Reply To: Is it time for some more critical analysis of rule sets

[limburger 21709xp 0]

It would be nice to have (more in-depth) reviews of rules/systems.
The problem is that if you’re new to a genre/system then you’re unlikely to understand why certain aspects in a game are ‘bad’ (or ‘good’), so you need something to explain your review system.

Unlike computer games there are no benchmarks to run.
You can’t play a standard battle of team A vs team B on a specific map, because the games themselves are rarely comparable in design goal.
The only reliable metric is an unboxing with a review of components,  layout of  manuals (can we find the things we need?) and accessibility aspects (lots of text to read ? colour blind aspects to consider).

Then there’s the problem that you’d have to match the review with the design goals of the game and/or expected target audience.

A ‘beer&pretzel’ style rule sets prioritize different aspect of a game.
‘Competitive’ rules sets are different beasts that need to be judged not just on what they’re like at release, but also with regard to updates (or lack thereof).

I suspect that a lot of complaints tend to be the result of people having different expectations than the designers of a game.
Bad dice rolls and an opponent that is either too good or too bad at playing the game can also result in a needlessly negative experience … and as we all know the ones that enjoy things rarely have time to post about their experiences, so the internet magnifies the negative even more.