2005 GenCon ENnies

[HellHound]

But the event is the GenCon ENnies - and to keep it fair, there is a seperate d20 award from the best game award.

 

[Spike Y Jones]

To increase awareness, I'd like to focus upon
-higher profile at GenCon (better looking booth, flyers/pamphlets, an award ceremony that'd attract more gamers)

This [attracting gamers to the ceremony] has been a goal of the Origins Awards for years and no matter what anyone tried it never seemed to work. I think the reason is that, basically, awards ceremonies are boring. They're interesting to the people who are up for awards, and maybe their wives and co-workers, and possibly to other industry folks who aren't up for awards but who know everyone else in the audience, but to the average gamer they're boring.

Maybe you'll be able to attract somegamers with a big build-up, but probably not a lot; I'd be surprised if you ever got to the point that the audience was more than 50% non-industry.

If pursuing this goal is going to take energy and time away from your other ideas, it might be worth dropping.

If we drastically reduce the trophy cost, then the ENnies can actually spend a little money on promotion and trying to address publishers' other concerns.

A smaller trophy? A plague maybe a third of the size of the 2004 ones using a (modified) 1.5" commercial d20?

Spike Y Jones, editor, three ENnie-nominated products and one Honourable Mention

 

[Rasyr]

Are these categories open to any game using any system? Or just to d20 products? You still have not clarified as of the quoted post below. Personallly, I had absolutely no problems with the categories that were in place last year. Perhaps you should start with them, and then work on improving them rather than scrapping them entirely for an all new set. Just my opinion...

 

[Rasyr]

To increase awareness, I'd like to focus upon
-higher profile at GenCon (better looking booth, flyers/pamphlets, an award ceremony that'd attract more gamers)
-presence with retailers (most likely via stickers and other point of sale advertising for nominees and winners, work with distributors, etc)
-more publisher involvement (via a selection of ads for their sites & sigs)
-more awareness by gamers (mostly online advertising, but some work in gamer-related magazines)
(now I've shown you mine, you show me yours!)

An interesting idea, since EN World basically supports the ENnies, would be to have something on the front page (perhaps temporarily replacing the Dunjinni ad, or moving that ad down and having this on top of it) something along the lines of a rotating banner (note: this can be done for regular html (i.e. text and images combined) using nothing more than javascript). This would showcase the final nominees (after the judges have decided the final ballot).

This year's ENnies are open to all pen & paper RPGs (and their accessories/aids).

I am sorry, but I have a feeling that this might cause a few problems with the categories you have already mentioned. EN World is first and foremost a d20 site, and its regulars are d20 fans first and foremost as well. I had no issues with non-d20 material being in separate categories, as I knew that my submissions would have a decent shot then. However, if you mix the d20 with the non-d20, that will mean that non-d20 products will have a lesser chance of winning since the largest majority of voters are d20 fans coming from this site.

Again, just my opinion on this.

As for the shipping directly to the judges, that's something we're still working on: But either the publishers ship to the judges (meaning they get their products seen earlier, giving the judges more time to evaluate them and reducing stress levels, but an increased PITA factor for the publishers) or they'll have to pay an entrance fee to cover the shipping from one central location to all the other judges (less PITA factor for the publishers, but more for the judges as they get swamped with hundreds of products to evaluate all in two months).

Have you considered allowing publishers to submit PDF versions of print products? That would reduce shipping costs greatly (you can still require that all submissions include a single signed copy of the products for auction - although this COULD be problematical, since for at least one product, I would have to ship a copy to England to get the author to sign it, and then pay for him to ship it back, and then ship it off to the ENnies judge - that is a minimum of $21 in shipping and several weeks worth of time required to accomplish the task).

One of the options considered was that the judges would have to pay for their own shipping, which would come out to around $150-$250 each. However, I would prefer it if affluence was not a determining factor for candidacy as a judge. I'd hate to see a judge only be able to afford to participate if, say, they accepted a contribution from a gaming company. I don't want to see bribery as part of the judge selection process.

I do not agree with making the judges pay for shipping. An alternative method of submission might be a better way to go.

We're not going to have a separate fan's choice and judge's choice for each category. Too much PITA. More likely we'll have a Peer's Choice Award which is voted upon by publishers, judges, and select industry professionals, and a Fan's Choice "write-in" award for best game.

Can you explain this idea a little more? Last year, the judges selected the top five nominees, and then the fans voted on those 5 choices in each category. How is the above going to be different?

Again, the "write-in" is also going to be biased by the membership of the forums and EN World itself. Nothing really wrong with that, if that is what you want, but you need to realize that it will be a biased award.

 

[Crothian]

Are these categories open to any game using any system? Or just to d20 products? You still have not clarified as of the quoted post below. Personallly, I had absolutely no problems with the categories that were in place last year. Perhaps you should start with them, and then work on improving them rather than scrapping them entirely for an all new set. Just my opinion...

Well, one thing we did last year was have awards for the samne categories but for d20 and non d20. This year we will include non d20 as well, in fact one of the goals is to have any type of RPG be able to compete no matter who wrote it or for what rule set.

 

[alsih2o]

A smaller trophy? A plague maybe a third of the size of the 2004 ones using a (modified) 1.5" commercial d20?

You might be amazed at how much cheaper this wouldn't be.

 

[Rasyr]

Well, one thing we did last year was have awards for the samne categories but for d20 and non d20. This year we will include non d20 as well, in fact one of the goals is to have any type of RPG be able to compete no matter who wrote it or for what rule set.

And that is okay, however, if the same voting mechanics are used as were used last year (judges determine nominees, and then public voting), it will end up with biased results, slanting towards d20, since the vast majority of the voters will be coming from EN World, and those voters will be predominately biased towards d20.

This is something that you guys do need to be aware of when determining what method of final selection to use. If it is a public vote, there is very good chance that no non-d20 product would have a shot of winning no matter how good it is.

Now I will fully support whatever the final form is, but in the meantime, I will try to poke holes in things so that the ENnies can be made that much better.

 

[Crothian]

This is something that you guys do need to be aware of when determining what method of final selection to use. If it is a public vote, there is very good chance that no non-d20 product would have a shot of winning no matter how good it is.

I agree. I imagine a non d20 book, even something huge like the new White Wolf or GURPS books, would have trouble. Right now we have a few options but really haven't figured out the answer. Whatever we decide though, it's probably going to make some people unhappy.

 

[Rasyr]

Now up above, Dextra said the following:

We're not going to have a separate fan's choice and judge's choice for each category. Too much PITA. More likely we'll have a Peer's Choice Award which is voted upon by publishers, judges, and select industry professionals, and a Fan's Choice "write-in" award for best game.

This sounds very much like how the Origins Awards are setting themselves up this year.

In short, the Academy selects a judge's panel for each category (and most categories have at least two sub-categories (this is where Chris Pramas was mentioning the OA lumping adventures, monster books, and other supplements into the same category/sub-category). The panel then selects the top products (much the same way as the ENnies judges used last year), and then all of GAMA and the Academy votes on the short lists.

Will try to think of some possibilities...