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Toothless
2015-11-18, 04:47 PM
Hey everyone!

Remember a while back, there were some threads about a way to curate and critique homebrew content? Well, finally, it's back up and running!

https://www.reddit.com/r/boh5e

Just a quick summary, /r/boh5e is a subreddit dedicated to critiquing and scoring homebrew content. Anyone can submit homebrews for our panel of distinguished critics to read and review. Those that gain a high score get an Average, Good, or Excellent rating by us.

If you have some completed, high-quality content for us, submit it at the link below! If you have an eye for critiquing and judging content, comment below or send me a message over at /u/Toothless_Night_Fury (https://www.reddit.com/user/Toothless_Night_Fury/)! We're still looking for new members to join up on the team!

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see ya over there!

Mr.Moron
2015-11-18, 05:05 PM
It's a nice idea, but a lot of the scoring criteria is definitely irks me. A mandate to not use new mechanics and to always be weaker than the weakest available content are recipes for snooze-fest stuff, imo.

Magikeeper
2015-11-18, 11:40 PM
Looking back over what homebrew I've seen people actually use at a table (instead of just having the DM tweak / re-fluff stuff), it's pretty much all been mechanically different/unique homebrew.

I understand why a rating site wouldn't want to deal with that kind of stuff though - they want to guarantee quality and homebrew with unique/different mechanics has to be heavily playtested. This is even true if the mechanics are simple and intuitive, as their guide rightly suggests new mechanics should be (I will add that it should also take very little OOC time to use). Anyway, the reviewers understandably don't have the time to heavily playtest every bit of homebrew that comes their way, so it makes sense that they can't really gold-stamp it.

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That said, I do dislike that they make mechanically different homebrew out to be bad simply because is it mechanically different. For example, let's hop into D&D 3.5 and pretend some of the splats were homebrew. By BOH5E's guide 3.5 Psionics and Tome of Battle would be 6 or below, yes? Those were, in my opinion, among the best books in system.

Yeah, ToB as homebrew probably would have had a ton of difficulty making it into any games, but this site is claiming that its numerical score refers to how good the homebrew is period, not how easy it's going to be to get any DM to let you use it.

It'd be better if they just specified they are sticking to more Sandstorm-esq book goodness, and that, although your psionics-esq class might be fantastic if a group takes the effort to incorporate it, they simply do not have the manpower to playtest complex unique mechanics and thus will not be accepting such homebrew.

Sacrieur
2015-11-18, 11:58 PM
If the only difference between an 8 and a 10 is photoshop, then count me out.

It will be obvious that my works aren't official: because they're better and I have high standards for myself. That's not because I'm that good, but because 90% of the official stuff is that bad. I've found myself rewording "official" clauses that I've copied because they were just poorly written. So I wouldn't want this to be the metric I'm judged for. Even core has flaws in its execution and design, so either come up with a robust, useful, and thorough scoring method or I want nothing to do with it and its ill-perceived ratings.

And neither should anyone else who wants to rely on an index of quality homebrew. Because this wouldn't measure it effectively.

Magikeeper
2015-11-19, 12:16 AM
@Sacrieur: Eh, although the official wordings can be bleh I agree with their guide that it IS advisable to stick with what people are familiar with. Any choices to the contrary should be carefully considered against the cost of being different. It's better to save the divergences from the books for the stuff you feel is really important to the class.

I also did not get the impression that the only difference between an 8 and a 10 is photoshop. I felt it came across as mostly polish in general with a side order of "paid extra attention to integrating it into the game (multiclass balance et al.)". Seems sensible enough to me.

In fact, at no point is photoshop listed as mandatory for a high score - it is only given as an example what sort of things fall under that extra mile.

Sacrieur
2015-11-19, 12:24 AM
@Sacrieur: Eh, although the official wordings can be bleh I agree with their guide that it IS advisable to stick with what people are familiar with. Any choices to the contrary should be carefully considered against the cost of being different. It's better to save the divergences from the books for the stuff you feel is really important to the class.

I also did not get the impression that the only difference between an 8 and a 10 is photoshop. It came across as mostly polish in general with a side order of "paid extra attention to integrating it into the game (multiclass balance et al.)". Seems sensible enough for me.

In fact, at no point is photoshop listed as mandatory for a high score - it is only given as an example what sort of things fall under that extra mile.


8s are built on interesting, creative, or fun concepts, accompanied with a strong understanding of the concepts of D&D as well as their standard terminology.


9s are built on interesting, creative, or fun concepts, accompanied with a very strong understanding of the concepts of D&D as well as their standard terminology.


10s are built on interesting, creative, or fun concepts, accompanied with a mastery of the concepts of D&D as well as their standard terminology.

The only difference of substance was the addition of "very" and then the use of a synonym. There is no concrete basis for what the difference between a "strong understanding" and "mastery" is.

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However, the creator could still push the extra mile to make this content even better, adding lore, background, Photoshop, and more.


The creator has even pushed the extra mile to add lore, background, or even Photoshop it.


The creator has even pushed the extra mile to add lore, background, or even Photoshop it to an uncanny level of quality. A 10 is essentially a 9 with an incredible amount of artistic quality and extremely elegant writing.

This last sentence is the only difference, excluding the above *minor* edits, stripping out fluff. So I can't ever imagine what gave me the idea. I love the irony of "extremely elegant writing", since that just jars my brain because I read it as something *extremely* not elegant.

Magikeeper
2015-11-19, 12:48 AM
But all have the photoshop comment. The line you didn't quote:


An expert player may have difficulty distinguishing between this homebrew and official ones.

Which changes from unexperienced/experienced/expert, is probably the most distinct change. Not that they clearly define experienced/expert/etc, but claiming they didn't describe the differences very well is quite different from claiming their scoring system depends entirely on <thing most folk would consider nice but not vital for excellent homebrew>.

When you get down to it, boiling something as complex as homebrew into a single 1-10 numerical score is going to be problematic. I'm not defending their choice to do that, but I do not agree that their guide gives the impression that sweet artwork is the only thing that matters 8-10. I did miss that last line you quoted - but having 9-10 be mostly an art/lore thing is quite different from 8-10 being a mostly art/lore thing (IMO). If they want 10 to represent "why haven't you already made this official printed this as-is in a book, WotC?", aesthetics should matter.

Sacrieur
2015-11-19, 01:50 AM
But all have the photoshop comment. The line you didn't quote:

Which changes from unexperienced/experienced/expert, is probably the most distinct change. Not that they clearly define experienced/expert/etc, but claiming they didn't describe the differences very well is quite different from claiming their scoring system depends entirely on <thing most folk would consider nice but not vital for excellent homebrew>.

Not buying it, especially not with such vague definitions.

The only difference between homebrew and "official" content is that one was printed in a book with a company stamp on it and one wasn't. There's inconsistent wording, conflicting names, and broken mechanics in the "official" content. In fact most "official" content would be a six or below with very, very few classes which make it above that.

Which brings me to the point that the only difference between 8 or 10 is photoshop, because an experienced player (ESPECIALLY an experienced player) wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a 6/10 homebrew class and an "official" one stripped of all the fancy graphics.



When you get down to it, boiling something as complex as homebrew into a single 1-10 numerical score is going to be problematic. I'm not defending their choice to do that, but I do not agree that their guide gives the impression that sweet artwork is the only thing that matters 8-10. I did miss that last line you quoted - but having 9-10 be mostly an art/lore thing is quite different from 8-10 being a mostly art/lore thing (IMO). If they want 10 to represent "why haven't you already made this official printed this as-is in a book, WotC?", aesthetics should matter.

Presentation matters, for readability reasons. Whether or not it "looks and feels" like it came out of a D&D 3.5 book is BS.

Magikeeper
2015-11-19, 11:42 AM
Okay, I believe your argument is as follows:

A) They have strict Photoshop based scoring methods.
B) They lack any other strict methods.
C) Due to A and B, their scoring will default to photoshop.

I don't see your support for A. They do not give any more specific descriptions for their photoshop ("incredible amount of artistic quality" is somehow more exact and less opinion-based than anything else they said?)

Your argument demands more than they simply be unclear - they must be selectively unclear, implying what you claim they care the most about is indeed what they care the most about.

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I'd say writing style variance in the official books is not quite as wide as you're making it out to be - if someone makes no effort to mimic the general writing style it does show. Less hard-and-fast-rules (although some formatting choices clearly follow a template), more trends. But yeah, it doesn't take much effort to be within that bound. I will agree that they over-emphasize the importance of being just like the books, but I think starting with close mimicking and then moving away from that intentionally when you feel it's appropriate is better than the reverse.

nonsi
2015-11-19, 01:09 PM
Hey everyone!

Remember a while back, there were some threads about a way to curate and critique homebrew content? Well, finally, it's back up and running!

https://www.reddit.com/r/boh5e

Just a quick summary, /r/boh5e is a subreddit dedicated to critiquing and scoring homebrew content. Anyone can submit homebrews for our panel of distinguished critics to read and review. Those that gain a high score get an Average, Good, or Excellent rating by us.

If you have some completed, high-quality content for us, submit it at the link below! If you have an eye for critiquing and judging content, comment below or send me a message over at /u/Toothless_Night_Fury (https://www.reddit.com/user/Toothless_Night_Fury/)! We're still looking for new members to join up on the team!

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see ya over there!

Why not just come here yourselves and critique people's works in-place?
Why make people run to you?!

And what does artwork/formatting have to do with the integrity/quality of a proposed homebrew? I might as well use an Elmore/Caldwell wannabe's images for artwork. What does it prove or stand for in a homebrew?