I want honest opinions from my reviewers, means that there will be negative reviews posted.

That pretty much sums it up. If you disagree with me, please let me know. While a large number of protestors won’t get me to publish fluff reviews, it would still be interesting to see where everyone stands.