Branstorming for ENnies 2003 -- improvements, changes, etc

[Ghostwind]

I for one own most of the products that were nominated and I agree with most of these choices. If these small companies don't want to compete with WoTC then they should get out of the game.

I don't believe that anyone is claiming the voting was fixed, rather just that Wizards has a bit of an edge in the competition because they are so well known. These are fan-based awards and not industry-based so naturally companies that have greater public exposure will stand to fair better on the average.

I believe that next year will result in the creation of more nominating categories after the smoke from this year's awards have cleared. I would not be surprised to see several new awards for pdf only releases such as Best Supplement, Best Adventure, and possibly Best Campaign Setting. Furthermore, there will likely be an expansion of categories in the printed side of products possibly including a breakdown of genres such as Modern, Historical, Science Fiction, and Fantasy. Regardless of how the categories change, there will always be a slight skew in the voting of most popular versus best quality. This is something that will be a factor as long as the general public is allowed to vote.

Face it folks, this is a popularity contest to a certain extent. People will vote for products they are most familiar with and not necessarily for those that are the best quality. How many people voted for a product in a category just because they knew about it more than the others listed and not because they had actually played it or read it? Unless you go the route of something like Origins where the awards are based upon more than just fan input this is something that will be talked about every year. So you must either live with it or change the voting system to something different that helps weed the "popularity" factor out to a certain degree.

Perhaps the nominations could be opened to allow the general public to assist in selecting the nominations. People could cast a vote for a product which would then be tabulated and used in determination of the final nominations. Food for thought at least...

Personally, I don't agree with all of the choices that were made as far as the winning awards go, but I do applaud each of the winners for developing a product that the general public feels is worthy of that award. Regardless of whether you feel the "correct" winner was announced, you have to at least acknowledge that all of the nominations were at least good enough to be considered. And that says a lot for every publisher's product and the authors who wrote them. Well done, I say.

 

[EricNoah]

Keep it coming! Though maybe a little less discussion on who was robbed and why.

Here's a thought -- some sort of weighted vote, with the "popular vote" weighing so much, and an "academy vote" weighing so much. Not sure who that academy would be, but I'm envisioning a larger group than the 5 judges and yet a group that has in fact seen all of the nominated products (they would be stuck reading 5 adventures, but unlike the judges the wouldn't necessarily also have read the other 30 entrants in that category). There were some tight races this year that might have been affected by a weighted vote.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Hmm...

Best Mega-Adventure? Banewarrens, Return to Temple of Elemental Evil, etc.. I guess problem here would be what is a Mega-Adventure? 72 pages? 84 pages? 128 pages?

Best Licensed Product: Wheel of Time, Dragonlords of Melnibone, Slaine, Judge Dread, etc...

 

[Lady Dragon]

Without a doubt the catagories need to be broadened based on size of the product and subject. Just as there was a catagory this year for monster supplement perhaps there needs to be one on magic supplements,such as Occult Lore and Spells and Spellcraft.perhaps another catagory could be chararcter sourcebooks (splatbooks),etc.

I also think that the size of the products should be considered comparing a 32 page book to a 320 page is obviously unfair even the Academy Awards has a short subject catagory.I mentioned earilier that at the very least adventures should be divided between regular and mega just choose a page count 96 sounds right to me but any total as long as its decided in advance would be acceptable.

 

[Ghostwind]

Here's a thought -- some sort of weighted vote, with the "popular vote" weighing so much, and an "academy vote" weighing so much.

As far as the voting goes, here's a thought. Set up two criteria for voting and also nominations. Industry professionals/publishers and general public. Industry professionals would consist of publishers, authors, artists, editors, etc. who pay $5.00 (or some other low fee) a year in membership fees to join the ENnie Academy where their votes would count as a full vote in both nomination and final voting. Members would have to provide proof of "professionalism" (citing their works, having a publisher provide reference, or something along these lines). The general public's votes would count as a half vote against the ENnie Academy members' full votes.

Nominations could work like this: All submissions would still go to the selection commitee who would then offer a series of potential nominations (say up to 10-15 depending on the category) to the Academy members where they would cast votes on the final five nominations per category. These votes would count as a half vote against the selection committee members full votes. Once the final nomination results have been tabulated, you will have your award nominees and ready to open the process to voting.

Eric, feel free to email me if you want to talk about this after you get back from the hectic business of the convention...

 

[Khan the Warlord]

Industry professionals would consist of publishers, authors, artists, editors, etc. who pay $5.00 (or some other low fee) a year in membership fees to join the ENnie Academy where their votes would count as a full vote in both nomination and final voting. Members would have to provide proof of "professionalism" (citing their works, having a publisher provide reference, or something along these lines). The general public's votes would count as a half vote against the ENnie Academy members' full votes.

One question: what do these "dues" go towards, Steve?

 

[Ghostwind]

One question: what do these "dues" go towards?

Purchase of the award trophies comes to mind as one possible option.

 

[Crothian]

Do we know how many people voting in this years Ennies verse last year?

 

[EricNoah]

I doubt Russ'll be accepting money for any of this, but hey there's a year to toss around ideas, no idea at this point is too "out there."

Categories will maybe change from year to year as warranted by the market.

I like the long/short idea but we don't want to break some of the categories up too much, we barely have enough entrants in some as it is.

 

[Krug]

Well besides Oriental Adventures I don't think there was that much argument about the winners from me. Lords of the Iron Fortress IS the better cover, in my opinion. Hollowfaust seems a non-descript standard fantasy cover to me, while LotIF I can remember immediately.

HUZZAH!