"Reviewing unplayed rules...." Topic

On my blog I have reviews of Age of Sail rulesets that I've played or currently play. I have several other rulesets that I have read, but not played. How do people here feel about reviewing unplayed rules?

If I do this, they would be on the Rules page of my blog, but under the heading of "Unplayed Rules" or something like that. If there are questions about this I can expand further, but I'm running out of time as the membership system is about to close.

I would say don't review an unplayed set.

You might be able to give a description of it, but chances are you could miss out the important interactions if there is anything unusual about them. Take the (limited) differences between "Commands and Colors" Ancients and Napoleonics. There are fairly subtle differences, but the games feel quite different: I don't think you could identify these without playing them,

Generally, no. If it is interesting, explain what about them means that you haven't played with them.

Review them by discussing the mechanics, how easy (or not) they are to learn, what you need to play the game etc.

Kind of like an unboxing of a game that gamers do.

I have read a few reviews that have done this and they have been good to read.

I don't like reviews if the reviewer hasn't played the game at least three times. You just don't get to the point where you understand the rules, are playing without errors, and can see the interactions between the various subsystems without playing at least three times.

Most of the reviews of rules in the gaming magazines are from reviewers who have not played the rules but merely read them once. I don't read rules reviews in the hobby magazines anymore for that reason.

You also need to play the game AS WRITTEN three times before a review. I read one review in one of the gaming magazines where the reviewer admitted e didn't think they would work and made a bunch of changes before playing the first game. Then he said he didn't like the game in his review. Was he reviewing the published rules or his own modifications? There was no way to tell.

I find it amusing/frustrating when I search for a review and find a video of someone leafing through the rulebook expounding upon how awesome it looks then indicating they haven't read the rules yet but everything appears to be grand and future videos will delve deeper after they learn and start to play the game. Then no more videos….and I think my god those rules killed him!

If you stick to a physical description of the book, layout, if it contins a QRS, markers, ship stat cards, ect but stay away from judging the mechanics it would be fine and useful.

I have a kind of "rules directory" where I summarize rules. But they are not reviews exactly. I'll comment on the book itself. Is it well organized? Did the rules make sense? Was there an index? And I describe the game mechancis, sequence of play etc.

But there are no reviews of game play unless I;ve played them!

If you haven't played the game prefer summaries as noted above

I generally click past a review when the person has not played the game. I wouldn't buy a bottle of wine on the review of someone who hasn't tasted it.

I think any thoughts and ideas that you have after reading and studying a set of rules is of value. It could very easily help someone decide if they are of interest to then or not. There may be points that you find that might intrigue me or make be decide they are not for me. That is very valuable info for someone that does not have the chance to read through the rules. Let's be clear, we are talking about tabletop wargame rules, not rocket science. Subtleties and nuances may be there, but they are not mystical elusive things that someone intelligent cannot grok. I say go for it. I always like reading people's opinions on rules. People seem to want to get caught up in definitions or reviews vs summaries etc. Make it clear you have not played it and have at it.

Post a link to your blog, I'd like to see the reviews of the rules you've played!

Summarizing rules you have not played is fine, if you are up front that you have not played.

I really dislike what pretend to be reviews of games that have not been played. Even worse are proposed house rules and changes to games that have not been played as written, or sometimes played at all.

I got hold of this vinyl music album called "The Wall". The cover did not make it clear who the album was written by or for. A big minus. There was also very little information about the album content on the cover. Bad. The performing group is called "Pank Flord" or some-such similar. Didn't bother to research that aspect any further. This album is not much like my usual choice of Prince offerings by the look of it. Very poor sleeve notes. the album card was not very glossy either. This album needs to be shinier and have a picture of a young woman on the front at least. Inside the covers the album is pressed from black vinyl, so nothing worthy there either. Overall my review would be that this album is not worthy of further attention

I'm fine with it. As you pointed out, you say up front these are unplayed.

From my experience, rules which read bad, play bad. And rules which read good, may or may not play good.

We need to start something similar to what someone on BGG (for board war-games) did and post a list of rules that need reviews in an effort to have a comprehensive list of reviews. On that site the number of war-games without reviews has slowly been dwindling, so it has been at least moderately successful.

Unfortunately, there are many reviews of board games and rules that after reading them, I'm not sure that the gamer actually played the right game! Many are haphazard affairs, have an axe to grind, there are reading comprehension issues, and several have done the game and/or set of rules a disservice by not playing them correctly!

Pan Marek,
Sorry about that! I was in a bit of a hurry to get this posted before the system went down, but here you are:

link

So the general consensus seems to be somewhere between "no" and "NO!" with martin goddard's post showing exactly why it's not such a good idea.

The original idea was to do a sort of summary of the rules, as several people have mentioned, under a heading of "Rules I Have Not Played" or something similar. After some basic characteristics (scale, interesting concepts, etc.) I would then explain I chose not to use them. As an example, I own a set that allows sailing ships to move directly into the wind. That makes them a non-starter for me. Another set seems good, but has a couple of egregious historical errors in them. If your basic research is bad, what does that mean for your rules?

In effect then, it would be a "rogue's gallery" of things that I didn't like about the rules. I'm afraid this could come off as being very negative, since I haven't played them and am merely harping on things I don't like. It has the possibility of moving the blog in a direction I don't really care for. Ideally it would raise discussion about these rules via the comments, but I've already seen that's a bit of a non-starter.

Thanks to everyone for their comments, and I hope we can generate a bit more discussion now that I've had a chance to explain my intentions a bit more clearly.
BWW

Thanks!

It sounds very reasonable so long as the reviewer confines himself to things which are obviously true and especially if it's properly marked. I don't need to play a game to say "this game is intended for 15mm Napoleonics play at 1"=50 yards, uses the same basing as Napoleon's Battles and keeps track of losses by removing stands." But just by saying that much I'd have enough information to discard 90% of the possible purchases.

As far as I'm concerned, that sort of information should be visible through the shrinkwrap, though it usually isn't. And anything which claims "does any size battle!" "Works with any basing!" or "fast play and historically accurate!" should be returned by the shopkeeper on receipt as defective merchandise.

Oh. "and I think my god those rules killed him!"

Rules don't kill people. Gamers who are invited over to play rules it turns out the host hasn't read thoroughly or played through himself kill people--or want to.

Was it Led Zep IV that had the pink vinyl album?

Fine, interesting to see what other rules are out there and what your initial impressions are. How can one " go into irons" if there are no irons to go into. Would be a non-starter for me too.

Brian, I would say no. I can't say I've ever had an experience where someone gave an effective review of a set of rules without playing them. You can certainly give an opinion of what you MIGHT think about this rule or that, but an actual review…no.

I have an idea in my head of what the difference is between an 'effective review' and an 'opinion review', but I can't really describe it on paper. I just know through experience that until you put the models on the table and roll the dice (more than once!), it's hard to get a feel for what works and what doesn't.

Some of these comments remind me of high end audiophiles- electrical specs mean nothing, only your ear can be the arbiter.
Is there really such a literacy issue with this hobby that written words do not convey any sense of things to some people?

Yeah, as long as it is clear you haven't played them, go ahead. You are reviewing the book rather than the gameplay. You can still provide lots of useful information about the book and the game mechanics even if you can't comment on how they play out on the table.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to everyone, but had some doctor business to take care of yesterday that put me out of pocket all day.

I appreciate everyone's input, and it helped me to clarify some terms in my own mind. For unplayed rules, it would not be a "review" but more of an "overview" as Extra Crispy pointed out. They would be on the Rules page of the blog, but under a different heading than the rules I've played. I'd go over the basic stuff like scale, clarity, concepts and etc. There would also be a short section about why I chose not to use these rules.

Although I was torn about not wanting the blog to sound too negative, I think that section about "why not" is important. There are some rules that I really wanted to like, but certain things within them made me say no. I'm hoping that by rereading them and writing about it, maybe I can finally try to get around some of the "problems," or at least look at them differently.