REVIEWS: Revision 1.5?

Last night, my friends and I went to the movies. My friends have a tradition where, as the previews come on before the show, they give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to indicate whether they think each movie previewed will be good to see. I never really participate, because I'm not a thumbs-up/thumbs-down kind of guy. I have a difficult time summing things up in a good/bad kind of way. My opinion's always got caveats, reservations, and comments on the relative nature of things. In other words, I'm too darn wordy for a simple "yes" or "no."

This time, it occurred to me as this was going on that when people came to my website to see my review of D&D 3.5, they were looking for a thumbs up or a thumbs down. But that's not what I gave them. While I make no apologies for that, I do understand now that this has caused somewhat of an unintended furor.

People read my review and took it as a wholly negative thing. A rant even. I thought that my conclusion, and the "nutshell" statement at the beginning, would alleviate the fact that I spent more time discussing the negative than the positive.

I was wrong. I see that now.

So I've gone back and added more verbiage to the section about the good portions of the book -- the parts I liked -- to better convey my intention. My intention was to give a very mixed review, to show that, while I'm unhappy with the way it was done in principle, the end result is more good than bad. I chose the examples of things I liked and did not like very carefully, some large issues and some small; the good points are in general larger issues than the bad, because that's indicative of the books as a whole.

Let me be very clear, though. None of my opinions have changed in any way. All I've added is more explanation to clarify my opinion.

To read the review, click here.

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