Branstorming for ENnies 2003 -- improvements, changes, etc

[EricNoah]

I'm sure one of the many things that will be considered (not that they weren't in the past) will be "what the awards are for." Just as Morrus has been wrestling with the issue of what EN World is for. EN World isn't just for D20 as defined by Clark, and so I think the awards should reflect the site's scope and interests.

Kenzer doesn't publish under the OGL, do they? I didn't see them having a big advantage in this year's contest.

The kinds of solutions to this situation that are appealing to me at the moment are ones that allow WotC products to be in the running but minimize the effect of their market penetration.

Colonel, you're so right -- there won't be a way to please everyone in this. So another thing Russ will have to decide is who we are trying to "please."

A solution that comes awefully close, though, is (as I've hinted at above) if WotC and EN World come to an understanding. If WotC voluntarily keeps themselves out of the running (either from the contest as a whole, or just from certain categories like Best Publisher), and if they can make it clear that it's from their goodwill toward EN World, third-party publishers, and the fans and because they want to help these other companies get their time in the spotlight, then this solves a lot of issues. We don't have to feel like we're excluding one particular company (especially the company that is the fansite's raison d'etre), we (the fans) don't have to feel like we're being snubbed by WotC, we don't have to wonder if we're comparing apples and oranges, they don't have to feel excluded or like EN World doesn't want to recognize the folks at WotC for their excellent work, etc.

Heck, maybe WotC would want to join forces with GenCon and EN World and be one of the sponsors who is giving out the ENnies?

 

[Lady Dragon]

Perhaps the solution is to limit all publishers to entering only their 3 best products.This would make it easier for the judges not having dozens of worthless products to wade through,it would be easier for publishers only having to send 3 sets of books and then nobody would dominate the awards as the most they could win would be three plus tehcnical catagories.

I do think some personal awards need to be added to award individual acheivement within larger firms such as writer,artist and maybe editor. I don't think as many people would be upset if say James Wyatt had won for Oriental adventures as best writer for example.

Also I think WoTC is taking winning very seriously they did after all actually show up to recieve there awards and I think they appreiciate winning as much as the next guy would.

 

[Orcus]

The one thing I thought was great this year was being able to enter a bunch of products. It is hard to read the mind of the judges. For example, I wouldnt have submitted Hall of the Rainbow Mage for Best Adventure because I thought we had at least two that were superior (or at least were what I thought the judges would think were superior). But yet those two werent chosen and Hall was!

I agree that ENworld should define the scope of the awards. Maybe my take isnt everyone elses--but it should be debated and stated. Perhaps there should just be more specific categories allowing for different scope, such as Best d20 Publisher AND Best Overall Publisher, for example.

I think the main beef as we were all standing there in the hall is to see WotC win d20 awards. They dont use the license. It just somehow didnt seem right.

Clark

 

[Blacksad]

The kinds of solutions to this situation that are appealing to me at the moment are ones that allow WotC products to be in the running but minimize the effect of their market penetration.

I'll begin a campaign to convince people of the value of:

Tick the product you know
Vote among those for the best

The winner is the one with the best ratio:
(number of votes)/(number of people who know the product)

 

[Khan the Warlord]

Was my proposed idea earlier in this thread about having prerequisites for voting viable at all?

 

[EricNoah]

It just maybe the difference between what a publisher thinks d20 is and what a consumer or fan thinks d20 is. As a consumer or fan, I'm not thinking at all about open gaming, who is providing open content, etc. I'm not thinking "d20 license" or "d20 trademark" -- I'm thinking "d20 system" in as broad a scope as possible. Products that share the same rules and can be used together.

(And yes I'd personally be very interested in finding ways to include OGL games that use the d20 system but not the logo, such as Everquest RPG, in future contests.)

 

[EricNoah]

No idea is too "out there" at this point. Gotta say, though, that any solution that potentially relies on "the honor system" probably isn't going to fly.

 

[FDP Mike]

Exactly!

Heck, maybe WotC would want to join forces with GenCon and EN World and be one of the sponsors who is giving out the ENnies?

I do not speak for all the guys at FDP, but . . . this is so far the best idea that I've seen presented in this thread. In fact, I think that this idea is so good, its simplicity is rather beautiful.

Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with Clark -- and I've been saying as much to the other FDP guys since the nominations came out. Set aside WotC's economic advantages (distribution, number of employees, and so forth), and we see that it does not truly function as a "d20 company" in terms of needing to follow the OGL and/or the d20STL. True, WotC did give us the SRD and thus this entire renaissance in RPGs. Yet unlike Necromancer Games or Fiery Dragon Productions or Sword & Sorcery Studio or AEG or FFG or Mystic Eye Games or Ambient and so on, WotC is not required to make any content in its products "open." It's not a bad thing if WotC (or Kenzer or ArtHaus) needs to include open content in a product to be considered for the ENnies; instead, WotC must compete with the rest of us in a more equal way.

Perhaps as the company responsible for giving us the SRD and the opportunity to have all of these d20 companies contributing to the hobby in such fabulous ways, WotC could take more of a "supporter" position with regard to the ENnies -- as Eric suggests, sponsoring the ENnies as opposed to participating in them directly. This position could in fact give the ENnies a whole different sort of "legitimacy."

I think that the entire nomination and voting process is just fine; nothing really needs to be changed there. Keeping the ENnies as fan-voted awards is essential: third-party d20 publishers are on the whole "regular" gamers who have made the commitment to produce gaming products (as opposed simply to gaming all the time . . . I mean, c'mon! ), not "industry professionals" for whom the hobby is also a livelihood. ENWorld really is the tie that binds d20 publishers with gamers in a way that WotC's site, for instance, never could.

With regard to a "Best Editor" award, I honestly find such a category extremely difficult to judge unless everyone understands what "editing" a gaming product means. Most folks will focus on what amounts to proofreading -- i.e., primarily, making sure that the text is clean and readable. A lot more "behind the scenes" work goes on in editing, however, much of that work shading into areas of development and design at times -- i.e., suggesting rules clarifications or story/plot modifications, clearing up details, and more. At times, depending on the company, where the designer/writer ends and the editor begins can become a blurry line. Also, sometimes stuff happens in the production phase over which an editor has no control, but which can now and then reflect upon him or her. Whatever the case, I think the focus should be on the designers, developers/producers, and artists who do all of the "creative" slugwork -- not the folks who come in at the end and tidy everything up so that it looks nice when people come to visit.

I just want to thank the five judges for all of their hard work and to congratulate them on presenting us with a truly excellent selection of nominees. Also, Morrus and everyone else involved in the ENnies should be congratulated and toasted heartily. Who knows, maybe now we've started another significant GenCon tradition that will stay with us for a long while.

There's so much more to respond to in this thread, but I want to go and read more of my brand spanking new The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game core book . . . .

 

[EricNoah]

When I was talking to Monte and Sue Cook about the idea of reinstating the Best Editor award, I had an insight that one sign of good editing is if there are a lot of contributors to a product that ultimately still feels like "one product from one mind." I'm not thinking so much of, say, a monster book (which is essentially a "database in a book" type of product), but more of a setting book or rules book, one where all of the parts of the book seem really connected to the others.

 

[Orcus]

If you do the Best Editor Award, you should just call it the "Sue Cook Memorial Best Editor Award". Dont get me wrong, I use Mike from FDP and he is awesome (really awesome). But Sue is in a class by herself (in many ways). She is hands down the best editor I have ever had the pleasure to work with (and that includes my time as an editor of a legal journal). Lets put it this way: there is a reason she is the one running the Editor seminar at GenCon.

But I sure do see how it would be hard to do a best editor award. I have seen manuscripts that needed only a little cleaning up, and I have seen others that needed tons of editor work. Lets say both final products were equally clean, how could the judges know that frankly one editor had a way harder job than the other and did a much better job?

Clark

PS--Sue would have edited out all my parenthetical comments and worked them into sentences. Actually, she might have just thought it was all crap and sent it back--though she would have done so in a way that I would never have felt that she thought it was crap.