Branstorming for ENnies 2003 -- improvements, changes, etc

[Blacksad]

Which is why I'm leaning toward favoring solutions that minimize that effect. Things like the Peoples Choice/Critics Choice, or a weighted "academy" vote, stuff like that.

perhaps a poll on the main page would be a good thing?

Also, if you want the fan opinion, perhaps it would be better in the General Forum to get other ideas, you just have to count the number of post from professional in this thread to understand why.

On excluding WotC because it's not a d20 company: I disagree, the d20 license could require that publisher write their book by typing with their teeth or WotC could put Monte Cook into slavery to produce RPG idea 18 hours per day(that's just an exemple their is nothing personal), it wouldn't change my mind on the usefulness or the crappiness of a book I just bought, and a d20 book by WotC is as usefull (if not more) than any other d20 book.

Though, I'm not sure if OGL product like Everquest or Godlike should be included, they can't really provide an improvement on my game (they use different Xp and advancement rules, and alternate description of some fixed terms in d20), I wouldn't mind seing Everquet nominated, but I'm not sure that it is really a "d20" product anymore, it seems more like a game of its own: they level up to 30th, without compatibility with the ELH, it sems more like a new game, with some familiarity. i.e. would you have considered to include Alternity for a AD&D 2nd edition award?

Another thing that you might try is a 6 choices poll with the honorable mention from some category, with choice like:

I own product 1
I own product 2
I own product 3
I prefer product 1
I prefer product 2
I prefer product 3

and compare the results of the ratio of (prefer)/(own) with what the judges thought personaly, and see if an "honor system" is viable. I belive it is, but perhaps I'm wrong.

P.S. did I say that I didn't like at all weighted votes by person who know better than myself what is good or not it is not what it is meant to be, but to me it feels that way.

 

[EOL]

I like the idea of looking into how to expand the awards to accomodate special cases - the Everquest RPG is a great example. We may see more such uses of the OGL, and to include them in the consideration process makes sense to me. I'd even like to expand the scope to include permutations of earlier editions of D&D - and yes, I'm talking about HackMaster specifically. Maybe simply say the awards cover all things d20 and D&D.

This is along the lines of what I was thinking of you don't want to end up with 500 seperate categories, but making categories specifically for the smaller companies. Like "Best Small Publisher" Defined as the best D20 company with fewer than 10 employees or ten products in a year or publishing fewer than 10000 books in a year. As I write this I can see how it might be difficult to define a Small publisher, but something along those lines would certainly help the "WotC problem".

 

[The Sigil]

Level the playing field...

The simplest, quickest way to level the playing field is, IMO, to change from judging "products" to judging "OGC" except in the case of graphical artistic work (e.g., cover art), where one does not expect to find OGC.

This immediately rules out any offering from WotC... unless they decide to release things as OGC... which, IMO, they OUGHT to do on such integral additions to the system as, say, rules for describing planes, rules for describing Epic Level Characters, rules for Strongholds, rules for statting Deities, etc.

To make it a "d20" awards, let's try to get WotC to "play by the same rules" everyone else has to - IOW, they have to give us some OGC (heck, finish approving the blasted SRD already - I know it's "WotC's toy" and it can play the game by different rules, but it's really annoying to think that they don't have their stuff together to the point of being able to identify OGC two years after the initial release - if you can't figure out what's OGC and mark it in the publication or at least simultaneously release the OGC into the SRD simultaneous with the release, DON'T PUBLISH THE DAD GUM BOOK!!!!!!!)!

*ahem* I seem to have gone a little off-topic.

IOW, your product will be judged strictly on the merits of the OGC it contributes to the pool of community resources. That may not be a popular way of doing it, but it brings WotC onto something of a more level playing field - everyone else has to decide what is OGC before publication - WotC doesn't. That's an advantage they have even before we start talking about money. You can't legislate a way to compensate for monetary advantage - that's unfair to successful publishers who make money because their products are good and then get punished for making good products.

Do I ever see this happening? No way in heck - we would have to educate the popluace on what OGC is in the first place. But it's an interesting thought IMO.

--The Sigil

 

[EarthsShadow]

what really bites?

What really bites about all this is that no matter what we say, I highly doubt Wizards of the Coast really cares what we think.

They are the big company, they are at the top. They designed the d20 license, the OGL/OGC and it was a awesome thing that they did, it opened up the roleplaying market to a point that it never was before. But, as someone stated, not a single one of their books falls under these guidelines. None of them are Open Gaming Content. They have this 'SRD' thing, but its not even finished. There is a reason why they haven't finished it, and its to keep us going in circles like this. I bet they already know for the next entire year what they will put into this 'SRD' document that everyone else HAS to follow, and we all HAVE to follow the OGC/OGL licenses, and the d20 licenses, but Wizards does not.

To see them win so many awards really pissed me off because they didn't deserve it. As I understood the contest, and its cool to have a contest like this, is that its a d20 gaming community contest, and the voters and gamers like myself should have made the difference, and our votes should be displayed for all of us to see. Plus, I saw some categories that Wizards had books in that the books didn't deserve being in at all. The only reason their books were in some of the categories was that simple fact that they are Wizards of the Coast. Bottom line, and there is no other reason for it.

Right now, I think that all of us who truly care, which is everyone who is posting on here right now about this, deserve to know where Wizards stands on this. Someone from their company should give us some information and let us know their stances, and answer the real question that I would ask, which is: Why are you not following your own guidelines in producing Open Gaming Content and Open Gaming License works for us to use?

Personally, the only thing WotC deserved to win was best adventure support (Dungeon/Dragon) and maybe Call of Cthulu, which was awesome...the rest of their stuff, as I compared all the books out there and I look at them all, were not as good as the other companies. I am sorry, but IMO Manuel of the Planes only won becuz its WotC, bottom line. There was another book in that category that I felt was much better. *I just can't remember the name, but at the time I felt my convictions about this, and I still do*.

So, the real question that we have asked is where does Wizards of the Coast stand on all this?

The other question is: why are you not posting the voting results for us to see? That might get us to also calm down so we can vouch for certain if our votes really meant something or not.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: what really bites?

Plus, I saw some categories that Wizards had books in that the books didn't deserve being in at all. The only reason their books were in some of the categories was that simple fact that they are Wizards of the Coast. Bottom line, and there is no other reason for it.

So are you saying the judges picked WotC books for nomination simply because they were WotC books? I'm one of the judges, and I can tell you that's nonsense.

And I'll tell you this: Manual of the Planes was, and is, one of the best RPG books I've ever bought. Hands down.

 

[Orcus]

Seeing the voting results...interesting request. Cant decide if I want to know or not. But it might be relevant to the discussion.

If this was really a wild landslide blowout for WotC then that mitigates in favor of taking them out of the equation in some way, since that is a clear indication that the problem is the "popularity contest" aspect of the voting--since there are a few races where it should have been pretty tight voting judging from the quality of the products.

I still cant decide if I want to see the results or not.

Clark

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: what really bites?

I edited this on the chance that the poster I was responding to wasn't being as rude as it seemed to me.

 

[DPGDarrin]

I'm with you Clark.

Does this remind anyone of our (the US) most recent election?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Does this remind anyone of our (the US) most recent election?

Not really. What do you mean?

 

[DPGDarrin]

Oh, I dunno. Demanding recounts (or at least making the counts public). Claims that the thing was unfair in some way. Just general controversy.