EN World is 20 Years Old!

It skipped me by, but EN World had its 20th birthday the other day! Yep, I've been doing this for... 20... long... years. I launched the site on Jan 1st, 2001, originally under the name d20reviews.com (which is now a site about casinos, apparently), covering third-party D&D (d20 System) news, 7 months before Eric Noah closed his site, Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News. When Eric...

It skipped me by, but EN World had its 20th birthday the other day! Yep, I've been doing this for... 20... long... years.

I launched the site on Jan 1st, 2001, originally under the name d20reviews.com (which is now a site about casinos, apparently), covering third-party D&D (d20 System) news, 7 months before Eric Noah closed his site, Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News. When Eric closed his site in August of that year, I took up the mantle of reporting the daily D&D news alongside the d20 System news I was already covering. I'm still doing that to this day, 20 years later, although I've expanded to general tabletop roleplaying game news in the last five years or so. I've reported on three (or five, depending how you count it) editions of D&D, the launch of Pathfinder, the creation of the Open Gaming License, the playtests and launch of 5th Edition, and hundreds more big stories in our little hobby.

EN Publishing was originally called Natural 20 Press, and was launched in 2001. In the 20 years since, we've published over 700 RPG products. Also in 2001, I founded the ENnies, which I owned until a few years ago when I decided to step away.

The community here is incredible. I’ve always believed that forums and the long-form in-depth conversation and moderated environment remained important in the face of social media, and I still do. It's incredible to think that back at the beginning of the century, the online D&D community was mainly in forums like this one; Twitter and Facebook didn't exist. We're still going strong, and we've even outlived one major social network! I’ve made lifelong friends in this community (though coming up to a year in lockdown now, I wonder when I’ll ever see them again!) People come and go, people return, new folks arrive, but the community is the core of this site.

When I started this site I was so young, and had no idea it would become my career. And somehow I'm still here, reporting the news. Anyhow, happy birthday to EN World!

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2001

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2002

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2005

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2010

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2015

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2018

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2021​
 

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Lidgar

Gongfarmer
Question I have is it a Natural 20?

Congrats Morrus. I have so many fond memories of posts on this site, from the Forest Oracle to Edition War parodies, flumphs, and Torphies. Oh, and one big server crash that sent shockwaves through the gaming stratosphere...and you are still here through all that!!!
 




Henry

Autoexreginated
Congratulations, Russ! Thank you for keeping this community touchstone alive and kicking for all this time. No matter how life keeps taking me in all sorts of directions, it’s always been comforting to be able to drop back in and catch news, see familiar names, and catch up on the gaming pulse when I can.

I still remember the day an email dropped in my box:

Hi Henry!

The reason I wanted to talk to you was to ask if you wanted to be a
moderator? I want to bring on two more mods (Dinkeldog has already
accepted) and hoped you'd be willing to fill the other slot. :)

What do you think?

Morrus
Right before the “Book of Mild Darkness” controversy. 😁
Tempus Fugit.
Some of the most fun times I had.
 

el-remmen

Moderator Emeritus
I became a moderator kind of by accident. Eric had made me temporary mod just for the story hour forum to clear some stuff up and help some other users common to that forum (which by the way, was created to house @Piratecat's first story hour thread because others had followed suit) but when Morrus came on he was like, "Nemm is a mod!" and the next thing I knew I had access to mod the whole boards.
 


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