Exo-fat's Rpg Rating System
Entry posted by ExoFat
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Ratings systems for RPGs rarely work, mostly because RPGs are hard to rate. Personal opinion plays a large factor in the final outcome of the game’s rating. Let me go through a popular rating system and point out its inherent flaws.
Writing
Story (20)
NPCs and Regions (15)
Style (10)
Technical
Grammar (5)
Rules (15)
Format (15)
Bonus
Originality (10)
Look (5)
Bonus (5)
On the surface this rating system looks great. I beg to differ. This system relies heavily on personal bias towards an RPG and probably won’t reflect the technical aspects of the game.
Problems with this system:
• The rating points are too large, sometimes assigning high grades to low quality games. For example, it is still possible to score above 80% and have a zero on Story. This does not inspire the GM to work harder for a better score. Tthey assume they already have a good one. This, to me, shows that it is too drawn out.
• Seemingly extraneous ratings. Some things are almost exactly the same. In fact one reviewer couldn’t tell the difference between look and format. Bonus is also extraneous. If they earn a Bonus, it should have no impact upon the out of 100 rating and instead should be a completely extra addition.
• Personal bias is inserted too often. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable with any type of review.
It is my belief that a more compact and precise ratings system, where every lost point truly hurts, is more efficient. I have designed such a system.
Story (15) This is a collective score of everything in the category under it. All scores in the Story category are added together to get the Story score. The same is true for each of the other categories.
-Writing(10): How does the story flow together? Does the GM use correct grammar? Is the story believable? Is it entertaining?
-NPCs(5): The main question here is, do the NPCs expand the story? Are the detailed? Are they believable?
Gameplay(25)
-Factions(10): What groups are in the game? Are there any groups?
-Locations(10): Tell us about the environment. Is this someplace we’ve seen before or is it a whole new world?
-Technical(5): This portion is for rating the rules and other technical portions of the game. Anything new or interesting would go here.
Presentation(20)
Initial Reaction(5): Is it eye catching? Does it contain a banner? Are you automatically sucked in or is the first thing you think, meh?
Use of BBCode(5): Does the GM make a pleasing atmosphere of pleasant colors, bolds and underlines?
Formatting(5): Is each section put together in a easy to navigate way? Or does the RPG feel scattered and unconnected?
Grammatical(5): Are paragraphs spaced neatly, or squashed together like jelly? Does the GM use proper grammar? Is everything spelled correctly?
IMO this is a much better system than the other one. Each point lost hurts much more and makes the GM actually thing about what they did wrong.
This is my kind of system.
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