ICE and the ENnies

[Rasyr]

This post is to announce the ICE will NOT be participating in the ENnies this year.

It boils down to a couple of main reasons why:

1) The ENnies have begun emulating the Origins Awards. One of the primary reasons that many fans lost faith in the Origins Awards was the inclusion of products in categories where they did not seem to fit. This happened last year with the Shackled City Adventure Path being included in Best Setting as well as Best Module. So long as this can happen, ICE cannot support the ENnies. The ENnies needs clear and concise rules regarding submissions to prevent this from happening in the future.

I am sorry, but IMO those categories, that match up with sales categories, should not allow cross-entries. Products should be limited to the one that best matches the way they are marketed. The other categories, the ones like best catography and best artwork, can have products be listed in multiple categories as they refer to an aspect of the product not the whole product like the marketing categories of Best Adventure Module and Best Campaign Setting and so forth.

2) The ENnies are not an industry wide award, they are a d20 award that happens to allow other games to be looked at. There is no way to avoid this, not so long as the ENnies refuse to sever their ties with EN World. They pull their judges from here, they do their voting here, the judges hold their discussions here. By tying themselves to EN World they are ensuring an ingrained, though likely unintentional, bias towards d20.

There is nothing stopping the ENnies from setting up their own forums (there are some excellent and robust free forum software out there that they could use), but they elect not to. I have been told for several years running now that the ENnies is seeking to become independent from EN World, and ICE supported the ENnies because of that declared intent of independence, and yet I still see absolutely no movement in that direction.

The Gaming Report blurb spent more time talking about voting than about how a person could apply to become an ENnies judge and even that part was hidden from the front page blurb, even though the announcement title was "Judge Selection Begins". Nor did the link actually take people to the page where it gives infor about judge selection. It takes them to the ENnies home page, and there is nothing on it indicating where to go from there....

Add to this, that only site on which I have seen anything regarding ENnies judge selection, by those in charge of the ENnies, is this site (last year it was at least mentioned on rgp.net and had a thread dedicated to it). Apparently the ENnies don't want to be an independent from EN World.

While I am sure that I could nit-pick and find more reasons, the above are more than enough for ICE to no long participate in the ENnies, at least not until some changes are made to the overall system.

 

[Morrus]

Moved to publishers.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I tend to agree with your first point, Rasyr. The 'technical' awards (art, production quality, etc), ought to be open to any product, even ones entered in other categories. The 'best in class' ones ought to be more strict. I'm not sure whether it would be better for the publisher to submit for a category or have the judges decide, thougjh.

I disagree with your second point. I think the less ENWorld and d20 oriented the awards become, the less value and meaning they have. I fear it will just lead to system wars, popularity contests, and attempts by different camps to sway the results. Not that I'm naive enough to think it doesn't happen a little already, but it would get far worse.

The more diverse and generic the process, the less relevance the awards have to me.

 

[Rasyr]

The more diverse and generic the process, the less relevance the awards have to me.

The operative words in that sentence are "to me". If the ENnies want to remain a d20-centric awards, then they have nothing wrong in regards to my second point.

However, I have been told, in the past, that the ENnies want to be more accepted by a wider audience, and that means being accepted by the fans of other system.

The awards currently have an ingrained bias against anything that is not d20. Nothing wrong with that except that it does not fit the image that I have been led to believe that the ENnies want to present. And it limits them to being JUST a d20 award, and all other companies should forget about entering anything.

The following is a quote form the ENnies site...

The Gen Con EN World RPG Awards (the "ENnies") are an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. The ENnies give game designers, writers and artists the recognition they deserve. It is a peoples' choice award, and the final winners are voted upon by the gaming public at EN World.

Those last 3 words... If not for them, they ENnies COULD be an industry wide award like I was told that they wanted to be. But those last 3 words specify that the judging is done at a site that is intrinsically tied to D&D and d20. Because of those last 3 words, companies that produce non-d20 games should not, in my opinion, participate in the ENnies because those words mean that unless you are a d20 related product, you are not going to get fair consideration.

 

[Khairn]

Just a few random thoughts ...

As I followed the ENnies and watched them grow over the years, I always found it odd that any non-D20 company would ever participate.

-judges are chosen from members of the EN boards and is usually decided based on involvement in this community...
-EN World is a solely D20 site, without any discussion that isn't based on a D20 game ...
-the fractured nature of the gaming community based on system would seem to indicate that players who primarily play those other systems (Hero, Harnmaster, ICE etc) would have no real reason to become involved on the EN boards which leads to their opinions and votes being marginalized

It can be argued that many of the the gamers on these boards play other systems and are "in touch" with the hobby outside of D20, but that kind of well-rounded gaming expertise is hardly a prerequisite.

I never followed the Origin Awards so I cant comment on Rasyr opinion that the ENnies are going down that same path, but the idea of limiting a particular product to its primary category does seem like a fair rule.

I guess that if the ENnies are trying to be an "independent" award for overall gaming excellence that they have a long way to go. I'd be cool with the idea of stating that its a D20 award vehicle ... period.

Afterall, that's what it is.

 

[seasong]

Speaking as someone with a deep love for and vested interest in non-d20 systems . . .

Leave the ENnies as a d20-biased award system. Seriously. The wider the range of products that are allowed in, the less and less relevant the awards as a whole will become to any given individual.

Currently, the ENnies are meaningless to GURPS players. So what? If we start having GURPS products make it into the ENnies regularly, one or two awards will be meaningless to everyone else . . . and the rest of the awards will still be meaningless to the GURPS players.

Let Origins try to please everyone and fail. I like the ENnies because they have a particular audience, and they do a pretty good job of pleasing and informing that audience. They are, to my mind, exactly narrow enough to be a good set of awards.

I agree with (1), though. For much the same reasons as I disagree with (2)!

 

[Rasyr]

I guess that if the ENnies are trying to be an "independent" award for overall gaming excellence that they have a long way to go. I'd be cool with the idea of stating that its a D20 award vehicle ... period.

Afterall, that's what it is.

If the ENnies were intended to be JUST a d20 awards system then why would the folks involved in the ENnies ask for entries from those companies that are not producing d20 products..

 

[Treebore]

Shadowrun got the top award last year, and very deservedly so. 4E is darn good.

If we are afraid of fragmenting things then the ENNIE's Board and Judges should do the fragmenting themselves. Meaning break it apart by having categories that don't have systems stepping on each others feet.

The real question is how much should it be fragmented? Should we fragment it simply into d20 and non-d20? Or are we going to have to fragment it even further? Say into "D10 systems", "percentile systems", "d6 systems", etc...?

How much does it have to be fragmented until the majority of people will feel it is fair?

Then the obvious question is, "How much can it be fragmented before it becomes a meaningless award?"

Meaning that if we fragment the awards categories too much, competition will be diminished, if not totally eliminated, making the awards empty and meaningless.

So how should the categories be divided to make publishers happy, but still be useful and meaningful to the fans and the industry?

 

[Rasyr]

No, what it boils down to is that if the ENnies want to be an industry awards for all RPGs in the industry, then they need to include the entire industry, not just the d20 portion of it, and that goes for how they select their judges, how they advertise, what boards they advertise on, etc. The entire process.

If that is not the case, then they need to exclude non-d20 products, and remain tied to EN World like the currently are.

However, what they cannot do is to claim to represent RPGs in the industry while remaining explicitly and intricately tied to a single system. It throws the entirety of the processes involved into a murky light (no matter how honest and honorable they are).

It is also part of the reason that ICE has decided to stop participating.

 

[Treebore]

Now to comment on the Judges. I don't remember every judge in the past, but I do know that most of them do not love d20 3E exclusively. Several fo them, every year, were fans of other systems as well as d20.

So I am sure those judges that I remember fought for a fair assessment of games that were not d20, and after talking to several of them this past GenCon they won their fight for fairness.

I know of two other judge nominees so far this year. I believe they are fair, and that they are not "D20 3E Rules all" fanboys. I know I am not a fanboy either. Not even of my favorite system, Castles and Crusades. Like the other judge nominess I realize no one system is the "best".

Plus I play several other systems besides C&C. This past year alone we have played EPIC rpg, HARN, L5R 3E (excellent improvements, BTW), Shadowrun 4E, M&M 2E, and my SIEGE version of MegaTraveller.

So if your concerned about Judges being biased vote for those of us who play multiple systems. Shouldn't be a hard thing to do. Especially if all the various communities get together and vote to make sure "fan boy" judges are not voted in.

Plus the 5 judges only nominate the top 5 products of each category. The fans have to make sure their favorite wins top honors, and I think Shadowrun winning top honors last year proves that ENWorld/3E fans do not have the influence on the voting that many seem to think they have.

That, or the ENWorld fan voters are much fairer than they are being given credit for.

Either way, withdrawing from the ENNIEs is not the answer. Voicing your concerns and getting them addressed is the first way to go. Withdrawal is for when the ENNIEs Board convinces you they aren't giving you fair consideration.

Withdrawing without giving them the chance to address your concerns before they even have their new judges is unfair, not to mention a bit less than professional.

April is the deadline for product submission eleigibility. Tell the ENNIE Board your concerns, then when they have their Judge, they can address all submitted concerns and issues, and see what kind of ways they can be addressed.

Once they announce their final categories and definitions and guidelines under which the 2007 nominations will be judged, that is when you decide how fair or unfair the ENNIE Awards are going to be for your product, and others. That is when you decide to boycott, or not.