ICE and the ENnies

[WhimsyTheFae]

Now you're second-guessing the fans. If fans of a lesser-known product feel sufficiently strongly about it, they'll submit in a higher proportion than fans who just went through the motions with a popular brand. Why can't fans just do the noms themselves?

Proportion of fans != Proportion of voters. All the fans of a lesser-known product may not equal 5% of the fans of a better-known product. The lesser-known product would be at an extreme disadvantage, regardless of quality.

 

[Wystan]

I will post my short overview.....

1. I have heard of ICE, I have looked at their products. I have never used one of their products, but I did vote for one due to seeing it here at ENworld and liking what I read that they produced. (I actively reported one poster for snarkiness towards ICE earlier in this mess). I did not like the snarkiness of the ICE representative where he said (Paraphrased) "your award is bad because you make the rules, I want to make rules too and until I can I am going home, call me when I can make rules".

2. I am not truely a published industry person but I have a credit on some small PDF's and have been paid for 2 others that have yet to see print. I think I have made maybe $50 total. However I would not be able to be a judge as one of them was a Seeds PDF that was produced this year.

3. The ENnies (Notice the Capital EN there) is an EN award run by the owner of ENworld and is done at a net Loss for him/ENworld.

4. I see new items when I check the ENnies voting as it is not just a popularity contest. The judges read books I have never ever heard of and would have never heard of if they did not nominate it as one of their top 5. This shows me that the smaller publishers have a chance.

5. D20 bias....I am playing Vampire in a weekly game right now, have a LOVE for Top Secret SI, started with V&V, Own at least 10 different RPG systems including Shadowrun, Spycraft, Top Secret SI, Hero, Gurps, Paladium...etc. I play and read all of these but D20 seems to be the most common, why, it is the most prevalent. It is the easiest to find player for, and it has the most material. Notice that no-where in there did I say it was my favorite.

6. Voting.....I like the system as it is, codified rules in the RPG industry is a BAD IDEA, we are a community of rules lawyers... Any RULE can and will be used to play the system, so a game book must have 42 pages of Setting to be a setting book and 40 pages of adventure to be an adventure book and 24 pages of Races to be a Races book, well there is a possible 3 category book from EVERY publisher next year that wants to see their name in multiple categories.

7. Friendliness/Snarkiness - I have been on ENworld a lot longer than the date next to my name implies, I have been here since 3.0 was basically a well known to be true Rumor. I see many many instances of people arguing in this thread that you would not normally see, but I feel that the mod's have done a good job of keeping it to a set (LOW) level of snarkiness considering some of the attitudes here. ENworld is just about the most friendly forum I have ever seen.

I guess I rambled a lot, but I wanted to show what a FAN thought of the ENworld ENnies process.

Thanks
Bill C.
Wystan
Relian
Thuran
(possibly others)

 

[eyebeams]

Proportion of fans != Proportion of voters. All the fans of a lesser-known product may not equal 5% of the fans of a better-known product. The lesser-known product would be at an extreme disadvantage, regardless of quality.

Given that the basic release numbers for products beneath the third tier is a couple of thousand, at 5% of that you're getting products with sales of maybe 200-500 -- even less. If he total purchasers of a single game are at 500 or less, you're talking about awards for beinging something to the hobby, since a game should actually be in someone's *hands* to actually affect the hobby. You're talking about charity.

Plus in practice, judges usually vote for popular sellers in their segments anyway.

That said, if judges truly represent fans, then the popularity-contest aspect should be replicated, but you're saying it is not. That implies the judges are not so representative. If you think that's a good thing, then you're not making an argument for the validity of fan opinions.

What it comes down to is that there are two ways to have a procedure that represnts fan interests:

1) You can regulate judging to such an extent as to encourage looking at products from a diverse set of perspectives (which is not served by incumbency) and from the POV of a typical gamer (also not served by incumbency and not served by overly lax industry tie rules).

2) You can get rid of judging entirely and resolve the awards based on multiple rounds of fan submissions, restricted only by the desire of publishers to participate or not. Sounds good to me.

If fan interests are *not* really at the heart of things? Yeah, there's all kinds of crazy things you can do. I just don't care for those, just as I don't care for the creeping idea that someone can "get better" at being a fan judge. While it certainly suits commercial interests to encourage the idea that there are "true fans" in any hobby or interest, I'm not sure it promotes the idea of an open and accessible hobby. I care much more about the opinions of the guys who play once a week than dedicated collectors and commentators -- and so should the hobby, in my view.

 

[Rystil Arden]

That said, if judges truly represent fans, then the popularity-contest aspect should be replicated, but you're saying it is not. That implies the judges are not so representative. If you think that's a good thing, then you're not making an argument for the validity of fan opinions.

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my mind, the judge system reproduces the following effect:

Clearly not every fan is familiar with every product. What would happen if we take five representative gamers and RPG fans and gave them every product of the year (at least every product submitted, of course), making sure that they read them all and took good notes, rather than simply relying on memories of the product?

In my opinion, the results that come out of the judging process are an excellent representation of the answer to that question.

 

[Wystan]

That said, if judges truly represent fans, then the popularity-contest aspect should be replicated, but you're saying it is not. That implies the judges are not so representative. If you think that's a good thing, then you're not making an argument for the validity of fan opinions.
...
2) You can get rid of judging entirely and resolve the awards based on multiple rounds of fan submissions, restricted only by the desire of publishers to participate or not. Sounds good to me.

See my 4th and 6th comments above (repeated here):

4. I see new items when I check the ENnies voting as it is not just a popularity contest. The judges read books I have never ever heard of and would have never heard of if they did not nominate it as one of their top 5. This shows me that the smaller publishers have a chance.
...
6. Voting.....I like the system as it is, codified rules in the RPG industry is a BAD IDEA, we are a community of rules lawyers... Any RULE can and will be used to play the system, so a game book must have 42 pages of Setting to be a setting book and 40 pages of adventure to be an adventure book and 24 pages of Races to be a Races book, well there is a possible 3 category book from EVERY publisher next year that wants to see their name in multiple categories.

 

[DaveMage]

edit: by the way you got your wish. i won't be running this year

The reason I voted for you last year was because you're a tough critic. If you liked something, I knew it had to be good.

I hope you will run again in the future (though obviously the time commitment is a bear).

 

[SteveC]

What it comes down to is that there are two ways to have a procedure that represnts fan interests:

1) You can regulate judging to such an extent as to encourage looking at products from a diverse set of perspectives (which is not served by incumbency) and from the POV of a typical gamer (also not served by incumbency and not served by overly lax industry tie rules).

2) You can get rid of judging entirely and resolve the awards based on multiple rounds of fan submissions, restricted only by the desire of publishers to participate or not. Sounds good to me.

Right. Sounds like you want a different set of awards, then. Do let me know when you've set those up...I'd like to see what they end up being.

--Steve

 

[Turjan]

2) You can get rid of judging entirely and resolve the awards based on multiple rounds of fan submissions, restricted only by the desire of publishers to participate or not. Sounds good to me.

If fan interests are *not* really at the heart of things? Yeah, there's all kinds of crazy things you can do. I just don't care for those, just as I don't care for the creeping idea that someone can "get better" at being a fan judge. While it certainly suits commercial interests to encourage the idea that there are "true fans" in any hobby or interest, I'm not sure it promotes the idea of an open and accessible hobby. I care much more about the opinions of the guys who play once a week than dedicated collectors and commentators -- and so should the hobby, in my view.

I see your reasoning, but that would be a boring award scene what I think you suggest. It looks like you propose giving all awards to D&D, perhaps with the occasional Exalted in between and perhaps a "New Game of the Year" award, like the one for Serenity. In principle, awards like that would be completely meaningless, and nobody would take them seriously. You can look at estimated sales figures to get those results. Perhaps, we could have the "Amazon RPG awards" or "Borders RPG awards"?

I like it when games like Artesia or Truth and Justice get nominated, even if they don't stand a chance of getting an award. Hardly any gamer has the time to look at as many games as the ENnie judges, which means that many good games will never be seen by most gamers. The procedure, as it stands at the moment, makes sure that games like that have a chance of getting a place in the spotlight, at least for a moment. In the next step, the fans decide via popularity, and games with low sales will never get an award.

I think that this specific mix of quality control and popularity makes for the most interesting awards. They are neither as meaningless as a simple acknowledgement of what everyone knows anyway, like a simple popularity contest, nor only of interest for some specialist, like indie awards (which I also find a good idea, but for a very specialized audience). I don't think it makes sense to throw this advantage of the ENnies away.

 

[eyebeams]

I see your reasoning, but that would be a boring award scene what I think you suggest. It looks like you propose giving all awards to D&D, perhaps with the occasional Exalted in between and perhaps a "New Game of the Year" award, like the one for Serenity. In principle, awards like that would be completely meaningless, and nobody would take them seriously. You can look at estimated sales figures to get those results. Perhaps, we could have the "Amazon RPG awards" or "Borders RPG awards"?

Nothing of the sort would happen, because not having judges doesn't ave get rid of submissions or consent to participate. WotC is staying out of the awards, so D&D products couldn't get nominated, and the existence of judges makes not one whit of difference. Simply using intelligent categories and mandating a minimum number of nominations should suffice, along with a system much like the one used to select judges.

In fact, the only way this can reduce variety is when a product is nominated for multiple categories, and the judging system is obviously not averse to that.

The only thing you'd lose are special judges awards, but then again, the current system doesn't guarantee them either.

 

[eyebeams]

See my 4th and 6th comments above (repeated here):

From my perspective, they appear to contradict each other. Your 4th comment is clearly in favour of the kinds of static rules that your 6th comment opposes. A rule where you get judges to do the noms for you is in fact a rule, and the judges already abide by certain rules. So minor adjustments to those rules don't seemto violate the spirit of the awards.

Your comments that people will "play the rules" in our community make examining them carefully seem even more significant.