Depths

These "depths" of review will be tagged at the highest level I've done them. Sometimes I might do a shallow reading of a book and come back later to update on it.

Vibe Check

Reserved for stuff I see in passing, the Vibe Check is a look over the front and back cover. Does the cover art grab my attention? Does the blurb make me want to know more? What do I know about the author and/or publisher? Would I buy this book?

This is a surface-level look, but one that's important from the point-of-view of a consumer.

Flick-Through

The next level is one where I'll pick up the book and check through it, as one might in a shop when browsing. I'll talk about what's in there for sure, what I think of the layout and any internal illustration, as well as checking the credits page and acknowledgements. I'll also talk about the production quality of the book itself - how it's made and how that contributes to what I feel about it. Do I want to find out more?

This is a slightly more in-depth look that would basically, in the wild, inform whether I was going to buy it or not.

Deep Dive

As well as doing a Vibe Check and Flick-Through, a Deep Dive sees me reading through the thing in entirety (for longer books, maybe skipping some of the ancillary material) and giving my thoughts on the mechanics, the setting, the stories the game could tell, and what I think of these things when all taken together. The most crucial question here is: does what I read make me want to play the game?

Actual Play

Sometimes I might hear, see, or read this game played as a published actual play. When this happens, I'll be able to talk about it in a bit more depth, although there are obvious limitations to this.

Playthrough

Sometimes I do get to play games, and when I have, I'll report back on how they went. Crucially, I feel I should be able to answer whether or not I'd play again. There are a few different levels to this, and I'll be transparent about which I've done:

1. Prototype - Maybe I made a character or a world, or designed a session or campaign, but never got to play it through. That's still a valid way to play something, so I think it's worth reflecting on.
2. One-shot - I played it once in a single session, which might be how it was designed or maybe I adapted it.
3. Multi-shot - I got the chance to play it for a short run of sessions, or maybe I played a one-shot a few times.
4. One-campaign - for games designed to be played over a longer campaign, I got to do that! But only once.
5. Multi-campaign - ... for those rare occasions where I got to play more than one campaign, maybe even as both player and GM. This is the gold standard of what I'll be writing here, and I don't expect to do a lot of them. I hope they'll be useful and informative, and I hope they'll help you decide what to play next at your table.

Audiences

When I read a game, I try to categorise it by its audience, in terms of approachability for different experience levels. These are basically as follows, but sometimes games defy categorisation!

Games for Beginners

Highly approachable, and requiring little to no prior knowledge of roleplaying games or special accessories; games that inspire on-the-fly changes and laissez-faire rulings.

Games for Players

A game that feels on the surface as though it's there to be played, if not casually, then at least without needing too much input from the players or facilitators; games that inspire tweaks and house rules.

Games for GMs

Games that, although there to be played, contain a lot of excellent guidance, advice, and tools for making this game your own; games that inspire hacks and reskins.

Games for Designers

Games that can clearly be played, but which require a deep level of understanding or preparation to get into the headspace of the creator; games that inspire whole movements.

Types

At risk of being thoroughly cancelled, I'm broadly categorising things that look like or are used for games into three categories: trad games, OSR games, and story games. There are some other categories too, like lyric games or the grim-sounding "other".

This is very much a "duck-typing" thing: if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then I'll call it a duck. This is just categorisation for the purposes of Hark At Them! and not a taxonomy. If you don't like it, jog on.

Trad Games

Your classic big game, with one or more big rulebook, sometimes beginner boxes, stuff that you can buy lots of supplements for and which has multiple printings or editions. Not necessarily triple-A stuff, but stuff that looks and feels like a traditional game publisher made it.

OSR

The most controversial of all categories, this is just stuff that feels like it fits in the OSR scene as I understand it at the time. I'm using the name "OSR" as a catch-all, not a value judgement, and to be honest this isn't my normal scene so it's likely I'll get things wrong. Good?

Story Games

This category covers things where the creator intends to tell a specific kind of story in a measured and considered way. It probably covers stuff that fell out of the Forge Era, and to a lesser extent the Google+ Era, and then things that were inspired by that. But it's a long and glorious tradition, and frankly the one that I'm most drawn to.