I'd also like to say that I find a lot of RPers that I know, don't think they're good at RPing/GMing regardless. This includes some people I greatly enjoy the games of. All it would take for some of those, is a number of 'bad ratings' and they might be driven away from RP for good.

So sure, make your own private list of who you like playing with. But don't make it a public thing, which is going to cause hurt feelings, no matter how it's done.

I guess I disagree with everyone present. I am tired of getting burned a month and a half into a game. I would love to read some reviews on GMs prior to going through the lengthy RTJ process.

I can appreciate that viewpoint, but honestly, isn't that gaming in general? I can only speak for myself and what groups I've played in, but even with tabletop I'm sure that slightly less than twenty of the literally hundreds of characters I've made in my life got played any longer than 90 days. I envy anyone who has a significantly better track record.

Then again, thinking about it, I suppose I would pity someone in that situation in ways too. That would severely curtail the amount of fun you got to have making characters.

This is one site policy I can wholeheartedly agree with - for all the reasons posted above.
Tileira is the one who beat me to my main objection, though:



Personally, I prefer to make up my own mind about people, both here and in RL.

If you have a run of GMs you don't like, keep looking. Sooner or later you'll find someone who runs a game you enjoy. Then ask them if they want to run another.

What's the worst that can happen? You spend a few weeks playing a game you won't finish. But maybe you can get an idea from it that will help you devise a game of your own, maybe you'll meet another player there that you get along with. Absolute worst case, you get a (private and personal) list of people you don't want to game with again. Even that's a positive result. There's a lot of worse ways to spend your time.

Another, perhaps controversial, question to ask yourself is: am I setting myself up for failure by the games I RTJ? Eg. Does the genre you prefer attract more plonkers than discerning individuals such as yourself? Is it a genre that is particularly difficult to do well? Have you been spoiled by a genius GM in the past, with whom nobody can compare?

There are so many reasons why a game might not work for you - which is precisely why rating Games and GMs is pointless, IMO.

A 'good' GM is a very subjective matter.  Even for myself, it may depend on the mood I'm in, exactly what I'm looking for.  As others have said, you need to make your own personal and private list.  And even then be careful you aren't letting 'bad luck' colour your perspective.  An excellent game is a mix of GM, players, story line, characters, and good timing; sometimes it happens, sometimes with what appears to be the same chances, it just doesn't.

This message was deleted by the user at 15:57, Tue 20 Jan 2015.

Heh...I've had this happen in dozens of tabletop games...most of them with GMs that I really enjoyed playing with.  They just decided they wanted to try something new...and it didn't click.  In more than a few of them, we never even actually got around to playing...we made it through character creation and the playing never actually happened.

Just because you get a GM with a good track record does not guarantee that every game that GM decides to run is going to go somewhere.  It improves your odds, sure...but on RPOL, half the time games die because so many players jump ship that the GM loses incentive to keep the game running...and no amount of game or GM reviews will change that.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 12):

Yeah it's similar to what I have right now, except I do not currently have any games going and so it's off site in a Google doc. It's a good way for me to keep track of people (and after four years absent from the site, I have forgotten the names of a bunch of cool folk sadly) and hopefully reconnect with them.

All in all I agree with the site's policy on this, but I really love being allowed to challenge and question it this way. I know it can get annoying for mods to revisit topics frequently but as a user it's a really good way to feel more involved in the site, so thanks for humouring us malcontents and rapscallions!

Again, I disagree. Everyone has made strong points, I understand them, and even agree on a certain level but I feel fundamental disconnect goes deeper. Peer reviews keep people honest. A rating system would go a long way to discourage GMs from just simply saying, "Hey, I am bored, let me go start and RPOL game I don't intend to run for more than a month." Furthermore, everyone's argument that 'not all GMs and players mesh' is kind of the point of the review. If people wrote well, thought-out constructive reviews of their peers, this would be very beneficial as a player during the RTJ process and even in the game. Players can identify with certain reviewees, as someone would shopping for products online.

But it is all moot. The policy will never change. I will be left with 12, 1st level PCs that never got a lick of EXP, destined to be shelved and never played. Meanwhile, I'll continue to GM my game until my heart fails or the world ends cause I made a promise to my players. And you're damn right I would get a good review for it.

That's a very big 'If'...and it still fails to address the issue of how to objectively assess how good a game or GM is.  Without some foundational criteria to use, written reviews are opinion...look at reviews on Amazon and you'll see a lot of apparently good products with some scathing reviews (at least, many of the products I've purchased in the past couple of years have had several harsh reviews, even though I had no problems with them.)  And that's a case where people generally have a pretty clear notion of what thething is and how it's supposed to work...there's only so much one can expect from gaff tape, for instance.  But games or GMs?  What is expected of them, and how well those expectations are met, are both incredibly subjective.

Yes, there are some GMs who know how to promote their game, pick their players, and keep things running smoothly.  But in looking at my own game list, I see at least one game that I would write a good review for, which others who've played in it would likely pan, and many might leave so-so reviews.  Whose review is correct?  Another game I'm in started off really well, ran for a few months...and then went idle, for more than a year...and then picked back up again.  The review I might have written a few months into that 'idle' phase would be hugely different than the one I'd write now.  Which one should count, even though both would technically be accurate?

These aren't isolated incidents...and they illustrate just a couple of the problems with trying to use reviews for GMs or their games.  Think about movie reviews, even...how many of the movies you like have gotten iffy reviews?  How many bad movies have you sat through because friends told you they were good?  Yeah, occasionally, a film comes along that gets universally panned, or that everyone raves about...but the vast majority of them have mixed reviews and you may go into one of them with totally different expectations than the reviewer.  Does that make their opinion any more or less valid?

... why not repurpose one of these 12 next time you go for a new game? Rather than go through making yet another new character? If you have -12- just sitting around, why not make sure you don't lose them when the game goes, and next time you need to make a level 1 character, you have a character already to go, with only formatting to worry about.

In reply to Ronning (msg # 27):

This is based on two dangerous assumptions:

Firstly, that everyone who posts a review does so in the form of a mature critique. I am sick of finding reviews of film and books which say "It's bad and a waste of time because I don't like {genre}" or (and this one really gets me) "I don't like it. {author} is good at {genre}. {author} should stick to {genre}. This is rubbish".

I can only ask you to forgive my cynicism, but I don't believe for a moment that any kind of reviewing or rating system on RPoL could possibly be helpful for this reason alone. I have met far too many "one-star" players on RPoL to think that the RPG community is more mature and analytical than the world at large. I know we like to think so, but if this did become a thing it would turn out like every other system: giving voice to the people who don't give valuable feedback.
(Has it also occurred to you that such a system would remove user/player anonymity?)

Secondly: some GMs run game after game after game of one system and setting, several at a time. Some hop from one genre to another, from one system to another, and experiment with tweaks to canon or house rules. Unless someone is running a lot of games and many of them in the same canon, I think the reviews would be pretty much useless.

"Oh, so, he was really good at running that Lovecraftian horror game two years ago... do I want to join his tongue-in-cheek '80s superhero game?"

The only people a rating system would be useful to are the career d20 players maybe.


I really do worry about a world in which no-one will take any risks without first consulting a public vote. Out of all the people I have met in RL and online, there is definitely a smaller bubble of people I would trust to make a sound judgement on anything than the 'facepalm' bubble.

I mean, why would I take facemaker329's opinion of willvr's game? I don't know either of them. Do I then look up facemaker329's credentials to check whether he's talking sense or throwing his crayons? Does chrisormie's review of facemaker329's game mean that facemaker329 doesn't know what he's talking about? Or that chrisormie picked the wrong game? Or that chrisormie is upset about facemaker329's review of willvr?

Aside from anything else, the mods would need a lot more time and bigger aprons for cleaning up all the mudslinging and putting the brats on the naughty step.

Just have some patience and be willing to endure disappointment? Please? Can we have one place left where we take responsibility for ourselves and carry our own baggage? The worst that will happen is you will leave a game thinking "I'm not playing with him again..."

In reply to Tileira (msg # 30):

Bravo.

You're asking for a way to OBJECTIVELY rate something from an entirely SUBJECTIVE viewpoint.  It's really impossible to do.

We all like and dislike different things.  Tileira stated that she wouldn't take the opinion of one person she doesn't know of another person she doesn't know.  I'll go one step further.  I'm real life friends with a player on this site, known the guy for 20+ years and we have similar ideals with games.  Just this past month we were getting into a game, something in the GM's style just didn't fit with him.  It really got his goat and if he wrote a review, it would be absolutely scathing.  Myself, I really enjoy the GM's style.  So we have two people, with similar styles and tastes in gaming, both of which would have written polar opposite reviews.

There are just way too many subjective things about gaming to really have any possibility of making an objective review process.  Beyond the point of sheer system differences you get into styles and ways that each GM does differently.  Heck, even spelling and grammar, for one person that might be a deal breaker and another might not care if everything else is in place.

Okay, valid points but they fundamentally contradict themselves.

Everyone is making these great arguments as to why reviews are a bad idea. I get it. Humans suck can can't be trusted to give a factual, non biased opinions and criticism of someone else's play. I understand. You don't know these people, you don't know if they were the problem. A GM can be switching between genres. Things might not have clicked. The GM likes the color red and the reviewer likes the color green, blah blah blah. I get it. Different strokes for different folks.

However... If I read 20 reviews on 1 GM, are you telling me I am not smart enough to formulate an educated opinion? Are you telling me I am not smart enough to recognize what reviewer sounds a bit whiny and immature versus those I have come trust? If facemaker329 interviews everyone and their mother but consists of very little substance vs Tileira's well articulated arguments, are you telling me I am not smart enough to notice these things?

Furthermore, I proposed reviews... nothing more. No rating system, no Like/Dislike, nothing but one individual critiquing another. I am not... living in a world that is managed by the majority. I said nothing about NOT taking risks. I am talking purely about a reviewing system where players and GMs can make educated decisions about the people the associate with. Who cares if the reviewer is right or wrong- that is for me to decide when I read it.

Again, all this is moot. I get RPOLs policy. I don't agree with it but I find what RPOL offers in terms of functionality to be way more important than finding the perfect player/GM candidates.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:23, Wed 21 Jan 2015.

I liked every movie that Siskel and Ebert disliked and disliked every movie that they gave a "thumbs up" to.

I wouldn't judge a Player, or a DM, based upon someone else's "rating." It's something I have to "check out" all on my own.

I'm just saying . . . tastes vary greatly from person to person. "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" is true for many things, not just paintings.

I want to answer yes so very badly. And that's why I'm against the proposed system. I'd want to abuse it. Just because.

Hmm. What do they say, for every negative response there's something like 5 positive ones that don't respond. Because people comment more about what not's working than what is. (In general.)

I have to say, there's plenty of people who would basically never be able to get players again, ever, if there were a rating system. That's why i'm against having one, though I do think there does need to be some way to warn people about someone who's burned you, since it's against RPoL policy to be not-nice in any way or to say bad things about people on public forums.

Except, you run into problems with those people who weren't 'burned'...the GM had legitimate reasons for doing what was done, but the player cannot/will not acknowledge that side of the matter.

I've seen that come up far too often to think that it wouldn't wind up becoming problematic with such a feature.

Ultimately, the one review/rating system that I can trust to not be influenced by someone else being petulant, petty, or just having a bad day somewhere along the line is my own opinion...and even that can't entirely be trusted, because I've initially thought stuff was better than it turned out to be after consideration, or something I didn't like ended up being something I really enjoy (like Depeche Mode...not a fan in high school and college, recently rediscovered them and have a totally different appreciation for them now.)

The fact of the matter; is you get to know people you trust regardless. And if someone that you do trust, privately, says "Careful - he left me stranded in three games" - you'll listen.

I'm not actually a fan even of that level; but I acknowledge that's human nature. But to turn it from a private thing between friends, into a big public thing, is somewhat scary; and will end up blacklisting people; in effect.

If I want to know about a gm, I take several step (i am not a stalker, but i am watching the show right now. Lol)

I can check to see if the gm runs any games here on rpol. I can read the public threads and get a sense of the gm. I can also ask to lurk in his game. Reading the interactions between the gm and his players usually gives me a really good. And i dont need someonee else to tell me.

Although I'm against a rating system, this points to one area where I might be tempted to agree: A "vanished without a word" blacklist.

It's simple, objective, and there's really no excuse for such behaviour. These days you can even get connected from a hospital bed. There are some people who don't deserve to get players, or to be accepted as players.

I'm not talking about people who have a life glitch for a couple of weeks and come back again with an apology, nor people who are never seen on Rpol again and may have been invited to the Great Gaming Table in the Sky, I'm talking about people who just stop posting without any excuse and are seen advertizing (for) another game the next day - people with no manners.

However, even here, I can see that the hassle of implementing it, and trying to separate the people with bad manners from the people with bad luck, would probably make such a list unworkable.

In reply to borderline_dnd (msg # 40):

Actually, I have to say that being involved in the public threads has been my best tool for winding up in good, solid games...

I'm currently in six games.  Two of them are games started by someone I was in another game with, who started the one we're now playing when the first GM abandoned the game for one reason or another.

Of the remaining four, one is run by someone that I had heard several people mention as being a good GM in the midst of off-hand comments during various discussions.  When I saw he was advertising a new game...in a system that I really enjoy, no less...I jumped at the chance.

Of the remaining three, two of them are games I was invited to join because the GMs had read stuff I'd posted here in the CC forum and liked both my writing style and my overall attitude, especially toward gaming.  (I think it also helped that, even though I've been in a few heated discussions on here from time to time, I've never been the guy to resort to name-calling or blatant trolling...but they didn't mention that, so that observation is speculation on my part.)

And the last game is one that one of those GMs was asked to co-GM by the person who started it...and I was invited to get involved in that game, too.  I've actually had a few other invitations, from similar sources...but the timing was bad (asking me to start a game when I'm flailing to stay ahead of the ones I'm in, with real-life commitments looming large, doesn't work out very well, because I'll generally err on the side of caution when it comes to the possibility of being over-extended in how many games I play) or it was a system that I either dislike or that I just wasn't interested in learning how to play.

So, yes...discuss things here.  Whether or not anyone says so, people pay attention to what's said...and how it's said...and when they see someone who seems familiar to them, they'll reach out.  Plus, it's kinda nice to have people feel familiar enough with you that when you post something about bad news in your life, they feel like they can extend a little moral support, even when you aren't in a game with them.

Dumping a game is one thing, that I might listen to.  If it was involving more than one game, because there might be reasons for the first 'dump'.  I can see getting completely fed up with a whole group full of bickering players and just walking away.  Past that I won't even do more than take into consideration what my best friend says.  There are a lot of things we agree on in games, but some things that are total deal breakers for him are things I enjoy and vice versa.

Yes, I agree, it would end up as a public blacklist.  For things that the whole story wouldn't be known publicly.  Even if both sides were to tell their stories you might not get the full idea.  All it takes is for one person to blow everything out of proportion and one person to not feel the need to defend him/herself against a bunch of bs claims.

I've run a grand total of one game (still ongoing) here.  I was VERY picky about who got into the game, I wanted to make certain that the players could accurately play they type of characters in the game.  I turned quite a few potential players down because I didn't feel they could do the job.  This upset a few people, a couple even tried to argue with me.  Because of this I'm sure there are a few people out there that feel that I'm an unreasonable jerk.  My response to any long, vitriolic review of me would be: "I didn't feel they could play the part, my game, my rules."  Chances are that wouldn't turn anyone to my side and might actually do the opposite.  Thing is, I WOULDN'T FEEL THE NEED TO DEFEND MY ACTIONS AS GM.

The other end of the spectrum is something I saw years ago on another site.  One of the site owners manipulated dice rolls.  It was blatantly obvious, you can only roll so many natural 20's in a row.  When you do it fifteen times, roll an 18, then roll ten more 20's (where I finally gave up counting), it's patently obvious you are cheating.  Thing is, not many people seemed to care.  To me cheating is an unforgivable sin.  Obviously there are people that don't mind playing with a cheater.  So who would you listen to?  One of a few voices mentioning the cheating (before they were kicked off the board) or the 40-50 other players that seemed to have no issues?

All in all, there are just too many ways any system would turn people away from good GMs and not turn people away from bad ones.  Ditched games can somewhat be seen just by looking at how many games a GM runs.  If the person has started a game a month that only lasts a few hundred posts that might be a sign that any new game won't last.  Past that, things fall into objectivity and various likes/dislikes.