Congratulations to the 2020 ENnies Winners!

In an online ceremony hosted by Robin D. Laws, Misha Bushyager, Kenneth Hite, Chris Spivey, and Mike Pondsmith, the RPG awards for 2020 were announced last night, with the gold award for Product of the Year going to MÖRK BORG by Free League Publishing (who also took home the gold for Best Game with their Alien RG).

Best Family Game / Product
Silver – Kids on Bikes: Strange Adventures Volume 2 (Renegade Games)
Gold – Jim Henson’s Labyrinth (River Horse)

Best Aid or Accessory
Silver – The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats (Loke Battlemats)
Gold – Deck of Many Animated Spells (Hit Point Press)

Best Online Content
Silver – RPG Writers Workshop (Scribemind)
Gold – The Monsters Know What They’re Doing (Saga Press)

Best Podcast
Silver – Red Moon Roleplaying
Gold – Asians Represent!

Best Monster/Adversary
Silver – Big Bad Booklet 1-6 (Hit Point Press
Gold – Mordenkainen’s Fiendish Folio, Volume 1: Monsters Malevolent and Benign (Wizards of the Coast)

Best Cover Art
Silver – The Ultraviolet Grasslands (Exalted Funeral Press)
Gold – Call of Cthulhu – Berlin the Wicked City (Chaosium)

Best Interior Art
Silver – Strata (Rowan, Rook and Decard)
Gold – The Ultraviolet Grasslands (Exalted Funeral Press)

Best Organized Play
Silver – Where Can She Be? (Robbie Pleasant)
Gold – Stygia Untamed (Greasy Snitches and Paul Gabat)

Best Free Game/Product
Silver – Tunnel Goons (Highland Paranormal Society)
Gold – TTRPG Safety Toolkit (Smooching Knife)

Best RPG Related Product
Silver – Session Zero (John C. Byram)
Gold – Absinthe in Carcosa (Pelgrane Press)

Best Electronic Book
Silver – Uncaged Volume III (Scribemind)
Gold – New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley 2nd Ed (Stygian Fox)

Best Layout and Design
Silver – A Pound of Flesh (Tuesday Knight Games)
Gold – MÖRK BORG (Free League Publishing)

Best Cartography
Silver – Jim Henson’s Labyrinth (River Horse)
Gold – Trilemma Adventures Compendium Vol 1 (Trilemma Adventures)

Best Rules
Silver – Zombie World (Magpie Games)
Gold – Thousand Year Old Vampire (Petit Guignol)

Best Writing
Silver – The Monsters Know What They Are Doing (Saga Press)
Gold – MÖRK BORG (Free League Publishing)

Best Adventure
Silver – Trilemma Adventures Compendium Vol 1 (Trilemma Adventures)
Gold – A Pound of Flesh (Tuesday Knight Games)

Best Setting
Silver – Arkadia – The Greek Setting for 5e (Arcana Games)
Gold – Call of Cthulhu: Berlin the Wicked City (Chaosium)

Best Supplement
Silver – Ironsworn Delve (Shawn Tomkin)
Gold – Delta Green: The Labyrinth (Arc Dream Publishing)

Best Production Values
Silver – Humblewood Box Set (Hit Point Press)
Gold – Thousand Year Old Vampire (Petit Guignol)

Fans’ Choice for Best Publisher
Gold – Free League Publishing

Best Game
Silver – MÖRK BORG (Free League Publishing)
Gold – ALIEN the Roleplaying Game (Free League Publishing)

Product of the Year
Silver – Thousand Year Old Vampire (Petit Guignol)
Gold – MÖRK BORG (Free League Publishing)

Judges’ Spotlight Awards
Sleepaway (Jay Dragon)
Glitter Hearts (Greg Leatherman)
Refractions in Glasston (Taylor University PWR Press, Sam Guinsatao, Carson Jacobs, T.R. Knight, Joy Lemont, Elijah Oates, Rayce Patterson, Emily Pawlowski, J. Tucker White)
Knarls Candy Compendium (Makenzie De Armas, Levi Phipps)
Hit the Streets, Defend the Block (Rich Rogers)

 

[Arilyn]

Congratulations to all the winners. Great crop this year!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

These awards are not the Nobel prize, but they DO mean something. I know people who look to these awards to guide them in navigating the glut of RPG products out there. To separate the wheat from the chaff.

I literally just used the Hugo Awards this way the other day.

And after the Ennie nominations came out, I put the print edition of Thousand Year Old Vampire on my Noble Knight wishlist so I would remember to grab it when it came back into print. (I know there's a PDF, but it seems like, for that game, having an actual artifact in your hands will be a big part of the experience.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just bought The Monsters Know What They're Doing, look like just what I need as I DM for veteran players.

Prepare for surprised players.

 

[dragoner]

Congrats to the winners! The awards ceremony and after parties is often a fun event.

Almost no one has ...

You haven't heard of Mork Borg or Alien?

 

[MidnightBlue]

Probably because anything and everything that expects greater adoption by the common player demographic is being made with the D&D 5th Edition OGL.

I just heard that the old award winning Midnight RPG is getting a new release, but the company, Edge Entertainment, that took over the Genesys ruleset will not be using Genesys, but instead opted for, you guessed it, D&D 5th Edition.

D&D 5E - Midnight: Legacy of Darkness announced at GenCon Online

After more than a decade out of print, the "what if Sauron won" 3E setting Midnight is coming back in 2021 for 5E as Midnight: Legacy of Darkness, Edge Entertainment announced Thursday, July 30, at GenCon Online: In its heyday, Midnight was one of the biggest RPG successes in Fantasy Flight's...

www.enworld.org

So in a way, I am happy that Free League won an ENnie for their Alien RPG, since it uses a different d6 dice pool called the Year Zero Engine, which is perfectly fine tuned for the Alien RPG experience (try it if you have not yet had the chance).

I hadn't heard about a new Midnight RPG edition. I still have 1E & 2E. Great setting. I like Dawnforge as well. Though having moved away from D&D/Pathfinder/OGL 3.0-5.0 for the most part, not sure it is worth me grabbing. But now I know to keep a lookout for it. Thanks!

 

[Tyler Pickering]

The Monsters Knows book was great and some of the supplements like Loke Battlemats I loved as well. I play Pathfinder 2E and love it and thats what matters to me. I am going to check out some of these other games but I still feel like the Ennies should be more inclusive of the bigger name titles if they deserve to be on that list.

 

[MidnightBlue]

I admit, much like the Oscars, I seldom have a good knowledge base for most of the nominations...and it was the same for me again this year. It was VERY recently that I learned of Mork Borg when I became a backer in their latest Kickstarter. Of course I knew Aliens, Call of Cthulhu, D&D, & Pathfinder, but of all the products listed only actually had the Aliens RPG, Labryinth RPG, and Kids on Bikes RPG, I think...still waiting on Mork Borg to deliver. So most of these products and producers were new to me and it was hard to vote, not knowing the competition.

I blame the new Kickstarter/crowd-funding world we live in for the RPG industry. There was a time, and it feels so long ago, where I would have recognized nearly every nomination because it would have passed through the shelves of my FLGS and I would have at least picked it up and browsed, even if I didn't buy that particular game. I really do miss that. There are so many great games out there that I'll never know about now, because I didn't happen to trip and fall into their Kickstarter. I love the plethora of games and the larger indie market that crowd-funding allows, but there is a measure of sadness when I see how small my FLGS' RPG section is now that not as many games go to retail through them.

But there were a couple of bright spots for me in this years' ENnies list:

1. I'm a big Free Leagues (Fria Ligan) backer/supporter, so nice to see them getting some serious love this year.

2. I discovered and purchased Thousand Year Old Vampire thanks to the rewards' callout. Waiting on my physical book, but looking forward to it.

3. I was so happy to see the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society in the list of Fan Favorite Publishers, even if they didn't win. I purchased all of their Dark Adventures Radio Theatre radio dramas this year (I have 2 more to listen to out of more than 20). I've purchased a bunch of their other items as well and REALLY hope that they get to partner up with Chaosium and do DART radio dramas for "Horror on the Orient Express" and "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" like they did with "Masks of Nyarlathotep" and another CoC scenario that I can't recall this second. So happy shout out to HPLHS! If you are looking for some truly amazing premium props for your Call of Cthulhu games, HPL products, or some great and fun radio dramas, check them out: HPLHS - The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (I'm not affiliated other than being a customer and fan.)

Either way, congrats to all the nominees and winners!

 

[MNblockhead]

Prepare for surprised players.

So I bought the physical book on Amazon and it will be delivered by tomorrow night, then are started reading the look-inside pages that are available on Amazon and I couldn't wait until tomorrow and got the Kindle version as well. This is the first D&D related purchase in a while that I'm sure I'll read through and refer back to a lot.

This is why I like awards like the Ennies. I'm not looking for confirmation that the purchases I made are "good" but to a way to learn about materials I would otherwise overlook. There is so much content out there that I end up sticking to creators who I know deliver. I don't even both browsing Drive Thru RPG or DMs Guild any more. Just too much stuff. But I'll browse something like the Ennies awards where others have put together a process to sort the wheat from the chaff and sometimes I find something I didn't know I "needed" or am learn about a new system that sounds cool and has good reviews from folks whose opinions and taste a trust enough to take a gamble on something new.

 

[MNblockhead]

I blame the new Kickstarter/crowd-funding world we live in for the RPG industry. There was a time, and it feels so long ago, where I would have recognized nearly every nomination because it would have passed through the shelves of my FLGS and I would have at least picked it up and browsed, even if I didn't buy that particular game. I really do miss that. There are so many great games out there that I'll never know about now, because I didn't happen to trip and fall into their Kickstarter. I love the plethora of games and the larger indie market that crowd-funding allows, but there is a measure of sadness when I see how small my FLGS' RPG section is now that not as many games go to retail through them.

For me Kickstarter has replaced browsing through the game store, especially board games. I browse KS at least once per week, no matter where I am in the world. Even before COVID, and even if I spent most of my time at home in the USA, I would not get to my FLGS once a week. And the game store I would go to frequently was the Fantasy Flight Game Center, which has a more limited selection than some of the more traditional stores. I went to the FFGC because of the play space, good food, and convenient location.

This has led to me generally knowing more about the more popular independent products and missing new publications and games from the more established companies. I pretty much rely on EN World to fill in the gaps as it is pretty much the only source of gaming news that I frequent.

 

[MGibster]

I've never heard of or seen almost all of these products. Should I be delving more into these obscure RPGs?

I made a similar comment in the previous thread regarding this year's nominations. More specifically, I compared it to the discrepancy between movies nominated for Oscars and what most people have actually seen. But, yes, apparently we should be checking them out as many people here recommend some of them. I can attest that Aliens is a very good game...not that I've gotten to play it yet.