ENnies To Ban Generative AI From 2025

The ENnie Awards has announced that from 2025, products including content made by generative AI will not be eligible for the awards.

Established in 2001, the ENnies are the premier tabletop roleplaying game awards ceremony, and are held every year in a ceremony at Gen Con. They were created right here on EN World, and remained affiliated with EN World until 2018.

The decision on generative AI follows a wave of public reaction criticising the policy announced in 2023 that while products containing generative AI were eligible, the generative AI content itself was not--so an artist whose art was on the cover of a book could still win an award for their work even if there was AI art inside the book (or vice versa). The new policy makes the entire product ineligible if it contains any generative AI content.

Generative AI as a whole has received widespread criticism in the tabletop industry over the last couple of years, with many companies--including D&D's owner Wizards of the Coast--publicly announcing their opposition to its use on ethical grounds.

The new policy takes effect from 2025.

The ENNIE Awards have long been dedicated to serving the fans, publishers, and broader community of the tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) industry. The ENNIES are a volunteer-driven organization who generously dedicate their time and talents to celebrate and reward excellence within the TTRPG industry. Reflecting changes in the industry and technological advancements, the ENNIE Awards continuously review their policies to ensure alignment with community values.

In 2023, the ENNIE Awards introduced their initial policy on generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). The policy recognized the growing presence of these technologies in modern society and their nuanced applications, from generating visual and written content to supporting background tasks such as PDF creation and word processing. The intent was to encourage honesty and transparency from creators while maintaining a commitment to human-driven creativity. Under this policy, creators self-reported AI involvement, and submissions with AI contributions were deemed ineligible for certain categories. For example, products featuring AI-generated art were excluded from art categories but remained eligible for writing categories if the text was entirely human-generated, and vice versa. The organizers faced challenges in crafting a policy that balanced inclusivity with the need to uphold the values of creativity and originality. Recognizing that smaller publishers and self-published creators often lack the resources of larger companies, the ENNIE Awards sought to avoid policies that might disproportionately impact those with limited budgets.

However, feedback from the TTRPG community has made it clear that this policy does not go far enough. Generative AI remains a divisive issue, with many in the community viewing it as a threat to the creativity and originality that define the TTRPG industry. The prevailing sentiment is that AI-generated content, in any form, detracts from a product rather than enhancing it.

In response to this feedback, the ENNIE Awards are amending their policy regarding generative AI. Beginning with the 2025-2026 submission cycle, the ENNIE Awards will no longer accept any products containing generative AI or created with the assistance of Large Language Models or similar technologies for visual, written, or edited content. Creators wishing to submit products must ensure that no AI-generated elements are included in their works. While it is not feasible to retroactively alter the rules for the 2024-2025 season, this revised policy reflects the ENNIE Awards commitment to celebrating the human creativity at the heart of the TTRPG community. The ENNIES remain a small, volunteer-run organization that values the ability to adapt quickly, when necessary, despite the challenges inherent in their mission.

The ENNIE Awards thank the TTRPG community for their feedback, passion, and understanding. As an organization dedicated to celebrating the creators, publishers, and fans who shape this vibrant industry, the ENNIES hope that this policy change aligns with the values of the community and fosters continued growth and innovation.

 

[Umbran]

Exactly. For many it is simple an emotional issue.

...

People respond emotionally when they feel threatened.

Sure.

But, real wisdom is understanding. Understanding entails not being dismissive of human emotions or emotional responses.

If you are only here to deny and dismiss those emotions, you will make no headway. Only when you are willing to work with the real human element will your argument gain traction.

Most importantly, the simple fact is that not all new uses of technology are inherently good ideas. The difference usually lies in those human emotions you dismiss, rather than in cold calculations.

 

[LordEntrails]

Sure.

But, real wisdom is understanding. Understanding entails not being dismissive of human emotions or emotional responses.

If you are only here to deny and dismiss those emotions, you will make no headway. Only when you are willing to work with the real human element will your argument gain traction.

Most importantly, the simple fact is that not all new uses of technology are inherently good ideas. The difference usually lies in those human emotions you dismiss, rather than in cold calculations.

Sure.

But if you only address the emotions and not the cold reality of logic, common sense, and practicality, then you only feed the mob. There is plenty of evidence in our world today that only addressing the emotions of an issue and ignoring logic, common sense and practicality simply feed hatred and fear.

But, you're not advocating for only addressing the emotional. And I wasn't advocating for ignoring it.

 

[Art Waring]

Are you really appreciative of this new policy? The old policy was to disqualify all generative AI from winning, but other human-crafted aspects of the work would still be eligible.

I won't speak for other artists, but my personal policy has already been to avoid anything ai generated for several years now, since it first appeared for public use in 2022. That means that I will do my best to make sure that other artists I work with won't be using it in any projects that I commission them for. Period.

I've done extensive research on the subject of gen-ai right here on the forums, be sure to check the gen-ai threads elsewhere on the forum for topics I have already previously discussed such as the LIAON-5B dataset, the various ethical implications, and especially the exploitive & unethical nature of the technology. I won't be discussing them at length here because I have already done so in other threads to the point of exhaustion.

If you really think you need to use gen-ai to do something for you, then that is your choice, but I also would not want to be associated with that project either, because (not just for the reasons explained above), as an artist who is trying my best to do right by others, I personally have a lot of respect for projects that are taking this into consideration.

Before, as a traditional artist, even if a publisher used generative AI elsewhere in a product, it only disqualified that part, so your art could still win the Best Art, Cover category, or Best Art, Interior.

Not that I ever cared about winning any awards, but I don't think that I would want to win an award that way. I would personally prefer that my artwork not be used on projects that implement the use of gen-ai because that is just my own personal policy. I think that a well made ttrpg book is kind of like its own work of art, where every component is carefully crafted with a respect for the entire process, not just the end result.

With all respects, I would not personally want my art to be associated with a project that was using gen-ai, because that is my experience after years of debating with other people and other artists about the subject. That is just my personal preference though, to each their own and all that, I have no judgements against other people using it if they think they have to for some reason, but for me personally my philosophy towards art is very different than even other artists.

For example: I often spend years working on each individual piece of art I make, I also go back and work on old pieces of art I have made over the years to see them grow organically because I pay way too much attention to small details. The process of working on my personal project started back in 2017, I am still working on artwork started back then. Part of it is that the game has become more refined over time, so too has the artwork.

I hope that this will answer your questions, and I hope everyone is in good health.

Respectfully,
Art

 

[T4lkingSKU-11]

I believe that this is a step in the right direction. While gen AI may be used in consumer products with prior knowledge of the people buying the product, I'd rather not see it complete against human effort when it comes to that effort being recognized with awards.

 

[fbnaulin]

I fear for that point where AI would be indistinguishable from a human work.

 

[Art Waring]

I fear for that point where AI would be indistinguishable from a human work.

I honestly don't.

After years of extensive research, MIT has concluded that ai companies will effectively run out of new training data by 2026, forcing them to then train on "synthetic data" instead. Training an ai on synthetic gen-ai data is proven to lead to model collapse. IMHO, gen-ai has already peaked, now we are going to see the long and inevitable decline over the next few years as they try to find a way to keep feeding the oroborus as it eats its own tail.

Additionally, artists are using tools like Glaze & Nightshade to poison their work, leading to further potential model collapse due to the gradual poisoning of the datasets. There is nothing about the technology that is inevitable, as plenty of defunct technologies lie forgotten on the ash-heap of history, this is no different.

A few years back I was reporting here about how some artists I know were losing work to gen-ai, well that was when the tech was new and largely unknown (except by hype). Today, those artists that were fired are now re-hired in a lot of cases because the tech cannot perform at industry standards without significant editing by human artists. The entire process was wasteful, as they not only wasted time firing artists, hiring promter-types with no actual experience making art at an industry standard, but then had to fire the promters, and re-hire skilled artists (now at a higher pay rate), all just to get back where they were in the first place (and wasting time and money in the process).

If you pay attention to the gen-ai news, they are already moving away from image generation towards video generation in an attempt to disrupt yet another industry for their own personal gain. I don't think we will be seeing significant advancements in image generation because these companies are constantly chasing the next new thing. Currently, their attention is shifting over to video generation like SORA (its initial release was on December 9th 2024, just a few months ago).

"Good enough" will be enough for some people, but there are simply things that gen-ai cannot do...

For example:

• Specificity: gen-ai cannot achieve specificity, that means if you want to create an image of a unique character that you have made for your game, and have tons of details about the character that you need to include, everything from appearance (which can cover a myriad of details, unique hair styles or physical traits, scars in specific places, specific articles of clothing etc) to any items the character may be carrying, you will likely not be able to get the results you want, and will be forced to accept whatever it gives you instead. I hope you like making creative compromises based on the limitations of a machine, because human artists simply don't have this problem.

• Genre Limitations: Which leads me to my next point. If you are trying to make fantasy-genre images using gen-ai, well that is easier because gen-ai was trained heavily off of fantasy artwork (primarily artists that made work for MTG & D&D are featured on "style lists" on midjourney, where they deliberately stole the work of thousands of talented artists like Greg Rutkowsky in order to mimic their work for profit). If you try and make anything with the word "cyberpunk" or other niche genres, you will start running into problems, as they obviously trained off of art featured in the popular game Cyberpunk 2077, you will get countless iterations of "cyberpunk 2077-esque" pictures with the obvious color schemes and a significant lack in any variety in terms of what you can achieve using promts to explore genres that have not had a significant amount of work in the mainstream. That means that for anything other than generic fantasy, you are simply better off working with an artist that actually knows what they are doing.

In the short term (2022-2024), it did manage to disrupt the lives of a lot of working artists. In the long term, it actually helped to highlight just what its limitations are, and thus help artists get a much needed increase in their pay rates, because a lot of companies learned the hard way that if you want industry level work, you are going to have to pay for it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Good! Stand firm!

 

[cbaratz]

I am generally pro-Ai and have no issue with it in most context but I think this is appropriate. This is an award for best creativity and Ai will cheapen it and reduce quality.

 

[Autumnal]

If there’s genuine demand for it, someone else could set up awards like the ENnies but welcome the inclusion of substantial AI elements. In the meantime, I support the ENnies having the boundaries that the people doing the work want them to have.

 

[Lanefan]

Additionally, artists are using tools like Glaze & Nightshade to poison their work, ...

"Poison their work"? Curious - what do you mean by this?

And what is "Glaze & Nightshade", in this context?