I have to read through the books first. :)
I just left a review for Dungeon Dressing the other day. I'll make sure I leave reviews for other products as well.
Is there any specific place you'd like to see the reviews? Homepage of the company, Paizo website, drivethrurpg, d20pfsrd, others? I don't really want to leave a copy of the review at each location, but I'm more than happy to leave it at a requested one.
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This is something I've been meaning to do, but like bookrat, it requires that I actually read through the books I have. It also requires me to buy books, which I do with regrettable infrequency, because I am super poor and not actually playing any PF games at the moment.
But in the future, yes! I think more reviews would really help build 3pp sales.
I've also asked my players to submit reviews after they read the books they have bought (and the ones I've bought that they read before game starts).
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I review something once I get to read it or use it in play. Unfortunately I buy more than I get to put into play.
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Yes. More reviews, please. We writers wither and die without them.
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If you buy a 3pp book and like it, please write a review! :)
Please.
It does not have to be long. It can be short saying that you liked it/didn't like it and a point or two about why.
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Wrote 3-4 last night. Fortunately, I've been reading the smaller books first.
Publisher, Raging Swan Press
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I have to read through the books first. :)
I just left a review for Dungeon Dressing the other day. I'll make sure I leave reviews for other products as well.
Is there any specific place you'd like to see the reviews? Homepage of the company, Paizo website, drivethrurpg, d20pfsrd, others? I don't really want to leave a copy of the review at each location, but I'm more than happy to leave it at a requested one.
And I'm tremendously grateful for the review, Bookrat!
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Okay.
Honestly sometimes I avoid reviewing due to procrastination and the knowledge that it's been reviewed before but sure, if new reviews are that important I'll start reviewing everything I own. Not as detailed as End's but a blurb about what I like, what I don't like and whether or not I'm using them in my games. I have a lot of things in my downloads so this will take a bit.
I don't think anyone's expecting most reviews to be as thorough as an Endzeitgeist one, and knowing how important they are, I'm trying to remind myself that I really should write more (I've only done a few) as time permits.
Say what you liked, what you didn't like, and why you rated it. A decent review can be done in three sentences.
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I put in less than a paragraph. For two reasons: 1) time constraints, and 2) I've never been good at verbosity.
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The last time a fan reviewed one of my products, I made $60 off of that product that very day. If you want to see somebody whose work you like succeed, just review their stuff. It's significantly more valuable than being a regular customer.
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Been doing my part. 11 new reviews of items I've purchased in 2 days. I have a lot more go. Ask me if you're a potential buyer and need a more detailed opinion about products I've reviewed. They're relatively short because I have a lot of products.
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Even though none of mine were reviews, let me just say thank you. It is always nice to see more reviews of pathfinder compatible material.
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Unfortunately I only have two products from Jon Brazer Enterprises; Book of Multifarious Munitions and Book of Heroic Races: Seedlings, and it will take me a while to get to them because I'm starting with things I have hard copies of or have printed out. But they're both positive. I really needed a plant race when I got Seedlings and it delivered, and Multifarious Munitions has been a godsend in some of my campaigns.
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Great jobs, Malwing!
@Nicos: Just write your honest opinion, quote things that stood out to you. Describe what you enjoyed and what you think could be improved. As long as you stay constructive, every review, no matter how brief, helps the 3pps we all know and love. :)
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Speaking as a 3pp writer (albeit a relatively new one) all we want are honest reviews. They help us know where we went right, where we went wrong and how to avoid pitfalls in the future.
Also, it is nice to know people have actually thought about our work and that it isn't just sitting on a hard drive.
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Sometimes thinking is hard. I know I'm stuck re-reading three products, one of which I'm rereading because there's extensive fluff information that I haven't used but is enough of a factor in the book that its a factor in a final score. Right now I'm just reviewing things that I use enough to know my general opinion.
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I tell ya, it's hard writing a negative review. I don't want to be a jerk, so a lot of times if I don't like a product, it's hard for me to take the effort to be critical to someone who's other products I really enjoy. I know it helps you, but it's still difficult.
Meanwhile, I'm still plugging away with all the new books I've bought, and reviewing as I read them and/or use them.
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Yep. After all this time, I still don't like writing negative reviews. The "feeling like a jerk" never leaves you...
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Giving something a critique, warts and all is fine. We all have biases and our frames of reference differ - playstyles, game/table culture. Not every product will pass muster, be it for truly broken mechanics, lack of flavor substance or just being ill-thought out. I'm also a terribly shallow aesthete that craves pretty pictures and nice graphics. No matter how great the content, if the overall package is dull I find it difficult to get inspired.
If something seems/feels/is broken, or somehow lacking, for whatever reason mark it as such and move on.
There's no need to be negative. ;P
I must confess to being part of the problem when it comes to the lack of reviews. I have bought many RPG products over the years, but I tend to feel like I can't give them an honest appraisal until I've tried them out at the table, with players. I suppose it would be better to write away and amend the review after further testing, rather than wait. I'll poke through my backlog and see what I can rustle up. =]
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I must confess to being part of the problem when it comes to the lack of reviews. I have bought many RPG products over the years, but I tend to feel like I can't give them an honest appraisal until I've tried them out at the table, with players. I suppose it would be better to write away and amend the review after further testing, rather than wait. I'll poke through my backlog and see what I can rustle up. =]
I review few products as well, but I'll be honest most of the 3PP stuff I personally use is from the same 3PP that pays me, so I can't really give reviews of those products in good faith because people would think I was paid for reviews.
But really I should review the ones from other publishers.
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I must confess to being part of the problem when it comes to the lack of reviews. I have bought many RPG products over the years, but I tend to feel like I can't give them an honest appraisal until I've tried them out at the table, with players. I suppose it would be better to write away and amend the review after further testing, rather than wait. I'll poke through my backlog and see what I can rustle up. =]I review few products as well, but I'll be honest most of the 3PP stuff I personally use is from the same 3PP that pays me, so I can't really give reviews of those products in good faith because people would think I was paid for reviews.
But really I should review the ones from other publishers.
And if you do, OneBookShelf leaps out of your computer and starts chanting in tongues. Ask Thilo. We both saw it happen. ^_~
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14 more reviews in the past two days.
It seems like they're all suspiciously positive but I'm starting on all the ones that I either ordered a hard copy of or felt the need to print and bind them so they're all things that I was satisfied with enough to put on my bookshelf for regular use. I also am more likely to purchase things I feel I need for a particular purpose so I do a bit of cautious digging before purchasing most of the time.
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You're awesome! Thanks for reviewing so much!
Seriously, it makes it all worth it to just see an honest review after all those ungodly hours of work. Honestly, some of my favorite reviews were ones that had legitimate criticisms (I'm looking at you End). I mean we all love getting told just how amazing we are- but tell us what we did wrong too. We don't grow unless we get feedback. Even a few lines is helpful!
On a related note: drop us a line when you use our stuf. It makes our day. Those are our favorite emails to get :-)
14 more reviews in the past two days.
May I just say thank you for Book of Heroic Races: Seedlings being one of them.
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Well Seedlings was good enough to be printed out and bound so it was high priority to review. Basically I have a shelf of third party stuff and have been just pulling out a stack per day to review. I still have digital copies of good stuff but those are GM exclusive kinds of things.
I'm getting to little red goblin products eventually which should be fun because some of what I have don't have reviews on Paizo or the reviews don't reflect my opinion so I'll have way more to say unlike with products like Ultimate Psionics where its been talked about to death.
The weekend slowed me down but I have a lot of reviews today and am still not done with my shelf reviews.
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4 reviews up for products from 3 different publishers.
What's in My Pocket? I and II, Monstrous Bloodlines for Sorcerers II, and The Secrets of the Iron Titan.
I've made a OneNote notebook with sections for each 3PP (21 sections so far) and a page for writing the review within each section for each product that I own a copy of (164 listed in my notebook so far, just for the PFRPG system). With any luck, I'll be able to continue working my way through the list, but it'll take a while.
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Y'all are doing a fantastic thing. Thank you so much. Feel free to send Flaming Crab a little of that critical love. :)
Well Seedlings was good enough to be printed out and bound so it was high priority to review. Basically I have a shelf of third party stuff and have been just pulling out a stack per day to review. I still have digital copies of good stuff but those are GM exclusive kinds of things.
I'm getting to little red goblin products eventually which should be fun because some of what I have don't have reviews on Paizo or the reviews don't reflect my opinion so I'll have way more to say unlike with products like Ultimate Psionics where its been talked about to death.
The weekend slowed me down but I have a lot of reviews today and am still not done with my shelf reviews.
We are totally looking forward to it!
I used to write quite a bit of reviews for gaming books, a few of which were 3rd party Pathfinder products. Unlike briefer reviews, I tended to do more in-depth, chapter-by-chapter analysis strongly influenced by Something Awful's FATAL & Friends.
I did a review for Spears of the Dawn, posting it as a thread on several websites. Not only did it get over a thousand unique page-views on GiantITP, it's also on the top search results on Google when typing in the RPG's name.
In recent months, however, this kind of review style was very time-consuming, but quite rewarding for the books I did cover. I found that covering books one really likes or is passionate about is a better option than books you hate or don't really care about.
On various message boards (such as rpgnet), there are things known as Let's Reads, which are pretty much what I described above. They are great ways of providing coverage for games.
On that note, I should probably get back to my Path of War review.
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Six more reviews today and still not done with my shelf.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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Hey Malwing,
Thanks for all the hard work you've been putting in reviewing, and double-thanks for reviewing both The Way of Ki and the Gothic Campaign Compendium! Glad you enjoyed them and keep it up! You're an inspiration to every fan. As publishers, we appreciate so much everyone who takes the time to write a review, whether it's a detailed page-by-page breakdown or a paragraph saying what you liked or didn't like and why.
I'll be looking forward to following your continuing reviewing spree!
No problem. By the time I'm done I'll have a top ten list (5 for players 5 for GMs) of things things that seem the most mandatory. The bad news is that Way of Ki's position on the totem pole depends on what's in Pathfinder Unchained, because despite how well The Talented Monk went over, my players were more into Way of Ki for not disrupting the Monk help through archetypes and feat options. It just made Monks a serious thing (well that plus the rule where ki feats increase ki pools by 1.) and it isn't too much to look through and remember.
It's great that Paizo is releasing a "revision" of the monk in Pathfinder Unchained; but that didn't stop me from releasing my hopes for the monk in Monk Unfettered. I would greatly appreciate Malwing's (and all other reviewers) attention, and hope it will be well received.
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It's great that Paizo is releasing a "revision" of the monk in Pathfinder Unchained; but that didn't stop me from releasing my hopes for the monk in Monk Unfettered. I would greatly appreciate Malwing's (and all other reviewers) attention, and hope it will be well received.
Awww crap. On one hand, thanks to third party products, monks have been playable in my games for a while, and in addition to that we have a new replacement monk coming up to add to the mix, meaning that this kind of product is kind of useless to me.
On the other hand, I like Monks and Monk fixes, making me very curious. The price tag is low. And the art looks badass.
I've made a few more myself. Almost done with all my hard copies; I still have to read through Deep Magic and a multitude of pdfs. Most of my free time has been taken up with reviewing/playtesting the new Pact Magic book.
Also, as I'm sure is the same with Malwing, I'm not posting this to boast, I'm posting so this thread keeps getting bumped up in hopes that others join in and review. :)
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I'm mostly posting to keep the thread bumped. I took the request for reviews seriously because it is true; I have bought a lot of third party products due to good reviews. Generally I get books or pdfs to fulfill a need but its a money risk if there isn't an honest review that gives the details that you need to decide on whether or not to purchase. I hope that more people review and read my own reviews because that's how third party products keep a level of integrity and dignity as opposed to being dismissed as inherently unbalanced, bloating and useless.
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Publisher, Raging Swan Press
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I'm mostly posting to keep the thread bumped. I took the request for reviews seriously because it is true; I have bought a lot of third party products due to good reviews. Generally I get books or pdfs to fulfill a need but its a money risk if there isn't an honest review that gives the details that you need to decide on whether or not to purchase. I hope that more people review and read my own reviews because that's how third party products keep a level of integrity and dignity as opposed to being dismissed as inherently unbalanced, bloating and useless.
Well said, Malwing!
It's great that Paizo is releasing a "revision" of the monk in Pathfinder Unchained; but that didn't stop me from releasing my hopes for the monk in Monk Unfettered. I would greatly appreciate Malwing's (and all other reviewers) attention, and hope it will be well received.
Awww crap. On one hand, thanks to third party products, monks have been playable in my games for a while, and in addition to that we have a new replacement monk coming up to add to the mix, meaning that this kind of product is kind of useless to me.
On the other hand, I like Monks and Monk fixes, making me very curious. The price tag is low. And the art looks badass.
In the interest of full disclosure: the price tag is low because I made Monk Unfettered as a vanity project for myself over the course of almost two years. It is not intended to be a source of income for me (but hooray if it manages to break even). It took me a long while to find two artists that are both great and affordable, and part of the long project time was due to waiting to fit into the artists' schedules for the individual pieces. I am exceedingly satisfied with the art assets in the final results. :)
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I'm mostly posting to keep the thread bumped. I took the request for reviews seriously because it is true; I have bought a lot of third party products due to good reviews. Generally I get books or pdfs to fulfill a need but its a money risk if there isn't an honest review that gives the details that you need to decide on whether or not to purchase. I hope that more people review and read my own reviews because that's how third party products keep a level of integrity and dignity as opposed to being dismissed as inherently unbalanced, bloating and useless.
Well, we really appreciate your efforts.
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Well, I just hit up Ultimate Rulership (what's LG's marketing budget, and how much should I charge?), and later on I'll take a stab at something a bit different that's on my shelf from Jon Brazer Enterprises.