Getting past the block and a review of the review

I had my mini-meltdown over the past couple of days over the upcoming campaign I'm starting and I feel much better now. :) Last night, I sat back down, went over my initial dungeons and then really got to work. The rooms were just flying out of my head and before you know it, a 12 room dungeon doubled in size, but went up in many levels in fun - at least I hope so. I used the OSRIC Random Dungeon generator on some of the elements, and now I'm just populating with monsters, treasures and traps. That'll be one down, a few more to go before I consider myself ready.

Doing that and getting some positive feedback on my player's handbook helped me to pull back and realize that I'm heading in the right direction, so this is probably the same nerves as I used to feel right before a race. (1)

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So I happily reviewed and posted my thoughts on the chapter from the Kobold Design Guide and... I wonder if I happily screwed up.

I don't feel bad about my review. It was an honest opinion of the chapter on the basis of the title/subtitle and what I was told it was about. Where I think I hit a fail was in my own execution.

Blogging like this is new to me. I've been doing personal blogs since about 99/00 on Livejournal and in some other venues. Most of that was personal stuff, stories, tidbits, but nothing like what I've done here for RPGs. I have a lot to learn about writing and about how to approach things.

I like details. I love James Maliszewski's reviews - he goes in-depth and you can see that he really enjoys thinking and writing what he talks about. I respect that. Same with James at LotFP - he writes how he feels. Sometimes there is a lot to slog through, but I get the "meat" that I enjoy. It's probably an aspect of my IT/geek mentality - you ask me to do something and I'm like a laser - things hit my McFly button and I have to solve the problem or get it done.

So I went to read the other bloggers' reviews and I felt like I had just rambled on. Ben at Kobold Quarterly didn't ask us to write a certain way, or how to review, but I still can't help but wonder if I "overdid" it. I probably could have just said: "Although the chapter was titled and implied a discussion on play-depth, I found this more of an overview of design and how to approach design in an interative fashion. It didn't exactly meet the depth (or talk about the subject specifically) that I was looking for. I think, combined with the other chapters, it serves as a nice overview and some good pointers."

I just don't want to do anyone an injustice or disservice. And nobody has complained about my review to me - but I just wanted to make that small point.

... OK, back to putting monsters into dungeon rooms while I wait for my code to compile...