2014 Ennies
Best Website
Gold RPGGeek
Silver Fate SRD
...as long as my Livestream holds I'll provide updates.
Best Podcast
Gold - Ken & Robin talk about stuff Kenneth Hite and Robin D. Laws
Silver - Numenara, The Signal, Monte Cook accepts on behalf of Scott
Best Blog
Gold - Gnomestew
Silver - Adventureweek.com
Not really sure on the music selections for the winners...
Best Software
Gold -
Silver - Realmworks, Lone Wolf Development
...and spammed out by two ads on livestream for the gold! This concludes my live updates for the evening.
Quote from: GameDaddy;780067Best Software
Gold -
Silver - Realmworks, Lone Wolf Development
...and spammed out by two ads on livestream for the gold!
I *think* gold was Roll20...
Quote from: GameDaddy;780061Best Website
Gold RPGGeek
Silver Fate SRD
I'm pretty sure that's backwards. Oops... never mind, you corrected it and I didn't notice it :D
Best Cover Art
Gold – Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Mythic Adventures - Paizo Publishing
Silver – Achtung! Cthulhu – Keeper’s Guide to the Secret War - Modiphius
Best Interior Art
Gold – Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods - Paizo Publishing
Silver – Numenera Corebook - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Best Cartography
Gold – Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio - Paizo Publishing
Silver – Numenera Corebook - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Best Production Values
Gold – Numenera Corebook - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Silver – Trail of Cthulhu: Eternal Lies - Pelgrane Press
Best Rules
Gold – Fate Core System - Evil Hat Productions
Silver – 13th Age - Pelgrane Press
Best Writing
Gold – Numenera Corebook - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Silver – Achtung! Cthulhu – Keeper’s Guide to the Secret War - Modiphius
Best Free Product
Gold – Pathfinder Module: We Be Goblins Too! - Paizo Publishing
Silver – Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quickstart - Chaosium Inc.
Best Electronic Book
Gold – Player’s Guide to Emerald City – Green Ronin Publishing
Silver[FONT="] – [/FONT]Broken Earth (Savage Worlds) - Sneak Attack Press
Best Aid/Accessory
Gold - Numenera Creature Deck - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Silver - Fate Dice – Eldritch Dice - Evil Hat Productions
Best RPG Related Product
Gold - Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set - Paizo Publishing
Silver - Strange Tales of the Century - Evil Hat Productions
Best Miniatures Product
Gold - Pathfinder Battles: Wrath of the Righteous - WizKids Games/NECA
Silver -Pathfinder Battles: Wrath of the Righteous Gargantuan Demon Lord Deskari - WizKids Games/NECA
Best Monster/Adversary
Gold - Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 4 - Paizo Publishing
Silver - The Ninth World Bestiary - Monte Cook, LLC
Best Setting
Gold - Numenera Corebook - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Silver - Deadlands Noir - Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Best Family Game
Gold - Fate Accelerated Edition - Evil Hat Productions
Silver - Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn - Cubicle 7 Entertainment
Best Adventure
Gold - Trail of Cthulhu: Eternal Lies - Pelgrane Press
Silver - Razor Coast: Heart of the Razor - Frog God Games
Best Supplement
Gold - Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign - Paizo Publishing
Silver - Fate System Toolkit - Evil Hat Productions
Best Game
Gold - Fate Core System - Evil Hat Productions
Silver - Numenera Corebook - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Product of the Year
Gold - Numenera Corebook - Monte Cook Games, LLC
Silver - Fate Core System - Evil Hat Productions
Fans' Choice Best Publisher
Gold - Paizo Publishing
Silver - Evil Hat Productions
Paizon must be pretty pleased, followed by Monte Cook and Evil Hat.
Paizo was their usual self out there, I see.
This still makes me wonder what would have happened in the Art category if Edge of the Empire were entered.
Quote from: 3rik;780096Best Family Game
Gold - Fate Accelerated Edition - Evil Hat Productions
Silver - Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn - Cubicle 7 Entertainment
How in the name of the Sweet Baby Jesus is Fate Accelerated Edition a fucking "Family Game"?
I'm not a big The One Ring fan but the Hobbit Tales game behind a version of Fate...as a..."Family Game"?
Well, the Ennies have now proven themselves completely irrelevant and yet another incestuous circlejerk of the G+ crowd.
If Hicks had a shred of integrity he'd thank the fans for their support then give that shit back as completely undeserved.
All the other awards, sure, I'm not a narrative guy, but I know FATE is well loved, so Kudos, but Family Game? Get the fuck out.
Quote from: CRKrueger;780398How in the name of the Sweet Baby Jesus is Fate Accelerated Edition a fucking "Family Game"?
I'm not a big The One Ring fan but the Hobbit Tales game behind a version of Fate...as a..."Family Game"?
Well, the Ennies have now proven themselves completely irrelevant and yet another incestuous circlejerk of the G+ crowd.
If Hicks had a shred of integrity he'd thank the fans for their support then give that shit back as completely undeserved.
All the other awards, sure, I'm not a narrative guy, but I know FATE is well loved, so Kudos, but Family Game? Get the fuck out.
Well, last year Dr Who RPG beat Hero Kids as best Family Game. I said the same thing about Dr Who, which is a fully fledged RPG, so maybe this is karma against C7 :)
And FWIW I agree with you regarding FAE
I'm not on G+ myself. Is there really such a thing as The G+ Crowd?
I didn't know Hobbit Tales was an RPG at all.
Also, I really don't get what makes all that Pathfinder shit so special. :idunno:
How many times can Evil Hat re-release FATE and win all of the awards again?
Quote from: 3rik;780562I didn't know Hobbit Tales was an RPG at all.
Its not. Its a storytelling card game. "Family game" category is not limited to RPGs.
Quote from: Ladybird;780563How many times can Evil Hat re-release FATE and win all of the awards again?
I dunno. Ask again next year and we'll see.
I always assumed the Origin Award was the award you would want to win.
Quote from: Endless Flight;780568I always assumed the Origin Award was the award you would want to win.
I concur, although they have pretty different vibes.
This year's Origins awards (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/06/15/the-2014-origins-award-winners-for-tabletop-gaming-with-a-few-surprises/) did highlight Numenera, but there was no sign of FATE.
Quote from: CRKrueger;780398All the other awards, sure, I'm not a narrative guy, but I know FATE is well loved, so Kudos, but Family Game? Get the fuck out.
It's pretty explicitly aimed at younger gamers.
Quote from: robiswrong;780587It's pretty explicitly aimed at younger gamers.
Its certainly simpler than FATE Core and it says " for first time gamers" on the back. But I am not sure I consider it to contain much that makes it specifically good for younger gamers or families. The sections on roleplaying, GMing and the like are barely big enough to cover the basics, let alone cater for the young or inexperienced.
Quote from: robiswrong;780587It's pretty explicitly aimed at younger gamers.
The examples may be targeted toward the Harry Potter/Spy Kids/Avatar crowd, but the rules read like talking to someone who has never played an RPG before.
Quote from: GameDaddy;780064Best Blog
Gold - Gnomestew
Quote from: CRKrueger;780398How in the name of the Sweet Baby Jesus is Fate Accelerated Edition a fucking "Family Game"?
These two really tell you all you need to know about the ENnies.
Quote from: CRKrueger;780398Well, the Ennies have now proven themselves completely irrelevant...
I haven't found the Ennies to be relevant in years. Perhaps some people find them useful or relevant, but not me.
Quote from: flyerfan1991;780592The examples may be targeted toward the Harry Potter/Spy Kids/Avatar crowd, but the rules read like talking to someone who has never played an RPG before.
They read like someone who knows how RPGs work trying to explain to someone who hasn't played an RPG before a little too quickly, to be specific.
FATE Accelerated Edition is a good idea but it doesn't have enough examples or patience with the reader to be much use to anyone who is truly, genuinely new to RPGs. Hell, I've known experienced gamers to be profoundly confused by stuff in it, only to grok it better when they see the fuller explanations of concepts in FATE Core.
Quote from: The Butcher;780594These two really tell you all you need to know about the ENnies.
Still the Ennies give me a proper idea what games are popular at the moment. Mostly D&D and Pathfinder and Star Wars I guess.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;780700Still the Ennies give me a proper idea what games are popular at the moment. Mostly D&D and Pathfinder and Star Wars I guess.
More like Fate, Numenara and Pathfinder. Kudos to them, I suppose, but I'm a bit sad that publishers have to compete with bigger companies like Paizo. It would be nice if they had such a competition for smaller companies.
Every award has weird corner cases where an odd thing wins instead of what "should" have. Heck, there's tons of stuff written about misfires in the Oscars over the years. I agree FAE shouldn't have won Best Family Game, but I'm not going to stop paying attention to the awards because of it. Besides, awards are fun.
But boy, you can feel the fanboy going on - as best as I can tell, Paizo didn't lose a single category they were nominated in, and by "didn't lose" I mean "took the gold".
On the other hand, it was neat to see "Ken and Robin Talk about Stuff" get the gold for best podcast. I really like their work, and just finished listening to their special 100th episode special.
(Seeing RPGGeek win best website was very odd. I spend a fair bit of time on their sister site boardgamegeek, and although it's got some of the best info on the game, I have some trouble with the early 90's design. But looking at the other finalists, I guess they were the best.)
Yeah, I confess that I'm a bit disappointed by the ENnie award results. Not because I didn't win anything - since I didn't really expect to have more than a slight chance at a Silver - but because the awards were so dominated by a small handful of companies or their respective brands.
All of the winners are good games, but so many other good games got crushed because the winners had so many more fans to vote for them.
I know, I know, it's a popularity contest and it's how the voting has always works, but it still bums me out a little. :(
Quote from: Mark Plemmons;780709Yeah, I confess that I'm a bit disappointed by the ENnie award results. Not because I didn't win anything - since I didn't really expect to have more than a slight chance at a Silver - but because the awards were so dominated by a small handful of companies or their respective brands.
All of the winners are good games, but so many other good games got crushed because the winners had so many more fans to vote for them.
I know, I know, it's a popularity contest and it's how the voting has always works, but it still bums me out a little. :(
That's how it always is. Lots of good products get overlooked by the shiny stuff.
Quote from: brettmb;780729That's how it always is. Lots of good products get overlooked by the shiny stuff.
True enough. This year seems a little more weighted in that direction than previous years (as I recall, and without research).
For this year, I did some figuring when I wrote my blog post comparing my ENnie predictions to the final voting (http://plebotamus.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/2014-ennie-award-follow-up/). By my count, there were 44 individual gold and silver awards, of which 40 had a chance to be won by official or unofficial products supporting Fate, Numenera, Savage Worlds, or Pathfinder. They won 31 out of 40.
Quote from: jcfiala;780708EBut boy, you can feel the fanboy going on - as best as I can tell, Paizo didn't lose a single category they were nominated in, and by "didn't lose" I mean "took the gold".
They must have gotten nervous, because I got an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from Paizo essentially begging people to vote for their entries.
Quote(Seeing RPGGeek win best website was very odd. I spend a fair bit of time on their sister site boardgamegeek, and although it's got some of the best info on the game, I have some trouble with the early 90's design. But looking at the other finalists, I guess they were the best.)
If you think the Geek is early 90s now, I remember when they first started up. It made Gopher look advanced, and that was early 2000s.
However, even ConsimWorld has improved their site, so I guess it's time for a more complete overhaul of the Geek.
Quote from: Mark Plemmons;780709Yeah, I confess that I'm a bit disappointed by the ENnie award results.
I know, I know, it's a popularity contest and it's how the voting has always works, but it still bums me out a little. :(
...So, how do we arrange to conduct an awards ceremony that actually provides awards for the
best games in a given category?
Each gane is comprised of three elements, yes?
Game Mechanics,
Artwork.
Editing.
What else could be added to this list to establish a criteria and scale of quality?
Quote from: GameDaddy;780823...So, how do we arrange to conduct an awards ceremony that actually provides awards for the best games in a given category?
Each gane is comprised of three elements, yes?
Game Mechanics,
Artwork.
Editing.
What else could be added to this list to establish a criteria and scale of quality?
Do you count "quality of writing" under art or mechanics? :)
Quote from: Ladybird;780563How many times can Evil Hat re-release FATE and win all of the awards again?
Well, FATE works for everything, don'cha know. Including the entirety of space and time.
Quote from: Necrozius;780706More like Fate, Numenara and Pathfinder. Kudos to them, I suppose, but I'm a bit sad that publishers have to compete with bigger companies like Paizo. It would be nice if they had such a competition for smaller companies.
Well, there's the Arty Hipster Circle Jerk erm... I mean the Indie RPG Awards...
(http://i.imgur.com/eb03buh.gif)
I was going to say that the Ennies need to remove the public vote element to gain more credibility. May be add a Public Vote award. However, I am not sure that's enough. Especially as this year saw Judges platform for votes with a promise to vote for certain games: http://forums.cubicle7.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=2015
When you combine this with a single Judge able to ban one of the industries more popular RPGs from being nominated last year as it used unusual dice, and I think the Ennies time is done.
Quote from: Skywalker;780831When you combine this with a single Judge able to ban one of the industries more popular RPGs from being nominated last year as it used unusual dice, and I think the Ennies time is done.
Which was that?
Quote from: Opaopajr;780826Well, FATE works for everything, don'cha know. Including the entirety of space and time.
No, no it doesn't. And I say that as someone that *likes* Fate.
I recognize there are (pretty annoying) people that automatically think you should use Fate for every game, but, really, any good analysis of game design recognizes that games make tradeoffs in their design, and those tradeoffs necessarily make them good at some things, and poor at others.
I've gotten some crap before, when people asked how to make Fate do "D&D" (which is so ambiguous anyway, but that's another discussion), and I suggested "uh, if you want D&D, why not just run D&D?"
Most of the 'serious' Fate guys I know actually agree with this. It's just the newcomers that get all starry-eyed and everything. Even some of the game designers get pissed off at that attitude, because it kind of devalues the choices that they make.
Quote from: brettmb;780833Which was that?
Edge of the Empire, I think? Or am I wrong there?
The EotE Beginner Box was denied entry based on its dice, according to this Ennie Judge here http://irontavern.com/2013/07/24/ennies-expose/
QuoteAnother more alarming example from this year is the exclusion of Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Box. It was submitted but left off all the nominations. It was not left off because most of the judges don’t like Star Wars or felt that other products were just better. It was left off because one judge didn’t like the special dice the game uses and refused to let it get nominated for anything. It is fine that a judge didn’t like the product but no one judge should be able to influence the nominations and have their opinion override the others.
Its seems a safe bet that this may be the reason FFG didn't submit any of its RPGs this year.
Quote from: 3rik;780827Well, there's the Arty Hipster Circle Jerk erm... I mean the Indie RPG Awards...
(http://i.imgur.com/eb03buh.gif)
Heh heh. Yeah...
I guess an indie awards organization wouldn't put OSR publishers side by side with * World hackers.
Quote from: Skywalker;780836The EotE Beginner Box was denied entry based on its dice, according to this Ennie Judge here http://irontavern.com/2013/07/24/ennies-expose/
Its seems a safe bet that this may be the reason FFG didn't submit any of its RPGs this year.
Funny dice? What the hell are Fudge/Fate dice then? What a hypocrite.
Quote from: Necrozius;780838Funny dice? What the hell are Fudge/Fate dice then? What a hypocrite.
Yes. The fact that FATE dice won an Ennie award this year is somewhat ironic. Leaving that aside, it seem clear that the judicial process behind the Ennies is pretty muddled and open to abuse.
Quote from: Skywalker;780839Yes. The fact that FATE dice won an Ennie award this year is somewhat ironic. Leaving that aside, it seem clear that the judicial process behind the Ennies is pretty muddled and open to abuse.
Are we sure that's why EotE Beginner Box was cut off?
Quote from: Ladybird;780825Do you count "quality of writing" under art or mechanics? :)
Good question. What are the benchmarks for
"quality of writing" ?
Quote from: brettmb;780841Are we sure that's why EotE Beginner Box was cut off?
Right now, hard to say. The post listed above had a comment section that turned into a he said/she said series, with nobody presenting e-mails or hard evidence either way.
I will note that a couple of people got really defensive in the comments, but aside from that I'd like to see the evidence either way.
If the head of the NCAA can get on national television (in the US) to "defend" the selections of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, the least the ENnies' judges could do is provide some defense of their nominations. The one comment by a developer who'd submitted stuff to the judges called the judges out on just what the criteria were for nominations.
Quote from: brettmb;780841Are we sure that's why EotE Beginner Box was cut off?
No absolute proof, no. Just the word of a fellow Ennie judge and FFG's odd follow-up action of not submitting its games for nomination.
Quote from: Opaopajr;780826Well, FATE works for everything, don'cha know. Including the entirety of space and time.
Maybe on TBP it does...
Quote from: Necrozius;780837Heh heh. Yeah...
I guess an indie awards organization wouldn't put OSR publishers side by side with * World hackers.
For a couple of years there seemed to be a tendency for more "traditional" - for lack of a better term - independently produced (= indie) RPGs showing up among the submissions, but this year it's apparently gone all the way back to pretentious storytelling / literature and drama emulation. I guess "trad" independent (= indie) publishers just didn't bother submitting their stuff anymore?
There's also the Diana Jones Award but, I don't even want to go there...
In 1994, the jury of the Spiel des Jahres (the most prestigious board game award in Germany) didn't nominate Magic: The Gathering because they took issue with the way the game was sold (in randomised packs of boosters) and aimed at a collector market (by making certain cards more rare, and limiting the print runs and distribution to the stores).
That was despite the fact that MTG was on of the rarest events in the history of gaming - the advent of a completely new game format.
The last time something of a similar scale happened was D&D... and the jury completely ignored the German premiere of Dungeons & Dragons and Das Schwarze Auge, too. But they did award Rubik's Cube (1980, "Best Solitaire Game"), and 3D Krimi Puzzle (http://www.amazon.de/Hotel-wer-war%60s-Krimi-Puzzle/dp/B00LK42ITG) (1995, "Best Puzzle"), two award categories that they invented for those years and that were never awarded again...
But having been in a RPG award jury, I know that categorizing eligibility criteria can be difficult. And it will become more difficult in the future as media and technological platforms merge.
Will a table role playing game still be valid to enter when it starts to incorporate board game bits (à la WH3e), or apps (like the DCC dice crawler), or electronic character sheets (like the D&D4 builder)?
This year we went a step backwards and awarded a 1300+ paragraphs solo game book the "Best RPG Ruleset 2014".
(But Reiter der Schwarzen Sonne (http://www.mantikore-verlag.de/frames/shop/shop_frame_main.php?book_id=3380) is a very nice book, with some neat rules and layout ideas that were "better" and more innovative than, say, Midgard 5th edition. And we were not alone: It was the second award the book received.)
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;780897In 1994, the jury of the Spiel des Jahres (the most prestigious board game award in Germany) didn't nominate Magic: The Gathering because they took issue with the way the game was sold (in randomised packs of boosters) and aimed at a collector market (by making certain cards more rare, and limiting the print runs and distribution to the stores).
That was despite the fact that MTG was on of the rarest events in the history of gaming - the advent of a completely new game format.
The last time something of a similar scale happened was D&D... and the jury completely ignored the German premiere of Dungeons & Dragons and Das Schwarze Auge, too. But they did award Rubik's Cube (1980, "Best Solitaire Game"), and 3D Krimi Puzzle (http://www.amazon.de/Hotel-wer-war%60s-Krimi-Puzzle/dp/B00LK42ITG) (1995, "Best Puzzle"), two award categories that they invented for those years and that were never awarded again...
To be fair, if it was easy to recognize a new thing for what it was, then it would be easier to create new things. But new things are better to identify by their effects on people than their effects on awards. :)
Awards are fun - but their significance pales when you realize how many of them depend on the people who win them for support. I worked at a company a few years back that had won a shelf-ful of fancy awards, all of which had to be paid for by my boss for us to get them. (Well, to get the physical trophy, not just words on a page.) And the place went out of business anyway.
This reply is to address the continued propagation of an inaccurate report from last year.
No judge blocked the nomination of any product, despite the story that a prior judge ran with after misunderstanding a communication with a current (at the time) judge. Whether or not a judge likes a product, they are one of five and do not have the unilateral authority to approve/deny the nomination of any product. If that means that at least 3 judges from that year were fools in the eyes of others, so be it.
In addition, FFG did not hold back entries due to that report, but due to an unrelated company decision that prevented them from submitting any products to the ENnies.
I realize that the ENnie Awards are not perfect (I know I had more than my share of screw-ups during my first year), and I know that they are not for everybody, but I am a fan and am committed to continuing their growth. With that said, you will also find that I am more than willing to listen to and consider other folks' ideas.
Gabriel Whitehead
Business Manager
ENnie Awards
gabriel@ennie-awards.com
608.293.2064
Thanks for the comments. Good to shed some light on the situation.
There's no such thing as a perfect awards. The one thing I think would make the final product Ennies markedly better--authentication to prevent gaming the votes--is a little cost prohibitive.
As it is, the final stage is a fan vote. That has it's upsides (mostly the ability to say "look here, these are fan awards) and downsides (it's really mostly about market penetration, though there is some accounting for being able to mobilize your fans).
As it is, though, I am mostly happy with the outcome of the votes this year. FATE Core is a good system, Numenera is a good setting, and that's the way the votes shaped up.
Were I a judge, I might not have voted for EotE either.