ICE and the ENnies

[eyebeams]

How? You keep saying that they did something they weren't supposed to. Assume that I am an idiot and spell it out for me.

I think you know what it means, as this is an RPG forum where the term is brought up constantly.

Conveniently, I have my SCAP HC right in front of me. It's a 405-page book. The adventures take up 272 pages of it. That leaves ... a large minority of non-adventure material.

In your opinion, it does not qualify. That's perfectly acceptable, but (eyebeams approves) != (what the fans thought).

The fans didn't nominate. They voted on the slate available.

Do you really think we'll ever live in a world were it doesn't? These aren't double-blind controlled experiments; they are an awards ceremony.

Fortunately, we live in a world where it is possible to anticipate this phenomenon and approach it reasonably.

I'm quite aware of "real world organizations," I've even occasionally had jobs with them.

In elections of al kinds, leapfrog candidates and acclamation are to be avoided.

I'm not sure what your issue with this is. The ENnies grew out of ENWorld. They have slowly weaned themselves away from ENWorld. If you are claiming a bais towards ENPublishing, I'd take a look at the number of awards they've won from the ENnies. If you are claiming a bias towards d20...then you haven't been paying attention to who has been winning the ENnies.

To quote FanPro after winning Game of the Year: d20 causes cancer. That was said at the ENnies.

I've alread explained that ENP's lack of participation is not the point.

Poor controls? "Anyone can nominate themselves as a judge if they choose to do so." "Anyone who wishes to vote on who should be an ENnies judge can do so."

That's the problem.

Pithy phrasing, but what do you mean by that? Weed out acclaim? It's an awards ceremony! Leapfrog candidates? What are you implying?

Your familiarity with real world organizations should make you similarly familiar with the problem of candidates taking their places simply because there are no other real alternatives or when candidates simply take turns at a set or shift through a static, repititious slate for the sake of appearances.

 

[Crothian]

Some of the judges have industry ties. And they fudged the rules for their own categories with Shackled City. If you believed otherwise on the latter, you wouldn't have voted against including it, would you?

Which of the Judges has industry ties?

 

[Crothian]

I think you know what it means, as this is an RPG forum where the term is brought up constantly.

What was fudged? It was stated in the rules that products could be moved from one category to another.

 

[GwydapLlew]

Your familiarity with real world organizations should make you similarly familiar with the problem of candidates taking their places simply because there are no other real alternatives or when candidates simply take turns at a set or shift through a static, repititious slate for the sake of appearances.

This is where we disagree. Seeing as anyone can be nominated and anyone can vote on who should be a judge, I see it as having unlimited alternatives, and being anything but static.

It seems your complaint (in this regard) has more to do with encouraging those outside of ENWorld to apply to be a judge (and at least one of the current slate has said that he really spends more time elsewhere than here) and less to do with any ENnie- or ENW-imposed limitation.

If you want a more diverse group of judges (and I'm going to disagree with you by saying the the judges /I/ know are incredibly diverse in their attitudes towards gaming) then the simple and easy answer is to encourage those gamers you know and trust to nominate themselves as judges.

I'd love to judge, but I have accepted considerations from gaming companies so I'm not eligible. That doesn't stop me from encouraging gamers I know to apply. That doesn't stop me from mentioning to the gaming groups to which I belong from voting - even if they aren't d20 fans. That doesn't stop me from encouraging the fans of the industry from getting involved - which is the whole point of the ENnies.

 

[kingpaul]

Here's one: All of the judges are associated with a nominated product through companies that contributed to a bundle it is sold in. PDF merchants are rather entangled in spots.

Now I'm lost. I know for this year, and I think its been a requirement every year past, the judges couldn't be associated with a publisher for the year in question.

Now, extrapolating your comment, this would imply that an RPG would need to be bundled with a non-RPG product. If that decision isn't made by the judge in question, how are they associated with the RPG?

 

[eyebeams]

OK, I think I understand the root of our disagreement.

I don't see Morrus's involvement in both EN World Publishing and the Ennies as a conflict of interest. Instead, I think that his involvement speaks to the transparency of the process. We all know that Morrus is in charge of both the awards and a publisher. We also know that the awards are linked to EN World. Since we know all that, we can make better informed judgments on the awards.

If, for example, one company kept winning awards, and it was later revealed that Morrus was involved in that company, there's clear ground to make a judgment there.

There's an element of trust in an award process that things are fair and proper. While on the face of it having the same guy run the awards and a PDF house looks suspicious, I think the awards have earned more respect and trust than other awards. I agree that, taken as a theoretical, such an arrangement isn't great, but looking at the results I haven't seen any sign of undue influence. Is there potential? Of course, but the Ennies are transparent enough that informed gamers could spot conflicts of interest.

I can see Tim Dugger's concerns in that ENP has an interest in promoting the pdf market in general and the d20 brand -- and keeping things centered on this site does help do that. Now my opinion is that this is unavoaidable, but "unavoidable" is not the same thing s "nonexistant," so instead of subjecting Tim to a virtual stoning, perhaps someone should have simply admitted that this sort of thing is probably unavoidable and left it at that.

For example, I think it's a terrible reach to say that Shackled City's wins last year were due to any improper influence. Morrus doesn't run Paizo, and I think that reasonable people could disagree with SC's placement in the awards. In this case, I trust the judges and Morrus to make the call. OTOH, if SC was an ENWP book, then I could see a justified demand for change. In such a case, the awards would (regretably) lose their prestige.

The lack of consistent standards from year to year really was highlighted by Shackled City.

In comparison, the OAs were consistently opaque in their processes. Both rounds of voting were completed by either a group chosen by the people running the OAs or by people willing to pay AAGAD dues. It's easy for a publisher, through social connections or by simply buying memberships, to slant voting.

Did anybody ever buy AAGAD memberships for this reason? In any event, the OAs have a public phase as well, for noms (and there was weighted voting for winners, but I don't know what it's like now). I don't see much difference in total meaningful participation; it's just loaded differently.

The Ennies have open voting for judges, open nominations for judges, open entry for publishers and designers, and a final, open voting process. The people in charge of the award are clearly idenfitied and their biases known. That's not how the OAs work.

Yeah, but what I'm hearing around here are big denials of bias. Plus, the composition of the judges strikes me as being problematic as well.

As to the Ennies as a populist triumph, the awards have flourished without any direction from publishers other than Morrus*. They've completely avoided the passive-aggressive in-fighting and masturbatory backslapping that plagues industry discourse. The OAs exist as a warning for what happens when the people who win awards also run them. They're a clear testament to what happens when the portion of the hobby who decides whether awards mean anything or not (gamers) decides to put together an award.

The OAs was also damaged by vigorous Active-Aggressive, very open fighting. Robin Laws is a very polite man. I do think the ENnies are better than the alternatives, but this is not necessarily high praise.

EDIT: And with this, I'm done. Since responses have featured everything from insults to veiled threats, I think this demonstrates exactly the quality of discourse that's the problem in the first place.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Which of the Judges has industry ties?

Let's see...

I've done stuff for the fanzine Haymaker. (A Hero system publication that's xeroxed and sent to it's members.)

Reviews and articles for Pyramid. (Steve Jackson Games must've won everything last year... oh wait, they didn't enter.)

Material for the old fanzine Grey Worlds which got put into a Rolemaster Companion (my ICE basis must be showing there.)

Stuff for The Gamer's Connection, another fanzine by the old Gold Rush Games. (Whatever happened to San Angelo anyway eh?)

I'm sure there are other things I'm missing.

 

[Morrus]

.

There's an element of trust in an award process that things are fair and proper. While on the face of it having the same guy run the awards and a PDF house looks suspicious, I think the awards have earned more respect and trust than other awards. I agree that, taken as a theoretical, such an arrangement isn't great, but looking at the results I haven't seen any sign of undue influence. Is there potential? Of course, but the Ennies are transparent enough that informed gamers could spot conflicts of interest.

In the case of EN World, we clearly see which publisher could have an unfair advantage, yet we haven't seen that advantage exploited.

More importantly, the people behind EN World took the time, effort, and energy to build these awards and make them what they are. Why should they move to a different site? Again, the market will bear out whether they make the right decisions. So far, things have worked well enough. Why should Morrus lose control of the awards he created when he has, thus far, proven more than capable of the task?

Thank you, Mike. Amidst all the accusations and demands, it's nice to see that people do believe that I have some integrity. I appreciate it.

 

[RangerWickett]

I have two pieces of information that might influence this debate:

1. The company Russ runs and I help with is E.N. Publishing, not EN World Publishing. I just want people to get our name right if you think we might be immorally profiting from the ENnies.

2. The amount of money we make through E.N. Publishing has been very small. Some people think having the awards based at EN World is profiting us, and that makes the awards untrustworthy. But if we're profiting, it's been by, like, a couple hundred bucks. Really, it's nothing worth getting your panties in a twist about.

I'd prefer if no one thought me and Russ at E.N. Publishing were sitting in dark rooms rubbing our hands together at the thought of how much money the ENnies will make us. We really, really are just doing this because we like gaming, just like the judges really, really are putting in weeks of their time just to find the best products that came out in the past year, to help raise awareness of quality game design.

Honestly, I'm at a loss. What is the real problem here? Rasyr or eyebeams, could you just spell out one collective list of what you think is wrong with the system, and why?


(In interest of full disclosure, I do want E.N. Publishing to be successful enough that I can profit from my love of this hobby, and maybe even pad a resume when I try to get a novel published, so I suppose I'm not in it just for the love. But I still fail to see how the connection of EN World, E.N. Publishing, and the ENnies is a problem for the awards.)

 

[Crothian]

Let's see...

I think ties though refers to a stronger link then these. I guess someone would need to define industry ties then.