I'm shocked by the general lack of reviews

[Neon]

... of many product lines. For example runequest:glorantha, call of cthulhu, delta green, warhammer fantasy, traveller. Essentially the legacy systems which have so-called "stood the test of time".

I often scour the internet and find nil.

Hell even dtrpg barely has any user reviews for pretty much any chaosium adventure. Wfrp has only one review of the horned rat adventure and it's been out for a while now. Wtf isn't the enemy within campaign recognized as one of the most influencial campaigns along with masks of nyarlathotep?

I guess I'm just stunned at how little buzz these games or adventures are getting.

Yes there is seth skorkowsky on youtube doing his part and The gaming gang doing some coverage, but man o man that just seems like way too few people.

I know it's unfair to compare everything to 5e, but just on amazon you find more 5e reviews than a dedicated site like dtrpg has for non 5e products.

Anyway. More of a rant (not really I'm not upset just bewildered).

 

[Lofgeornost]

... of many product lines. For example runequest:glorantha, call of cthulhu, delta green, warhammer fantasy, traveller. Essentially the legacy systems which have so-called "stood the test of time".

I often scour the internet and find nil...

I see your point. I think part of the picture is the decline of the Big Purple as a place for reviews. In the beginning, that is it all it was, and 10 or 15 years ago it seems to me that it typically had a new review every day or so. I just checked, and if its database is accurate, there have been only 38 reviews there so far of products that were published in 2021. Given the sheer volume of stuff released on Drivethru, and through other channels, a lot is going to go unreviewed.

 

[Gabriel]

My view is that our hobby especially falls into the category where reviews are primarily entertainment and bias confirmation rather than being consumed for actual information or decision making.

And there are other things that can be reviewed for higher entertainment value and more clicks.

 

[Teotwawki]

Not to sound combative, but how are you looking? I just took two minutes to search each of the titles you've presented, and found dozens and dozens of reviews for each. Granted, the core books reviews are older than more recent offerings, but that's to be expected with any game book. e.g. Delta Green Agent's Handbook reviews are 3-5 years old, but DG's Impossible Landscapes are mostly from the past 18 months.

 

[Neon]

Not to sound combative, but how are you looking? I just took two minutes to search each of the titles you've presented, and found dozens and dozens of reviews for each. Granted, the core books reviews are older than more recent offerings, but that's to be expected with any game book. e.g. Delta Green Agent's Handbook reviews are 3-5 years old, but DG's Impossible Landscapes are mostly from the past 18 months.

It's ok, I don't think your comments are combative. Maybe tour google-fu is simply better than mine.

The 3 biggest sites I am aware of for rpg content is dtrpg, big purple, and youtube.

As another poster mention the big purple only had 38 reviews for 2021. Considering the vast quantity of releases that seems like a small number.

Dtrpg for call of cthulhu has:
0 reviews for time to harvest
1 review for cults of cthulhu
1 review for wfrp the horned rat
0 review for wfrp empire in ruins
And on and on. Again dtrpg is hardly some obscure site in the ttrpg sphere.

Compare that to the number of user reviews of board games on board game geek. Just a day of official release of any relatively known game and you'll have a dozen reviews or first impressions.

Like I said, your Internet search skills may simply be better than mine.

 

[Brock Savage]

Hey Neon like someone else said upthread your best strategy for finding reviews is a Google search. I find most of my reviews on the gaming blogosphere and personal websites.

Dtrpg hardly has any reviews and even fewer good ones. Once in a blue moon I will find a review Big Purple and when I do they are solid. I often find reviews for popular OSR products on YouTube.

 

[Voros]

I find it hard to find good reviews of books and even TV series online. Google really sucks in that regard. Goodreads is a blight on literacy.

TBP has certainly gone into serious decline when it comes to reviews.

There's a OSR blog Bones of Contention with a number of designer contributors that is attempting to provide intelligent and balanced criticism. They post at quite the clip and it is generally quite good although since there are several contributors of course some of them are going to be better critics and writers than others:

Bones of Contention

A Skeleton Crew of Reviewers

bonesofcontention.blogspot.com

 

[robertsconley]

Terms: traveller classic review
Result

 

[SJB]

I find these blogs useful:

Reviews from R'lyeh

A blog dedicated to reviews of RPGs and their supplements, with an emphasis on Call of Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian inspired games. All leavened with the occasional board and card game review.

rlyehreviews.blogspot.com

AWESOME LIES

Retro musings on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and other tabletop games

awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com

Refereeing and Reflection

Tangled Thoughts On RPGs and Related Hobbies

refereeingandreflection.wordpress.com

 

[Grelan]

I've written a few reviews on DTRPG. I'd like to write more, but I actually make an effort to make my reviews thorough, so they take a bit of time. I could do what many, many reviewers on there and slap a couple of sentences into the box, but I just don't see the point of that. Honestly, on DTRPG I find the full previews _vastly_ more useful than most reviews.

Bryce Lynch is kind of the gold standard for OSR reviews, though he slips in some 5E and even other game systems occasionally.

tenfootpole.org

I bought these adventure and review them so you don't have to.

tenfootpole.org

Melan writes some great reviews, primarily OSR stuff.

Beyond Fomalhaut

beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com

Gnome Stew has reviews, among other articles.

Gnome Stew

The Gaming Blog

gnomestew.com

Merric Blackman has lots of reviews, primarily D&D stuff both old and new.

Review Archives - Merric's Musings

On YouTube, of course you have Ben Milton of Questing Beast.

https://www.youtube.com/c/QuestingBeast

I also like Todd of Hexed Press, who mostly focuses on OSR products, but does some other products as well. His channel is super useful.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HexedPress

Captcorajus does reviews of lots of older games, a lot of D&D, but also other games.

https://www.youtube.com/c/captcorajusRPGRetroReviews

Dave Thaumavore mostly focuses on newer games.

https://www.youtube.com/c/DaveThaumavore/videos

 

[opaopajr]

Also try different search engines. Sometimes one engine doesn't play well with your preferred method of inquiry. Or its compiled webdata on you needs to be reset to broaden the algorithm again. Or its algorithm plays advertised favorites or shadowbans desires content. Or it just does a search differently.

I personally never use Google unless I am forced to by 3rd parties, and haven't used them for, IIRC, 15-20+ years now. I used to casually use DuckDuckGo at times, but since its algo is mostly based on Google I never relied on it (and especially now, won't use either). But that's because I saw the confirmation bias in it early, hated it, and moved on quickly before it was later confirmed through further research and lawsuits discovery.

But just copy-paste your questions on different search engines and you might be surprised. Yahoo (and its country portals), Bing, Dogpile, Startpage, Qwant, Yandex, Baidu, Yamli, Naver, Daum, etc. the list is huge. And often the web is more divided by language than people care to realize, so country search engines are not a redundancy.

There is no paradise on earth, so one search engine is not enough, let alone for all times. Best of luck!

 

[Toadmaster]

I think much of this is a shift in venue. It seems Youtube has taken over as the preferred review format for just about everything, and RPGs are no exception.

 

[Charlie D]

... of many product lines. For example runequest:glorantha, call of cthulhu, delta green, warhammer fantasy, traveller. Essentially the legacy systems which have so-called "stood the test of time".

I often scour the internet and find nil.

I have reviewed and written about all these systems on EN World and Geek Native. Links below.

Also:

RuneQuest: Glorantha overview
Mongoose Traveller overview
Delta Green overview
Call of Cthulhu for D&D players to consider
Warhammer looked at by Michael B

 

[Necrozius]

My view is that our hobby especially falls into the category where reviews are primarily entertainment and bias confirmation rather than being consumed for actual information or decision making.

And there are other things that can be reviewed for higher entertainment value and more clicks.

Yeah that's part of the trick: searching for legitimate reviews that aren't just shills ("OMG Iove this book, best 5e adventure module EVAR!") without actually talking about it beyond what you can already figure out from the product description.

 

[Stan]

I think much of this is a shift in venue. It seems Youtube has taken over as the preferred review format for just about everything, and RPGs are no exception.

Yes, and I generally dislike youtube reviews. It's much more difficult to scan through to get the info I want or see if it's even there. And I'm not going to watch someone drone on for an hour for a review. I'm old, grumpy, and impatient. I also can't listen to most podcasts or watch most cable-style documentaries.

 

[Grelan]

Yes, and I generally dislike youtube reviews. It's much more difficult to scan through to get the info I want or see if it's even there. And I'm not going to watch someone drone on for an hour for a review. I'm old, grumpy, and impatient. I also can't listen to most podcasts or watch most cable-style documentaries.

It helps vastly if the YouTuber creating the review posts timestamps for the "sections" in the description. That way if you're interested in say character creation or the magic system, you can skip directly to the section of interest. For structured content like reviews, I feel like those are almost mandatory. Sadly few provide them.

 

[Brock Savage]

Yes, and I generally dislike youtube reviews. It's much more difficult to scan through to get the info I want or see if it's even there. And I'm not going to watch someone drone on for an hour for a review. I'm old, grumpy, and impatient. I also can't listen to most podcasts or watch most cable-style documentaries.

I agree. Video is not my favored medium for delivering information. I can rapidly process written information but video feels SO SLOW. It's just painful to watch unless the presenter is skilled at concise delivery.

That said I wouldn't disregard YouTube entirely. There's some good content out there which has been mentioned upthread. Questing Beast comes to mind. While he is clearly enthusiastic about games like Mothership and Mausritter I don't feel like he is shilling or fanboying. Just one example, his page by page review of Mothership clearly illustrated the value of the hardcopy in a way that a written review couldn't.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I think the review landscape has fragmented a lot. I've certainly seen an impact myself. I think part of it is reviews are scattered across youtube, blogs, news sites, forums, etc.

 

[Baulderstone]

I see your point. I think part of the picture is the decline of the Big Purple as a place for reviews. In the beginning, that is it all it was, and 10 or 15 years ago it seems to me that it typically had a new review every day or so. I just checked, and if its database is accurate, there have been only 38 reviews there so far of products that were published in 2021. Given the sheer volume of stuff released on Drivethru, and through other channels, a lot is going to go unreviewed.

Browsers getting smarter is part of what killed reviews at rpg.net. When I began going to the forum over 20 years, ago, I typed in "rpg.net" landed on the home page, and saw the reviews before moving into the forum. At some point, my browser noticed I spent more time in the forum, so when I typed in "rpg.net" it autofilled to take me to the forum page directly. I expect the same thing happened to a lot of people, and as engagement dropped, people lost interest in writing there.

I remember they belatedly add links to the reviews to the forum page, but the level of reviews was already anemic at that point.

And now, you it's a bannable offense to say you think a game is too expensive, which isn't exactly conducive to people wanting to give their opinions on games. I can't see a lot of value of reading reviews on a site with an explicit stance of supporting game companies over consumers.

And I say this as someone that feels that most people that complain about game prices have no idea how the world works. I just don't think they should be banned for it.

 

[AsenRG]

And now, it's a bannable offense to say you think a game is too expensive

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, so I'm going with laughing (and pointing)!

 

[Endless Flight]

Why are we shocked about anything over there at this point?

 

[Bunch]

Browsers getting smarter is part of what killed reviews at rpg.net. When I began going to the forum over 20 years, ago, I typed in "rpg.net" landed on the home page, and saw the reviews before moving into the forum. At some point, my browser noticed I spent more time in the forum, so when I typed in "rpg.net" it autofilled to take me to the forum page directly. I expect the same thing happened to a lot of people, and as engagement dropped, people lost interest in writing there.

I remember they belatedly add links to the reviews to the forum page, but the level of reviews was already anemic at that point.

And now, you it's a bannable offense to say you think a game is too expensive, which isn't exactly conducive to people wanting to give their opinions on games. I can't see a lot of value of reading reviews on a site with an explicit stance of supporting game companies over consumers.

And I say this as someone that feels that most people that complain about game prices have no idea how the world works. I just don't think they should be banned for it.

There is nothing about RPG.nets moderation that allows for an open discussion or honest opinion of anything.

 

[Bunch]

Why are we shocked about anything over there at this point?

I guess because just when you think you understand where the line is it jumps a mile in a direction.

 

[AsenRG]

I guess because just when you think you understand where the line is it jumps a mile in a direction.

Yeah, this.

I just read a few pages of a thread over there regarding the ideological assumptions of settings and them conflicting with the reader's assumptions. It was striking how many posters listed requirements that pretty much meant that they wouldn't play pretty much anything that doesn't confirm their own, extremely partisan, viewpoints...
Nevermind that their suggested solutions to those issues would often have lead them down much worse drains. Like "playing a pirate to avoid supporting a colonial empire", because of course a pirate is going to be a humanist treating everyone fairly...

OTOH, that was a good thing, because the conclusion "I don't have anything to tell to those people" pretty much killed any potential nostalgia for TBP I might have been suffering from!

 

[Brock Savage]

I guess because just when you think you understand where the line is it jumps a mile in a direction.

Right? I try to avoid bashing Big Purple even though I strongly disagree with their moderation policy but man, that was some lazy power tripping! It could have been a teaching moment where the mod took a little time to explain how things like economy of scale impact pricing but nah, they took the lazy way out.

 

[Baulderstone]

Right? I try to avoid bashing Big Purple even though I strongly disagree with their moderation policy but man, that was some lazy power tripping! It could have been a teaching moment where the mod took a little time to explain how things like economy of scale impact pricing but nah, they took the lazy way out.

I also try to avoid bringing up rpg.net here, but that was just too much. That fact that Onyx Press had hired a lot of rpg.net mods over the years really puts it over the top.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Browsers getting smarter is part of what killed reviews at rpg.net. When I began going to the forum over 20 years, ago, I typed in "rpg.net" landed on the home page, and saw the reviews before moving into the forum. At some point, my browser noticed I spent more time in the forum, so when I typed in "rpg.net" it autofilled to take me to the forum page directly. I expect the same thing happened to a lot of people, and as engagement dropped, people lost interest in writing there.

I remember they belatedly add links to the reviews to the forum page, but the level of reviews was already anemic at that point.

No doubt that’s part of the picture. My impression was that in the beginning RPG.net was purely a site for reviews, and that the only forum-like stuff came in the form of reactions to those reviews. But that was before my time on that board.

 

[AsenRG]

I also try to avoid bringing up rpg.net here, but that was just too much.

I concur.

Can I just say that I simply loved the idea that playing a ronin or a violent revolutionary would be a noble thing?

 

[Endless Flight]

My gut feeling is that they want to be able to put everything in tidy little boxes and real life and gaming do not work that way.

 

[Baulderstone]

No doubt that’s part of the picture. My impression was that in the beginning RPG.net was purely a site for reviews, and that the only forum-like stuff came in the form of reactions to those reviews. But that was before my time on that board.

I believe you are correct that the site had reviews before it had a forum. That was before I started going there though.

 

[AsenRG]

My gut feeling is that they want to be able to put everything in tidy little boxes and real life and gaming do not work that way.

More like "this thing is Eeevul, so those opposing it are My Tribe", methinks.

 

[Bunch]

I also try to avoid bringing up rpg.net here, but that was just too much. That fact that Onyx Press had hired a lot of rpg.net mods over the years really puts it over the top.

I don't follow Onyx Press at all. Are you mentioning this a semi conflict of interest sort of thing or something specific to OP?

 

[Voros]

I don't follow Onyx Press at all. Are you mentioning this a semi conflict of interest sort of thing or something specific to OP?

I noticed some of the mods there came down hard on any critcism of OP, CoD and WoD, except if it was VtM 5e, and then later learned those same mods were contractors for OP.

 

[Bunch]

I noticed some of the mods there came down hard on any critcism of OP, CoD and WoD, except if it was VtM 5e, and then later learned those same mods were contractors for OP.

That's shady.

 

[Endless Flight]

After what happened with Olivier there, I was pretty well disgusted and it’s hard to get me disgusted.

 

[Baulderstone]

I noticed some of the mods there came down hard on any critcism of OP, CoD and WoD, except if it was VtM 5e, and then later learned those same mods were contractors for OP.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to.

 

[Teotwawki]

And now, you it's a bannable offense to say you think

From what I've seen as a non-registered, more and more infrequent guest over there, it's a bannable offense to have an opinion outside of the regimented hivemind.
The big purple is, in my experience, just a mirror image of the pundit's forum; behaving the same ill-mannered way, but from a different perspective.

Not to sound like a kissass, but I've always enjoyed the balanced opinions here and at enworld.

 

[Toadmaster]

And now, you it's a bannable offense to say you think a game is too expensive, which isn't exactly conducive to people wanting to give their opinions on games. I can't see a lot of value of reading reviews on a site with an explicit stance of supporting game companies over consumers.

And I say this as someone that feels that most people that complain about game prices have no idea how the world works. I just don't think they should be banned for it.

I get that, and agree, pdf's are a particular sore spot for me as their costs are almost purely based on the effort put into the product, and yet many fixate on the physical item. "But you didn't have to buy paper so why is your 500 page document with full color art 5x the price of a 20 page text document, you have no expenses".

People should certainly have the right to express their views on cost vs value. I've bought some cheap products I feel were not worth the cost and have bought some expensive items that were a great value for the price. As always it is helpful when people explain why something is a great value or too expensive, and this is something many people are bad about.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, so I'm going with laughing (and pointing)!

That is a good option

Right? I try to avoid bashing Big Purple even though I strongly disagree with their moderation policy but man, that was some lazy power tripping! It could have been a teaching moment where the mod took a little time to explain how things like economy of scale impact pricing but nah, they took the lazy way out.

Lazy power tripping IS big purple's moderation style.

From what I've seen as a non-registered, more and more infrequent guest over there, it's a bannable offense to have an opinion outside of the regimented hivemind.
The big purple is, in my experience, just a mirror image of the pundit's forum; behaving the same ill-mannered way, but from a different perspective.

Not to sound like a kissass, but I've always enjoyed the balanced opinions here and at enworld.

At least the lines are fairly clear at the site, unless things have changed drastically in the past year-18 months you know which topics and view points are likely to lead to trouble and Pundit will at least make an effort at debate. At dot net that shit changes on a weekly basis and no dissention is permitted, the ban hammer is swift and merciless (well unless you consider that a ban from that place is in effect a mercy killing, so the poster can move on and find someplace actually worth the effort).

Yes, and I generally dislike youtube reviews. It's much more difficult to scan through to get the info I want or see if it's even there. And I'm not going to watch someone drone on for an hour for a review. I'm old, grumpy, and impatient. I also can't listen to most podcasts or watch most cable-style documentaries.

No disagreement from me, I also generally prefer a written format. It doesn't change the fact that much of the material that would have been text based is now video based. Youtube is also not as easily searched as text based posts.

 

[Voros]

There are a handful of good rpg reviewers on YT but not many.

YT is infamous among film-nerds for having particularly clueless film 'reviewers' who have little to know knowledge of film and film history. I've seen it myself, lots of factually incorrect statements parading as expertise.

Not sure why that is, perhaps because there is a long tradition of film criticism in writing and so that's where the truly film obessive are most likely to gravitate towards.

 

[carpocratian]

On YouTube I like to watch flip-throughs of games, with some commentary to point out certain highlights. That usually gives me a much better idea of whether I would be interested in a game than a more traditional review, written or otherwise.