Hello all, I've decided to make a slight change in my rating and review format. Basically all that's changing is layout is being moved from the writing section to the art section--which has been re-titled "Presentation."
In this new format, the order in which content is presented will still be covered in the "Writing" section, but all aesthetic and readability qualities of layout--including use of tables, inclusion of helpful sidebars and summary pages, and things like typeface choice and column/page breaks--will be covered in the "Presentation" section. Also, I may now take cover art into consideration under Presentation--cover art was previously excluded from the "Art" score.
I've mainly done this in the interest of trying to keep my review scores semi-objective, as giving myself the authority to decide when art was "unnecessary" or "unreasonable to expect" is a little unfair. Also I've decided to be less generous in handing out N/A scores for Character Creation and Content. Specifically, anything where players need to make choices or rolls during character creation--or advancement--will now get a score, and "just make up your own stuff" will now get a 0/5.
I can't say how this is going to affect average scores, as it now makes it impossible to get an N/A score in a section in which a 0/5 is possible--and a lot of previous reviews did have an N/A in. Of reviews that I've updated to the new format, it has somewhat evenly raised and lowered scores. I'll most likely be updating the reviews for shorter--and lower scored--titles, and possibly the bigger, more in-depth ones eventually.
