Reviews: What Are They Good For?

— Wallerant Vaillant, mid 17th century

I’ve had reviews on my mind for a few reasons:

First, I saw One Battle After Another last weekend, and it’s one of my favorite movies in recent years. I also realized that I tend to read more reviews after I’ve seen a movie than I do before, and I considered why that is.

Second, I’ve been thinking more about role-playing game reviews since reading Nova’s “What do critics owe us?“

And third, I’d like to write more reviews myself, but looking back at my old reviews, I think most are mediocre. (I am still proud of my review of The Sinister Secret of Peacock Point).

Four Functions of a Review

The crudest, most basic function of a review is to express a value judgement, perhaps to persuade or dissuade potential consumers, or merely out of a desire to express an opinion. A review that does this and only this might read something like, “Decent writing, great art, mediocre maps: 7/10.” Such reviews are practically worthless and only somewhat useful in aggregate. That’s my uncontextualized value jugement of uncontextualized value judgements.

The next higher function of a review is to set expectations. People have different tastes and enjoy different things at different times. Some days I want to watch the sort of film that renews my love for movies and urges me to return to my own creative projects. Other times I want to watch a ninety minute screwball comedy. The second function of a review is to help its audience determine whether they’re likely to enjoy the subject of the review—and under what circumstances.

A good review should also function as a critique. It should celebrate the subject’s triumphs, scrutinize its shortcomings, and show its work—it should explain how the creators achieved those high points and why other aspects fell flat. In other words, a good review should help its audience learn from the subject’s successes and failures. And as Nova wrote, the reviewer should offer transparency about what success means to them in the first place. A good review should offer a point of view, advancing the author’s opinion of what good art entails.

Finally, a review of the highest quality should enhance the audience’s experience of its subject through insightful analysis, keen insights, thorough research, passionate excoriation, humor, and so on. This is the reason I read reviews after watching a particularly good—or bad—movie. The review itself enhances my experience. In most cases, the very best reviews help me appreciate a work on a deeper level by drawing my attention to details I’d overlooked or providing interpretations I couldn’t have conceived of on my own.

In other cases, a review might help salvage a disappointing experience. You might be surprised to hear that A24’s first release, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, is probably one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I say probably because I made it less than halfway through its 86-minute runtime. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy Roger Ebert’s scathing review, which begins with the line, “A film is a terrible thing to waste.” Here’s an excerpt:

The feverish colors and images that [Elliot Hostetter] conjures up in “Charles Swan” are the reason I kept watching, ready to examine every scene for its look but not its content. At times I caught myself trying to look beyond the actors, annoyed that they were blocking valuable background space.

I felt vindicated! Ebert’s opinion mirrored my own—that the production design was the sole exceptional element of an otherwise atrocious movie. His review served as a salve, taking the sting out of an otherwise bitterly disappointing experience.

Room For Improvement

Many role-playing game reviews, including my own, would benefit from stronger, more clearly articulated critique. I don’t necessarily mean they should be more critical, but rather that critics should focus more on explaining why they think a game or scenario does a particular thing well (or poorly). Sam Sorensen’s What Does a Work Not Need? is a strong example of this.

Let’s return, though, to that fourth function of reviews: enhancing the audience’s experience. That’s where I identify the most room for improvement. A great review offers its audience a new perspective: a new interpreation to consider, an overlooked detail to enjoy, a new perspective from which to view its subject. Too few role-playing game reviews provide insight into actually playing the game—and I’ve found this is particularly true of module reviews.

Here’s what I’d like to see more of and what I aim to incorporate into my own reviews:

• What specific preparations might a referee make? Should they preroll certain things, annotate the map, or create a cheat sheet?
• How can the referee help set expectations for the players so that they’re in the best possible position to enjoy themselves?
• Did particular encounters, environments, puzzles, traps, or scenes slow down play or cause friction to the extent that adaptation may be advisable? (See “Building Better Puzzles For ‘Lair of the Lamb’” by directsun).
• Does the text contain any inconsistencies or errors that the referee needs to be aware of?
• Did particular sections or scenes yield a lull in engagement? What might a referee do to improve those portions?
• Did a lack of direction or information stall the session at any point? How might a referee avoid this?
• Do any aspects of the work seem at odds with the play culture of its target audience, e.g. railroading in an OSR adventure? How might a referee address this?

This is nowhere close to an exhaustive list, but you get the point. If the best film reviews enhance the audience’s viewing experience, then the best role-playing game reviews should enhance the play experience.