Branstorming for ENnies 2003 -- improvements, changes, etc

[ColonelHardisson]

Excluding companies based on the fact that they're too successful is just plain unfair, in my opinion. So, after WotC is banned, does Sword & Sorcery Studio also get the boot too, because after WotC, they have a big chunk of the market, and have an "unfair" advantage because of the White Wolf money backing them up? And then after they're gone, does whoever is next get banned, for the same arbitrary reasons? Excluding WotC would be admitting that other d20 publishers can't compete quality-wise - and I can tell you that's not the case, after reading all the submitted products. The nominations provide good, solid recognition to companies and products that otherwise might not get such exposure. Someone seeing that Company X is competing in a category with WotC might be prompted to check out Company X and its products because of that.

 

[Lady Dragon]

You have to give the small companies a chance to beat WoTC if you take WoTC out why bother having the awards because then its just the best of the rest.I think the idea of awarding 2nd place might help. Also I think that WoTC is not going to be putting out as many products as they used to and many of there products will be competing against each other since they are most likely to enter only certain catagories,such as rules supplement (ELH,BoVD) and monster book(MM2,FF) and possibly campaign setting(Ghostwalk).

 

[Krug]

WotC; the New York Yankees of the Ennies.
I say leave them in, because whoever does beat them shows what a good company or product can do. It's something to aim for. And if they do have the best product in various cats, so be it. It might take a while, but I'm sure WotC will be ousted if their products don't make the mark.

The PDFs are the 'minor league'. No doubt every publisher wishes he could put out their stuff in print, but the PDF market is gaining momentum and will gain added legitimacy with the addition into the Ennies. I do think it'll make a lot of people take notice.

 

[baseballfury]

Depends on who you think the beneficiaries are of the whole awards process. Yes, companies win awards. But this is also for the fans. Russ and I heard pretty loud and clear that fans wanted to see a contest between all of the publishers who were willing to participate, and that's what they got. Now that they've seen the results maybe over the next several months we'll hear otherwise.

I must admit that my enthusiasm about the ENnies has been diminished by this year's awards. If the awards turn into "watch WotC win every category they are nominated for" every year, that makes the ENnies into the WotCs.

I have absolutely no problem excluding WotC from the ENnies. Let them compete in the Origins Awards and let the d20 companies have their own day in the sun. Although it's possible to look back at last year's awards and be cynical about some of them (Privateer as Best Publisher? Not), they were a great expression of the community's enthusiasm for d20 companies and Open Gaming. An outsider who saw the list this year would think they were vanity awards set up by WotC so they could add "award winning" to their marketing material.

 

[Swiftbrook]

I would add categories.

Best minature??

Best computer aid?

Best Aid or Accessory -- not a book/magazine
like counters, battle mats, paper/solid buildings

I increase the number of entries to 10 per category and have a 1st, 2nd and 3rd or keep it at 5 and have a 1st & 2nd.

WotC received the most awards because it has the most products and staff. Giving a 1st & 2nd place would show other companies have good products also.

-Swiftbrook

 

[Lady Dragon]

To those that are insisting that WoTC should no be allowed to compete I would say alright which of the catagories that they won in should they have not won.I would say that Oriental Adventures should not have been in the Settings catagory but the voters didn't put it there they just voted on what was available in the catagory. Manual of the Planes and Call of Cthulthu are far and away the best products in their perspective catagories. The WoTC website is updated daily even if its not the most orderly site. And they are the leader in the industry thus making them best publisher,we wouldn't be taking about them otherwise.

I would however be interested to know the margin of victory in the catagories that they won.Was it by a huge margin or did all of the nominees get a lot of votes and they only just edge out the others with say 25% overall.

I think this could happen next year to their detriment in say the monster supplement catagory with MM2 and Fiend Folio going against each other they will split the vote and a third party could sneak in their such as Tome of Horrors just to give an example. I also believe that they will not always dominate the industry the third party companies are getting better all of the time and they will continue to put out quality and it will be noticed by the public.

Also keep in mind that the nominating committee does have a lot of say on whether a product even gets nominated it is their responisbility to make sure that borderline WoTC products don't get nominated.

 

[JVisgaitis]

On Wizards in the Ennies

Wow, seems that Wizards did clean up the Ennies. Can any of you really be surprised? I see a lot of comments on how everyone thinks that Wizards should not be allowed to compete in the Ennies. Granted, Wizards is going to clean house regardless, but how can you cut out the company that is responsible for the game we love so much? Trust me, I represent the little guy and I know how the smaller companies feel, but we can't just tell them that they can't compete. What I would do is try to broaden the categories a bit and maybe include a runner up award. That would distinguish other companies from the top. In addition, limiting the amount of categories that you can enter is also an excellent idea. I would say that each publisher should maybe only be allowed to enter a third or a quarter of the categories. That would also keep everything a bit more interesting. I'm sorry I missed Gencon this year, but we decided it was better to get our product line in order. ~sigh~ Hope the Ennies went well.

 

[EricNoah]

I don't think Russ'll be releasing any info on who specifically this year was runner up or what the exact numbers were. If we were going to do it that way we'd just have a poll or something.

I will say that some of the races were extremely tight, even ones where WotC won. And some were not particularly close.

I'm liking more and more the idea of two awards at the top of each category. I'm not sure I like "first place, second place" -- some kind of names that don't necessarily scream "winner, not-winner" would be good if we can find them.

These both still sound like popular vote "wins" though -- I also potentially am interested in exploring the notion of a Popular Vote Winner and a Critic's Choice Winner selected by a panel who actually get to read the products (maybe the original judges, maybe a separate panel perhaps a bit larger in size). I think there would have been a lot of surprises if the five of us judges had been asked to come up with a Critic's Choice winner for each category.

 

[RangerWickett]

First of all, no, you will not take WotC out of the awards arbitrarily. If you did that, the awards would lose any credibility they have gained this year. The best suggestions I think I've seen so far are these:

*Medal the categories, so we give out 1st and 2nd and possibly 3rd places. This, however, reduces the value of being nominated as one of the finalists. Right now, just being chosen by the judges is a great honor, but if 3 of those 5 won awards, it would make the nomination less meaningful. Perhaps just a 1st and a 2nd place award.

*Make the awards open only to products released under the Open Gaming License (OGL). That would knock WotC out of every category, especially now that they no longer own Dragon or Dungeon. Of course this might convince them to make their products Open Gaming Content, though it won't. But hey, I don't like this idea. I want someone to beat WotC, fair and square! Hell yeah.

*Have some sort of weighting to the award, with maybe an academy of professional publisher folks. But as people have pointed out, we want these to remain fan awards, since the Origins already exist for professional awards (or so they say; I personally know nothing about Origins).

*Add in a few awards. Best writer, best artist, best short adventure (under 75 pages), best campaign adventure (75 pages and above), best addition to the D20 rules system, best first-time D20 writer.

So, there are some good ideas. But I'm still wondering what Eric's idea is.

 

[RangerWickett]

By the way, hiya Eric, how's it going?

What about maybe some award given based on reviews on the site? Best-reviewed product? Hmm, but then people might just post bogus reviews. Ah well.