How We Rate Products
The wise gnomish inventor Elonius Muskrat once said “Rockets are hard.” To a lesser extent, so are product reviews. This is a hurdle we have to clear when we attempt to rate products. Few products attain perfection, and perhaps just as few fail utterly. Products are often a balance of pros and cons, and, while these attributes are objective, overall value is highly subjective. Additionally, some products are designed to serve a very specific purpose or philosophy of use.
Bless These Dice approaches these considerations by employing a review structure that sorts out the pros and cons of a product. We employ a categorization scheme that players of RPGs will find familiar and, hopefully, fun:
- Critical Hits – These are things about a product encounter that were truly special. Like a natural 20, these attributes are rare but can elevate the product to new-found glory.
- Saves – These are the things that the product does well, as compared to its purpose. The core attributes of the product should support this category to make it effective and allow it to stay alive in the market.
- Fails – These are the things that the product does poorly, also as compared to its purpose. Like a cleric that runs out of heal spells too often, repeated failure to provide value can be the difference between a good product and a mediocre one.
- Critical Misses – These are attributes of the product that missed the mark entirely. It takes a well-built product to have multiple critical misses and not fall upon its own sword, so to speak.
The Hero’s Journey – Each of our reviews will include this additional section. We intend for it to describe the person who might find value in the product. Because, crampons are absolutely useless…until you set off to slay the ice dragon, am I right?! This is not to say that other people shouldn’t buy the product. This is just our best approximation who would benefit most.
