Patreon-update 05/2015!
Dear Patreons!
I wanted to take a short moment to thank ALL OF YOU. Why? Because thanks to YOU, I have just finished a milestone I thought I wouldn’t reach due to my financial situation: I have just finished my review of the Liber Influxus Communis. The review clocks in at over 9000 words and will be published tomorrow on my site. This is as much your triumph as it is mine – without you, this review would not exist – collating information of the playtests, reading and analysis in the end clocked in at more than 60 hours I’ve spent on this particular monster of a review.
As they say, no rest for the wicked, though: I’m already busy tackling Thunderscape and Palace of the Lich Queen, the later is a prioritized review of a massive high-level adventure chosen by Karen Lockwood. Legendary Games’ Ultimate Commander has also received prioritized treatment, so expect to see this review rather soon as well.
If you are eligible for a prioritized review in June, please tell me as soon as you know which book to choose – the longer and more complex a book, the more time I need, so the sooner I know, the better. 🙂
In the spirit of transparency, I’ll also give you a status-update regarding what reviews are written and only require finetuning/minor math:
-All Gossamer Worlds
-Zeitgeist #8-10
-WoTW #7
-Deep Magic
-Various Fat Goblin Games-pdfs
-Multiple Raging Swan Press-pdfs
I am also currently playtesting Into the Breach: Cavaliers and have just finished the math for some massive non-PFRPG-books…but you’ll see those soon. 🙂
As always, I also have a question for you:
Which should I tackle first/what would be of most interest for you?
-Psionics Augmented: Mythic Psionics (DSP)
-Lords of Night (DSP)
-Cerulean Seas: Celadon Shores (Alluria)
-Fallen Leaves AP (AAW Games)
-Porphyra-supplements (Purple Duck Games)
Or do you want me to try to catch up with a different publisher’s products? Perhaps you want more Everyman Gaming or Interjection Games or Flaming Crab Games-reviews? I’m all ears!
Finally, here is a handy list of all reviews I made for you since the last list!
AAW Games – Underworld Races: Vestraadi
Little Red Goblin Games – Gonzo
Fat Goblin Games – Vathak Grimoires: Echoes of the Final Heartbeat
Raging Swan Press- Village Backdrop: Arrowhill
Purple Duck Games – Heroes of the Middle Kingdoms
AAW Games – Mini-Dungeons: Abandoned Shrine
Legendary Games – Pirate Codex
Kobold Press – Demon Cults: The Cult of Selket
Purple Duck Games – Encounter Pages III
Raging Swan Press – Village Backdrop: Edgewood
AAW Games – Dire, Devilish Deeds I: Arcineum Devaneas I
Rite Publishing – The Secrets of the Iron Titan (Revised)
Raging Swan Press – Village Backdrop: Aubade
Little Red Goblin Games -Necropunk Advanced Player’s Guide
Rite Publishing – Kaiju Codex
AAW Games – Mini-Dungeons: Carrionholme
Purple Duck Games – Warrior prestige Archetypes: The Gold Legionaire
Legendary Games – Mythic Minis: Mythic Lycanthropy
Purple Duck Games – Warrior Prestige Archetypes: The Low Templar
AAW Games – Dire, Devilish Deeds II: Arcineum Devaneas II
Ars Phantasia Press – Mythic Maps: River Village
Moebius Adventures – Brick By Brick: Doors
AAW Games -Mini-Dungeons: The Penetentieyrie
Purple Duck Games – Warrior Prestige Archetypes: Mammoth Lord & Mammoth Rider
Legendary Games – Legendary Villains: Dark Druids
D20pfsrd.com Publishing – Compendium Arcanum 4: 3rd level Spells
Flying Pincushion Games – Tides of War: Mounted Charging Feats
Fat Goblin Games – Vathak Hauntings: Red Rose Manor
Legendary Games – Mythic Monsters: Masters of Chaos
Interjection Games – Ultimate Truenaming
AAW Games – C04: The Play’s The Thing (Revised Edition)
Rogue Genius Games – Genius Adventures: The Black Skull Laughs
LPJr Design – Vehicles of Legend
Rite Publishing – Rite Map Pack: River Isle
AAW Games – Dire, Devilish Deeds III: Devaneum Arcineas I
Kobold Press – Demon Cults: The Hand of Nakresh
AAW Games – Mini-Dungeons: Tiikeri’s Revenge
Rite Publishing – Gossamer Worlds: Hollow Thune
Dreamscarred Press – The Opened Mind
AAW Games – Mini-Dungeons: Ghastardly Deeds
AAW Games – Mini-Dungeons: Buta No Shiro
Raging Swan Press – Gibbous Moon Collector’s Edition
Ars Phantasia Press – Mythic Maps: Island Keep
Purple Duck Games – Puppets of Porphyra
Everyman Gaming – Everyman Archetypes: The Swashbuckler
AAW Games – Mini-Dungeons: Nekh-Ta-Nebi’s Tomb
Rogue Genius Games – Mythic Options: Mythic Base Class Features
AAW Games – Dire, Devilish Deeds IV: Devaneum Arcineas II
Amora Game: Liber Influxus Communis: The Book of Collective Influence
If you want to support me and my reviews and become a patreon, here is the link!
I remain, incredibly grateful, yours,
Endzeitgeist out.
Hi Thilo
Thanks for the update, however I’m not a Patron on Patreon and for a reason. I like your critical review of products, however I find them far too long and therefore too tedious to read (tl;dr). There is a big difference between a summary and a review. The summary bit might as well be condensed into an executive summary (a summary of the summary), for if I want details, I will buy the stuff. Your reviews are also hard to parse for me. I would find it more helpful if you had a stat block at the top dealing with the formal criteria you always hide away in some paragraph. Why not make it a single line at the top: editing 4/5, visuals 3/5 etc. I just can’t read “editing is top notch” anymore…
I also think it is a no-go to review products you had a hand it. Makes all of your reviews kind of questionable, you know.
So I hope you can keep this up, since I believe your reviews are very helpful. But the form leaves something to be desired, at least for me 🙂
Cheers!
Hej Daniel!
First of all: Thank you so much for posting and sharing your feedback! I really appreciate the time and effort!
I absolutely understand that my reviews are too long for you – however, at the same time, that is unfortunately exactly what not only designers, but also most of my readers want, so I will stick to this formula for now – at least until enough people tell me otherwise.
Per se, your suggestion of stars for the sub-category is a good one; however, there are some reviewers who already do this. Secondly, I don’t really like reducing the rating process even further. 5 stars are terribly reductive, hence also the distinction between 0.5-stars, round up and down and the seal of approval – sounds odd, but settling on a verdict is often the exact component that takes me the longest, mainly because I believe in the overall product as an entity that is more than the sum of its parts and production values. If a pdf has great art and layout, for example, that may offset some editing glitches. Conversely, bad layout can knock a product down a notch. So yeah, that’s pretty much why I settled on certain words to describe my overall impression instead of hard ratings. Still, I will contemplate this suggestion.
Now as for reviewing products I had a hand in: Rest assured I will continue to specifically and explicitly note when that is the case. And yes, I am aware of this being perceived as problematic. While I am completely confident in my ability to abstract my involvement in any such product for the purpose of ratings, I understand the trepidation this causes. Something to bear in mind: I have NOTHING to gain from reviews of products I’ve worked on. NOTHING. I don’t see a single buck for them and ultimately only have something to lose for writing them. That being said, I am obviously not going to write reviews of products where I’m the main author; I wouldn’t have written any reviews for the Strange Magic-books, for example, had the base-systems not already been in place (and utterly superb) before my involvement. That being said, apart from a final review of the Strange Magic-book (I’ve covered all the components, after all), I have no plans of doing so in the future. I may, in the future, refrain from star-ratings for such products – but if I don’t cover them, there’s no telling whether they get any review at all. 🙁
Thank you for the constructive feedback!
Cheers!