Monday, August 3, 2009

What the OSR Needs

It's been an interesting almost-couple-of-weeks as a businessman. I've shifted 72 copies of Death Frost Doom so far, and I'm up to 81 of Green Devil Face #1 (91 total if counting FFV sales) and 89 of GDF #2.

Modest numbers certainly but not chirping crickets, so I'm happy for now.

While the OSR has been taking some lumps in many quarters this past week or two (including the "Has Old School Stopped Beating Its Wife?" thread on RPG.net), the most interesting criticism has come from within.

Ignoring those that believe for-profit publishing is somehow against the old-school ethos, there is one criticism that I think is dead on, and should be addressed:

Our community is very insular and very productive and creative, but honest criticism is not happening.

At least, it's not being spoken aloud.

Grognardia posted a review of Death Frost Doom that I was of course very happy to see. But I also sent both issues of Green Devil Face that way, and FFV before it. I take that as criticism, of at least the "not interested enough to comment" level if not "total and complete crap." That's fine. But who else knows that?

Grognardia's reviews are rather positive as a general rule, with the negative stuff being left unspoken. Being everyone's personal publicist isn't exactly his job description and he's got a lot on his plate, so you can hardly blame him if he only deals with the creme of the crop as he sees it. And I only single out Grognardia because Maliszewski is "The Pope" (people really call him that!), but that situation is repeated over and over across the blogs (who has said even so much as "I bought this new module by Carl and boy was it crap!"), and we have a serious problem.

Nobody is critical. There are many valid reasons for it, but nonetheless it is true and we are all the poorer for it.

And the commentary that this scene looks like a great big circle jerk does seem to have some truth to it.

The best review I have seen of new material is this one here. No, it's not a complete review, but as a counter-balance to the review it responds to, it is perfect. It is critical without being insulting, and gives the potential buyer a far more balanced review of its contents, and feedback that the producers can use to improve their next products.

We need to get reviews in front of people that aren't in our little circle (there should be a large bank of OSR materials reviewed at RPG.net, for example, not to mention putting those reviews with the products on places like RPGNow and Noble Knight), but those reviews aren't going to be at all credible if the reviews all seem like Tom is simply stroking Jerry in public.

But what to do? Pursuing this is going to mean drama and hurt feelings. Whoever bothers to do this has to have a thick skin, and probably should have no publishing aspirations of their own ("revenge" reviews are an ugly thing, especially when well-composed, and even fans of a particular product or author will engage in this behavior). It'll be a lot of work to do for not so much reward.

But I bet anyone who makes a serious attempt at this will get plenty of free stuff, and be doing more of a legitimate service to the OSR than any cheerleader ever could.

30 comments:

  1. I will readily admit to being among the circle-jerkers. As a general rule I like my blog to be an upbeat celebration of what I like and I'd rather remain silent than harsh someone else's buzz. I know that my credibility would be improved by taking a more even-handed view, but I'm not sure I want to.

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  3. Put your money where your mouth is - review something in full honesty. Hell, I'll even step up and say review my Quick Start in full honesty - the only thing I can do is get better by constructive criticism.

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  4. I think your point is absolutely fair, Jim, both in general and specifically about myself. I don't as a rule write bad reviews, mostly because I don't find them much fun to do, especially when I have so many other things that are fun on my plate. Despite expectations to the contrary, I'm not a professional nor particularly objective and my reviews, like my entire blog, reflect that.

    So far as I can tell, though, there really aren't enough potential "outside" reviewers who have sufficient knowledge of the old school scene to be credible within that context. If you do manage to find them, let me know, because I'd love to get in touch with them.

    (Grammar corrected from original comment)

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  5. >>Put your money where your mouth is - review something in full honesty.

    Doing so might appear to be a conflict of interest and create more problems besides.

    One, I am an... excited and nitpicky reviewer. Check out the music reviews I've done here and here and here. Can you imagine me doing that around here?

    And if I criticize someone else's work in a way that is "corrected" in my own, it's easy to assume I'm just trying to make myself look good at someone else's expense.

    It would be much easier if that kind of criticism was part of the culture, so to speak.

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  6. >>I don't as a rule write bad reviews, mostly because I don't find them much fun to do, especially when I have so many other things that are fun on my plate.

    Not to mention you end up attracting negativity out of thin air without inviting it...

    >>So far as I can tell, though, there really aren't enough potential "outside" reviewers who have sufficient knowledge of the old school scene to be credible within that context.

    I think the ideal would be "one of us" who hasn't made himself known yet. Or better yet several, including a couple of those Dragonsfoot people who seem to be able to do 5000 words on 30 year old modules. :P

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  7. (edited the original post to clarify that Grognardia just declines to post negative reviews... the original post could have been seen to mean that everything is positively reviewed whether deserving or not)

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  8. Jim,

    Part of the problem is that producers of content don't (generally) like honest/negative commentary and those reviewers who are tough will find themselves on the outside looking in.

    In something like big-city restaurant reviews, the customers (the readers) generally want an honest opinion and they'll pay for it. So, the restaurants don't have the power to ban/exclude negative reviewers.

    But in smaller markets where there isn't the mass-market demand, the reviewers are largely dependent upon the cooperation of those producing the material to be reviewed. And if you're too harsh, you get excluded.

    In something like OSR material, there's just no money to be made by the reviewer, so if I were to do it, I'd be dependent upon people like you to send me materials for free (since I'm not going to go deep into my own pockets to provide a service that will likely just get me a lot of grief and angry comments).

    Given how upset people get simply over which armor class system one prefers, how many producers of content have thick enough skin to keep feeding free material to somebody who may say "this is pretty bad, I wouldn't buy it"?

    At the end of the day, it's a rare person who can take criticism of their kid and say "you know, you're right ... he is pretty homely and not that bright".

    I mean, hell, I'm an equity research analyst ... and even the supposedly mature and smart people who run money professionally will flip out if you post a negative comment about a stock they happen to like/own!

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  9. I dunno, I would say my reviews of the Goodman Games DCC conversions were pretty fair and nit picky. I think more criticism should be encouraged, but we are basically going to end up with people judging stuff on different criteria. I am often silent on the subject of art in reviews because it often is not to my taste, but I know that it is targeted at a different audience. Indeed, I recall all the furore over trade dress and I do not think it really got us anywhere.

    More reviews and rebuttals will make for interesting reading at any rate.

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  10. If your objective is to help the OSR, and you have someone who just asked you to do so, then that conflict of interest is removed. Besides, we're not competing. :)

    And if you're not willing to make it public, I'll entertain an anonymous review.

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  11. I've always been a "harsh but fair" game reviewer. My recent dissection of HackMaster Basic isn't unusual.

    Sometimes this gets me thanks and people volunteering more materials for me to review. Other times, not: The author of one game I reviewed some years ago said "He wanted to write 'YOU SUCK' across the page, but his editor made him go back and write more."

    I haven't done reviews of the more indie OSR booklets yet. Not sure what I'd be able to say about the typical low production values, but it wouldn't be especially kind. Adventures and dungeon dressing books are only really reviewable with actual play, and then are hard to distinguish from the specific antics of the player characters.

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  12. This is an issue with literary fiction / poetry as well. Authors feel so niche as it is, that they want to lift up works they think deserving of notice rather than spending time on pointing out flaws.

    I think there is an inherent difficulty in the medium too, as markdamonhughes mentions; I would never want to do an actual review of a module without running players through it.

    That makes me think, it would be cool to have the players then comment, too. Maybe some folks that meet regularly to play could review as a *group*?

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  13. I think a big part of the situation is that one is unlikely to want to give something bad the attention. That's certainly true for me. Since I'm not a professional reviewer and don't get paid for this, I have zero desire to sit down and pour over something I don't like and then sit down and write review of it. I'd rather spend my time on things I like.

    That said, I thought I said some nasty things about your Tower of Duvan'Ku? ;)

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  14. I gotten one bad review and that was for Badabaskor on RPGNow. Points of Light gotten good reviews some raving which made me feel good that I hit a home run or at least a triple. Then I get the sales figure back and I got to wonder what did I miss? They aren't bad but for what the reviews said I wonder why there isn't more. (and not all were from the usual suspect)

    Without input how I am to know. While I am writing to sastify my own itch, I am writing professionally to make useful products for people. So without feedback how useful (in the long term) they can be.

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  15. shit I'll do it. To be honest I'm sick of old school, retro clone blah blahs blahs. The scene puts off outsiders and is insular because of the constant "circle jerking" as you've put it and the need to define old school.

    If you want a critic I'll work on a review of GDF #2 over the next week or so.

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  16. @Rob--if the sales of PoL weren't that good, why did Goodman want to do another one?

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  17. You want critique? Can do. I'm perfectly happy to piss and bitch (constructively) if someone wants.

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  18. I hope people aren't taking this as a call to snark and nitpick everything.

    I mean "critical reviews" as something equivalent to Roger Ebert movie reviews (or substitute the reviewer of your choice).

    Rave reviews are perfectly fine (and I hope to receive many more in the future) but I'm just saying people shouldn't avoid calling a spade a spade either.

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  19. >>If your objective is to help the OSR, and you have someone who just asked you to do so, then that conflict of interest is removed. Besides, we're not competing. :)

    OK. I have to finish the writing and/or production work for No Dignity in Death, People of Pembrooktonshire, and Green Devil Face #3.

    Then you. :P

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  20. >>Given how upset people get simply over which armor class system one prefers, how many producers of content have thick enough skin to keep feeding free material to somebody who may say "this is pretty bad, I wouldn't buy it"?

    Negative reviews drive sales as well, if the review is a well-read source. Flame wars on message boards do so as well.

    A dust-up over the negative review seems to reveal qualities of the item (if it has any...).

    And reviewers will have their fans and anti-fans as well. "He said it sucks... so it's probably something I'd love!"

    Certainly you should send stuff to those that are likely to positively review your stuff, but I don't know that it's really more beneficial than just having any sort of review in front of a lot of eyeballs.

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  21. Hard to say. I like to put some effort into the things I do, and that's not easy if something is "kinda good" or "sorta not good". Those reviews end up getting not written, because I can't get myself fired up about something that doesn't elicit a spirited response. Even very good products end up getting a pass - e.g. Points of Light or The Spire of Iron and Crystal, because I think up all the nice things I want to say, procrastinate about it and then don't write it down in the end.

    Similarly, I recently bought a PDF module that was about 100% recycled ideas, from mono cover and two-column Century Gothic to the characteristic turns of phrase, and... it is deeply unoriginal, but I'm pretty positive it would play well - as almost identical replicas of old modules go, this one is one of the better ones. These are the most problematic types to review: not quite a creative breakthrough, yet obviously not a fialure... and a lot better than a lot of modern stuff.

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  22. @Matt, The sales figures were OK, in that Goodman didn't lose money but compared to his other products sales were well below what they sold. The relative rankings of the Goodman PDFs on RPGNow is accurate as far as I know.

    He ordered another product because it was meant as a series and sometimes series take a while to take off. DCC wasn't a raving it when it was first released either. Also because of all the good reviews the first one got. (Which I really appreciate)

    He was happy enough to remove the limitations on the page count that was imposed on the first one. Which is why this one is larger.

    I won't know until the end of August.

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  23. I think you are onto something, James. As so often.

    For some reason I pictured myself not writing reviews on my blog, but have in fact written a few.

    With some OSR stuff in hand I should get my act together and restart my rpg.net reviews again. I've been thinking of doing that for ages. Maybe it's time, and have never had a problem with calling a spade a spade.

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  24. @Rob - Points of Light 2 was the only RPG product I've bought in months, BTW. I find your PoLs are great for firing the imagination, and one of my campaigns (a PBEM) is finally 'entering' a PoL - Wildland from PoL 1.

    @JimLoTFP - as one of the most iconoclastic and, dare I say, 'negative' personalities of the OSR, you do seem to be the guy to be doing these critical reviews of OSR products. :)

    I don't think there's much point in negative reviews of free pdfs - we can go see for ourselves - but I do greatly value critical reviewing of expensive, high-value stuff like Fight On! magazine and the AGP Wilderlands stuff, interesting things I'm reluctant to buy sight-unseen.

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  25. >> Similarly, I recently bought a PDF module that was about 100% recycled ideas, from mono cover and two-column Century Gothic to the characteristic turns of phrase, and... it is deeply unoriginal, but I'm pretty positive it would play well - as almost identical replicas of old modules go, this one is one of the better ones. These are the most problematic types to review: not quite a creative breakthrough, yet obviously not a fialure... and a lot better than a lot of modern stuff.

    Melan, I'm pretty sure I know which module you're referring to, but you should name names! It couldn't have been *that* problematic to review the module; you just reviewed it!

    Once you add the product name & spec, and maybe a couple supporting details, that's nearly as long as and at least as substantive as any of the capsule reviews from the industry publications back in the day.

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  26. Guy Fullerton: for what it's worth, it is The Outpost On The Edge of the Far Reaches - I omitted the name because I intended my thoughts as an illustration of a broader phenomenon. I wrote a more detailed review at http://hofrat.rollenspiel-berlin.de/Forum/index.php?topic=1773.60
    (Achtung: Thread contains obscene language and unflattering portrayals of various old-school luminaries)

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  27. Lol, well I was wrong about the module you were referring to, but thanks for pointing me at the additional info!

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  28. http://symptomsofmadness.blogspot.com/2009/08/re-what-osr-needs-review-of-green-devil.html

    there it is eh?!

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  29. I have a post announcing that at 7:30pm local time (about seven hours from now - I want the current post to get some face time first).

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