Voting for ENnies but not knowing all the nominees?

[Psion]

This may be too late for those who already voted, but the elections will be up for a few weeks. If there are some purchases up there you considered but were putting off -- or that you haven't heard of before but sound cool to you -- you might take the chance to you FLGS and check them out, maybe even pick one or two up.

 

[Li Shenron]

IAs TB explains, it's still worth voting even if you don't know all the candidates. Unless it's a moral or ethical decision to not support the award itself, the voting is pretty shenanigan-resistant.

I basically know at best 1 of each category. If they were at least 2 I'd consider choosing between them. But the 1 I know isn't usually something I'd support blindly but neither something I'd vote anything against...

 

[Henry]

.But the 1 I know isn't usually something I'd support blindly but neither something I'd vote anything against...

In those cases it's best to leave that category blank. What I usually do is take a week or so to (in spare time) ead product in the local bookstore (it encourages sitting a bit and reading ) and generally get an idea what each one is about. Even if I only know what one or two are about, it's usually because I liked them enough to buy them anyway. No one expects the voters to be as well read as the judges, but just by registering what you think IS good enough that you bought it is an important notification to other buyers. It's designed as a "best of the best" popularity contest anyway!

What generally happens anyway is that publishers tell their fans on their webnsites: "Product so-and-so was nominated for an ENnie! If you liked it, please go and vote on it!" and the people voting know mainly only the product they feel strong enough.

But since the voting will be (apparently) a few weeks, it's plenty of time to decide if it's worth it to you.

 

[Teflon Billy]

..I wasn't able to vote for every category, and I wasn't able to educate myself about all of them, but I voted for the things I did like, and I think that's important...

It's the most important thing

 

[TonyLB]

I'm a bit surprised that website links (where available) weren't included for the games. For some games that don't (for business model reasons) push into the FLGS very hard, the web is the primary point of contact, and a terrific source of information.

So, anyway, Capes is here, for those who don't yet know. There's just no reason to be ignorant about a game that gives away a free light version of its own rules in PDF. Unless, of course, you have a life and time constraints but I conveniently overlook that possibility.

 

[Umbran]

As TB explains, it's still worth voting even if you don't know all the candidates. Unless it's a moral or ethical decision to not support the award itself, the voting is pretty shenanigan-resistant.

For me, it winds up being semi-ethical, but not a matter of supporting the awards. Before I vote on their relative quality, I should be educated on that quality. If I don't know three or more products in a given category, I don't feel well-educated enough to judge their relative merit. This, unfortunately, tends to translate into my not voting at all, but that's what I get for having my own particular standard I want to stick to.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Folks, if you want to read a writing sample from Murchad's Legacy, just let me know.

In the meantime, what would you want to see in a writing sample? I can toss up the intoductory story pretty easily. That's meant to be read without knowing the context of the rest of the book. Everything else I'd be chewing my fingernails about because you would be reading random pages without any idea what they were referring to. For example, you could read a section on guns and think that this is a gun-heavy book, when that's simply not the case, etc. etc. etc.

So what would you like to see?

 

[Crothian]

People should take a look at the books and try to learn more about them if you can. Also, we happen to be on a message board with a bunch of people that know a lot about gaming. If you want to know people's opnion for best Rules and have people talk about why they like something more then another, start a thread.

 

[Clueless]

Myself I went through and tried to research as best I could - or turned to my gaming group actually. Our tastes are simular enough that I could ask them what they thought of different books (or borrow the book directly) and have a good idea what I was judging off off. I guess the only thing I worry about is if my definition of 'Best' is remotely simular to anyone elses - what sort of qualifier do you *use* for that sort of thing?

It's the same identical reason of why I simply don't vote for the ENnies at all.(I could vote for the websites if I can find enough time to browse the sites which I don't know yet, but let's see if I do find it.)

Hey - hopefully you will! And if you spot anything you'd suggest making better/anything that turned you off of Planewalker, just let me know and we'll fix it for next year. Again, not knowing exactly what sort of things folks use to evaluate a site, makes it hard.

 

[Umbran]

People should take a look at the books and try to learn more about them if you can. Also, we happen to be on a message board with a bunch of people that know a lot about gaming. If you want to know people's opnion for best Rules and have people talk about why they like something more then another, start a thread.

I should hope that voters are voting based upon their own opinions, rather than someone else's. Do we want people deciding what product is worthy based upon what other people say about the product, rather than their own personal knowledge and opinions?

If we wanted to get really simple about it, we could whittle this all down to looking at which reviews get more page views, and figure that the populace would follow what information they've been given by the reviewers