Review Policy

I’m writing up some game reviews for the site. They’ll fall into two categories: family game reviews and hobby game reviews. I’ll try to get a few done a month until I’ve caught up with this year’s gaming finds and then I’ll review as a we get to try new things.

I’m usually cautious about reviews of games. Many of the reviews you’ll read on-line are reviews of having read the game (this is especially true of RPGs and war games). I personally think reviewers should indicate if the review is either the product of having read, played, or run the game. Reading a game can be combined with experience to offer some ideas, but there’s very little to compare with playing or running a game. Things come out in the wash that don’t appear on paper and ideas that seem odd come to life at the table.

I also think we need to play games multiple times to get a feel for them. A few years ago, I was inspired by the online idea of a “run club.” Each member of the club (our regular gaming group) agree to run a game. We played the game for four or five evening sessions. The duration of the club was based on the observation that you need to play a game, especially a complex board game or a role-playing game, three times, after making characters.

Three times lets you figure out the rules better, overcomes an off night for the group, and allows people to re-jig their characters or strategies to better fit the game. After that, you probably have enough experience to offer an opinion or write a review.

Some other games, maybe major games with lots of history and “baggage,” shouldn’t be reviewed for a while. You should play them many times, seriously, before offering a review. This doesn’t appeal to marketers and it doesn’t appeal to our contemporary media landscape.

We’re still debating our format for the reviews. I’ll flag them as read (maybe previewed?), played, or run (for games I’ve not “played” in, but I have “run” as the game master) and I think we’ll use a five-point scale:

5: a great game, awesome and inclusive of the players

4: a very good game, engaging and fun

3: a good game, fun with replay value

2: a competent and fun game

1: a marginally fun game

0: a deeply unfun experience