The following article suggests little things that you can with regard to the formatting & informational content of your review to improve it & also make it more long-lasting.
Use Simple HTML
We do allow HTML in our reviews, so please feel free to add just a little bit of HTML to your text to improve its readability. If nothing else, bold and italics can help a lot if used carefully. If you're unfamiliar with HTML, you just mark anything that you want to be formatted with a pair of "tags" in angle brackets, a start tag at the begin and an /end tag at the end. Here are a few common examples:
- <b>bold</b>
- <i>italics</i>
- <a href="http://www.rpg.net">link to RPGnet</a>
Here's a reference on HTML; you'll never need to worry about the headers or the paragraphing in a RPGnet review, as the system takes care of those, but scroll down to look at the "Text Formatting" examples.
Two last pieces of advice. First, use HTML sparingly. Nothing can make a review look ugly as quickly as too much bold or too many hyperlinks. Second, please don't let MS Word create your HTML, as it adds on all kinds of style and header tags that will make a mash of your review.
Break Up Your Review
First, always be sure to use paragraphs well. A long scroll of unbroken text is the best way to ensure that your review doesn't get read. Just mark paragraphs with two returns and the review formatter will take care of the rest.
Second, if your review is at least several paragraphs long, consider using headers to break it up. This can be done with <b>bold</b> tags or header tags like <h3> or <h2>. (The headers in this particular article are all <h3>.)
The exact headers that you'll want to use will vary based on the content of your review, but here are a few examples of reviews using headers:
- Appearance, Setting, System, Summary - headers for an RPG System review, as seen in this review of Dreamwalker.
- Appearance, chapter-by-chapter Content, Final Analysis - headers for an RPG System review, as seen in this review of Fantasy Hero.
- Introduction, Overview, Comments, Verdict - headers for an RPG Adventure review, as seen in this review of Carved in Stone.
- Components, Game Play, Game Design, Conclusion - headers for a Board Game review, as seen in this review of Attack!.
The idea isn't to necessarily to go copy any of these header formats, but rather to make sure that your own review is organized by topic and has headers, as you see fit.
Double Check Titles
Do your best to get the title of your reviewed product correct. This is important because: it's what people will type in to search for your review; and it's used to cross-reference your review when someone else reviews the same product. Try and be sure to look at the cover of your product when you're entering the review name and to type the title in exactly as it appears.
The following advice can help improve the consistency of the review titles in the RPGnet database:
- Match Past Reviews. If the item has previously been reviewed on RPGnet, try and match the formatting and spelling of the title that's already been used.
- Use the Full Title. This should be as it appears on the cover. For example, label White Wolf's most popular game as "Vampire: The Masquerade", not "Vampire". Label Peregrine Press' game as "The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game", not "Dying Earth".
- Use Colons as Separators. If a game has a subtitle, but the cover doesn't include any punctuation for that subtitle, use a colon as a separator. This most frequently comes up when a product has a subtitle displayed under the title. (e.g., "Wraith: The Oblivion", "Carcassonne: Traders & Builders")
- Do Not Include the Product Line. If you're reviewing a roleplaying supplement, it'll usually have the product line name on the cover. However, you should typically not include that product line name unless it seems to be an integral unique identifier for the title. Typically this means that you might want to include the product line for core rulebooks, but not any other supplements. For example "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook", but not "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Magic Box", even if they insist on making the product-line title larger than the name of the individual book. Again, looking at past reviews might include the best indication of what to do, but when in doubt, leave it out.
- Link to the Index. Overall, the best answer is just to make sure that you linked your review to the RPGnet index when you input it.
Double Check Product Lines
Similarly, please try and make sure the product line name is accurate and matches what people have used in the past. This is because the product line is used to list "Related Reviews" on each review page. If yours doesn't match, people won't get to read your review when a new review is written for the same product line.
Most typically, the name of the product line should not include the genre category of the game (e.g., "Call of Cthulhu", not "Call of Cthulhu RPG"). Generally, try not to use an edition number unless there's been a big change from one ed. to another.
The absolute best way to find the best product line name is to sample through the database and see what's been recently used.
Include Publisher Information
Finally, if you include as much of the additional information as you can (ISBN, product number, price, etc.) the hard work you did writing the text of your review will be that much more useful. Typically, you can get all of this info by consulting the publisher's web site.
The ISBN is particularly helpful because it's less inconsistent than a product name (as discussed above), and so people will be much more likely to read your review on partner sites like Pen & Paper, which link it our databases on a product-by-product base. Enter ISBNs with hyphens, as they usually appear.
Finally, with all that said, a big thank you for contributing to the RPGnet Review Database!
