ENnies V - and beyond...

[Barendd Nobeard]

However, I think they should drop the Honorable Mention thing. If a book is going to have an honorable mention, it should be up there amongst the nominees, allowing voters to rate it alongside the others.

Agreed. The "Honorable Mention" almost seems like a bronze award. If I didn't know better, I think it was a nominee who just missed out on the silver--as opposed to a product that just missed out on a nomination.

 

[Psion]

Or perhaps, the companies, when submitting their products, ship them directly to the judges instead of to a single address.

That has also been brought up -- and is a very practical solution. There was some concern that would exclude some smaller companies, but better that than no awards. It would also put more responsibility on the contributing company, because if something fails to get shipped, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

 

[Psion]

However, I think they should drop the Honorable Mention thing. If a book is going to have an honorable mention, it should be up there amongst the nominees,

Um, we take the top 5. The ones that are up there are the ones that had the most votes. Honorable mentions are there because they barely missed the cut, e.g., they tied and we were force to do a run off vote. I think that's worth mentioning to professionals who feel snubbed, and judging from some talk with contributors at GenCon, it is appreciated.

 

[Berandor]

First off, I really like the judging system. I tend to go over the nominees of each category and see whether something interests me - and there are products I've never heard of or that I would have never considered buying otherwise. And then in the end, the fans decide.

I would *not* want a write-in option, in fact, I am really biased against such an option. In my mind, it would either be worthless (for unknown products) or would lead to popularity and not quality winning the prize. Bigger publishers have a *huge* fanbase, and if they all wrote in a product like, "Legacy of Dragons" (a book that I love) just because they might not know the other, smaller books, I don't think that's fair any more. Now, I'm not saying LOD wouldn't have deserved the prize; I consciously chose an excellent book, albeit one with a large fan base.

And perhaps people would even write in Draconomicon, and that would win the prize despite WotC not even entering the book?

No, please no write- ins.

I think a judging period of one week is enough, but you must declare the judging period at least a month before. That way, publishers and game sites can advertise the date in advance. Just like elections, you just have to know up front when to vote. If you just put the booth up when it's ready, you should include a longer voting period or guarantee at least a certain time frame where it's open.

Also, the voting booth should be accessible (or at least linked to) via the official GenCon site (I don't know if it was this year).

ETA: Re: Financing. You might want to make a special badge/prize/something that you auction off at the show. What I mean is an American Auction (I think that'S what we call it) where you let a hat go round, and the last person to put in 5 dollars gets the prize. 5 bucks is not that much, and it tends t go really well. It'll probably not cover all the costs, but it'll help.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Perhaps Morrus should speak with Peter A. of GenCon about subsidizing the ENnies? Given that they have become "the GenCon Awards" so to speak, perhaps GenCon could help with these costs?

Peter already helps I belive.

 

[alsih2o]

bK, are you sure you should be airing that information in public?

 

[BrooklynKnight]

bK, are you sure you should be airing that information in public?

I was under the impression it was public, or at least not secret. But you're right. I changed the post.

 

[DaveMage]

I find that comment highly insulting. Origins never has been (to my knowledge) and never will be a fan award. Whatever the ENnies becomes, it will remain an award decided by the fans and supported primarily by them

By accident or design we were seated right next to the Origins booth. It was odd contrast really. The Origins were once the most widely lauded and sought award in gaming. But after a series of scandals their prestige is undermined and it shows in the way they are spoke of throughout the net across multiple boards. The ENnies meanwhile are the scrappy newcomer to the scene - still struggling to define themselves sure, but with a pure heart. They had their spiffy $1000 dollar booth manned primarily by employees - we had our granted booth decorated only by what *I* could personally afford (along with Hellhound's dry-erase board) manned and visited by enthusiastic volunteers.

I asked them about their statues and I got a long elaborate snotty answer equivocating to "you can't afford to give this away, so go away."

Yeah, Origins is not all that. They are, at best, a guilded monster collapsing in on themselves. To insinuate that we (the ENnies staff and judges) will go down that same path of corruption is to slap us in the face.

SB: There is no insult intended.

The "angst" from me is that EN World is primarily a D&D/d20 site. For EN World to give awards outside of that domain is akin (in an overstated way) to the Daytime Emmy awards to start to give awards for all types of video entertainment, such as prime time TV, movies, etc. It's beyond the appropriate scope, if you will.

Maybe it would be best for the ENnies to come up with a "purpose statement". I mean, what's the point of the awards in 2005? Excellence in role-playing? If so, does that mean we are transforming EN World from primarily D&D-d20 into ALL rpgs? Are we going to have an Ars Magica forum? Should we add a Vampire forum? My answer would be "no", since then we would be trying to be all things to all people - an impossible thing, of course.

If the ENnies have become too big for EN World, then they, frankly should change the name and be picked up by someone with financial backing, or cease to exist. As it's being proposed above, they would indeed become similar to the Origin awards in function (if not in method).

 

[Brad Hindman]

[h1]Spread Out the Judges[/h1]
To date the judges have been drawn from the ENWorld site. The membership is principly d20 so some may argue that the awards will be slanted to d20. To deflect this, I propose allowing other sites to nominate some of the judges. In each case ENWorld would nominate 2 of the 5 judges.

If the long term goal of the ENnies is to achieve relevance to a broader section of gamers, the association with GenCon is obviously a large step towards this goal. The next logical step is obtaining the involvement of other communities (online or otherwise); however, acquiring whole-hearted involvement may be problematic as long as the awards are called the ENnies. Has there any thought been given to changing the name? (I apologize if this has already been brought up and discusses ad nauseum).

I realize that the name 'ENnies' has already started to gather a mantle of respectability about itself and that changing the name of the award could be a set back on that account. But, with the name as is, the promoters will probably find it hard sailing to get the awards accepted by some of the larger online communities that are already well entrenched .... Besides, I kind of like the word play invoked by the name 'Genies'.

Post Edit: I forgot to mention something in my original post. I personally think there are better ways to get other communities involved without relinguishing control of the judges. Just getting other sites to post prominant links to the voting booth would help dramatically. Perhaps even more important is to continue the trend of nominating good non-d20 products. If the judges continue to select top notch products irregardless of game system, the reputation of the ENnies will continue to grow and members of other communities will come here to vote and make their opinions known.

 

[Psion]

Here is where I express my insultedness. With the notions that the judges have to be drawn from elsewhere. That implies to me that someone feels we are biased or incapable of selecting non-d20 products. Yet amongst all the flap, this is never something I have heard anyone express. Quite the contrary, I go to non-d20 boards and hear people exclaim that they are impressed with our selections.

Again, yes, this is a primarily d20 board. But Morrus has already made several moves towards more openness towards other systems on the boards. Frex, the review page. And people who come here play more than just d20. All of this years judges that I am aware of (am not sure about Rich) are familiar with other games. I've had Teflon Billy regale me with tales of playing OTE and having the GM micromanage the rules, and I got into a discussion with Joe and Chris about why I don't like tri-stat (which they obviously do...)

Further, I think this year the judges have been fairly impartial. I have no special love for Unknown Armies or Xcrawl, but saw the quality in each.

I would agree that we need sort of a "mission statement", and that is something I have heard from more credible/less ranty posters elsewhere.

This gives me a thought though...