ENnie Awards- Indy Titles Wanted!

[Denise]

I don't consider this a self-nominated contest, actually, though I can see from whence you are coming. 

Submissions get sent in to a panel of judges, the judges sift through them, then nominate five products.  What the publishers are doing is making sure that the judges are exposed to their product.  It'd be too much of a financial burden and logistical nightmare to expect five judges to be familiar with every single RPG product released in the year, so we ask the publishers to send in copies of their stuff for evaluation.

On the subject of nominations, I just thought I'd also give everyone the head's up that June 26th to July 9th I'll be soliciting nominations for Best Publisher.  We'll announce the judges' nominations at the same time as the Fan's Choice nominations results on July10th.  Voting begins July 17th and ends July 30th.

I'm mildly curious as to the nature of a contest wherein one nominates one's self.  This always seems slightly bizarre to me.  This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only contest where this occurs, and I don't mean to single this one out, it just happens to be handy and the coordinator is obviously here so I can ask the quick question of "huh?".

Are the reasons simply to save the effort of wading through piles of, err, crap, and make certain that each applicant (through the restriction of 6 gratis copies) is serious, or is it something else? 

Dav

[Thunder_God]

This raises the question regarding unsent games.

I don't remember if it was with Origins or Ennies last year, but considering no one nominated some of the deeper penetration games that weren't copy-sent to the judges... I mean, you say one thing and do another?

So, if the reviewers are familiar with the games, they should be able to vote for them, even if I send no copies, correct?

[Denise]

First of all, you're making the assumption that all five judges are familiar with every single game released the entire year.  If one judge doesn't follow anything d20, he would miss out on the deepest penetrating materials.  As would the judge who can't stand dark future products or comic book hero products.  It is simply unreasonable and unfeasible to expect five individuals from varying backgrounds from around the world to own all the products necessary to make an informed decision.

Secondly, the product sent in by the publishers is the ballast that keeps the ENnies afloat.  As a consolation prize of having to read through hundreds of books (and evaluate other products) over the year- with a big crunchtime in June, the judges get free product.  These guys often take time off work and neglect their families and (gasp!) personal gaming time to read everything that comes in, so the swag helps salve their wounds.  Also, the 6th copy we ask for acts as display material for nominated products, and we auction it off to help cover the costs of running the awards. 

Thirdly, we need to have the same copy evaluated by all the judges.  If one owned a Deluxe version of a game, complete with gold leaf and crack-impregnated pages, her score would greatly differ from the one who downloaded an earlier, buggy PDF.  We need to see what is commonly used by the public, and be working from the same frame of reference.

If a company chooses not to submit their product, that's fine.  Should we reward them with a nomination even though they didn't choose to play by the rules of the game?  I don't think so.  Whether they don't think it can stand the scrutiny, or their cost/benefit ratio calculations come out too heavy in the investment side of things, it's not for me to decide or judge.  Considering the Origins Awards asks for far more copies than the ENnies and only has 2 RPG categories, I don't think we're being unreasonable. Your tone(" you say one thing and do another") is. 

This raises the question regarding unsent games.

I don't remember if it was with Origins or Ennies last year, but considering no one nominated some of the deeper penetration games that weren't copy-sent to the judges... I mean, you say one thing and do another?

So, if the reviewers are familiar with the games, they should be able to vote for them, even if I send no copies, correct?

[Andrew Cooper]

As an on-topic aside, I went to the Ennies with Tony last year.  It was pretty cool.  I saw several products there that I subsequently checked out simply because they were nominated along side of some games I knew I liked.  I have nothing to submit this year but if you, as a publisher, can front the cost of the books then it certainly doesn't hurt to have you product mentioned as good competitors to games and publishers that large groups of people know and like.

[Denise]

I don't remember if it was with Origins or Ennies last year, but considering no one nominated some of the deeper penetration games that weren't copy-sent to the judges... I mean, you say one thing and do another?

How do you know what was sent?  Come to think of it...  you must be referring to the Origins Awards, because we've never publicized an exact list of what was submitted.  This is the first year we've listed participating publishers.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey.

Guy, and others, back off. Denise is extending the culture of the ENnies to the culture of the Forge, strictly out of courtesy and her desire to see good games get considered for awards, and she isn't trying to get away with anything.

Your proper role is (a) "thank you" and (b) to ask questions that help the interaction. Most of the questions until the last couple were perfectly fine. Now it's verging on a dogpile for no good reason.

So again, back off, and take a moderator whack, too. This is not a Roman coliseum and Denise is not a gladiator.

Best, Ron

[Denise]

Well, I think I've answered most of everybody's questions, and the submission period is almost over. 
I've got the go-ahead from the judges to accept anything post-marked from today from you guys in an attempt to raise the Indy level of participation.

Thanks everyone for bringing up your concerns, I hope I was able to shed some light and clarify some misconceptions.  I especially appreciated the private (and public) messages of support, because seriously- I'm not the enemy!

Don't forget:
-Nominations from fandom for the Best Publisher Award will be accepted from June 26th to July 9th.  This is the ENnies' one purely fan award, ie. the judges have no role.  Also, this is the only award where a publisher needn't have participated in the ENnies.  So long as the publisher has released a pen and paper RPG or RPG accessory between June 1st 2005 and April 30 2006 they can be nominated. Fans nominate their favourite publishers, then we tally the list of those publishers nominated and seconded, and put them on a ballot.  If it's alright with Ron, I'll start a nomination thread here to accept the Forge's input.  BTW, you cannot nominate yourself.
-Nominations for all of the categories, including Best Publisher, will be announced July 10th on the ENnies site and EN World.  I'm sure other gaming media will pick it up as well- Game Report is pretty quick on such things.
-Voting for all categories begins July 17th.  The voting booth will be at EN World.  You needn't be a member to vote.  IP addresses will be tracked in order to reduce ballot stuffing.  Please be advised that suspicious votes will be discounted, so do not use IP spoofing software to cast consecutive, identical votes.  By the way, for any electoral reform or statistic geeks, there's an excellent description of how we use the Alternative Vote/Instant Runoff Vote on the site (http://www.dreadgazebo.com/ennies06/fusangite.html)  I hope that everyone here will vote, whether there's an Indy nomination or not. 
-Voting ends July 30th.
-The Awards Ceremony will take place Friday, August 11th at Gen Con Indy.  Location and exact timing TBA.  I'm working on getting us in the hall a little earlier so we can do cocktails, and staying a little later with a DJ and other entertainment so we can celebrate.

If you have any more questions or comments, though feel free to keep 'em coming- I'll be around!  I don't have much time to spend on message boards (3 part-time jobs, 2 kids with lots of extra-curriculars), but I'll keep popping by on a weekly basis to make sure I'm not missing anything.  I don't want to use this as an announcement forum, so I hope those interesed in tracking the Awards will do so at www.dreadgazebo.com/ennies06. 

[btrc]

Since the Ennie nominations are up, I'm going to breathe a little life back into the thread by asking if anyone here got nominated. I managed a "best electronic book" nomination for the Stuff! supplement for EABA. Did any other indie get a nomination? Did anyone else here submit anything for nomination? A tip of the hat to Denise for coming over here and deliberately looking for indie submissions, otherwise I would have just assumed it was just a "d20 thing". Thanks for making the effort!

Greg Porter
BTRC

[Thunder_God]

Not from here, but still Indie, look at all the nominations Artesia received.

[Denise]

I don't think there were a lot of submissions from The Forge, unfortunately.  There were a handful of indie titles (almost exclusively electronic entries), but it was still fairly disappointing.  What's particularly frustrating is when people start to complain about the awards being primarily d20 when I'd say at least 3/4 of the entries are d20.  Excluding the Best d20 category, out of 15 categories with 80 nominations (not counting the d20 category), 41 were d20.  Not bad, I say.

Dread (The Impossible Dream) really wowed the judges this year, as did Artesia.  Stuff! almost made the cut for nomination or honourable mention in more than one category, too.

Anyhow I was thinking that some publishers here may be interested in discussing is, "Now What?"  Once nominated, how do you compete with the big boys?  Or what good does an award do, anyhow? 

Greg, I'm very interested to hear if there's been any backlash with regards to your Origins Award win, or your ENnie nomination over the next while.  And of course if the good folks from Burning Wheel and

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hi Denise,

As one of the Burning Wheel crew, I'd like to say that I think the ENnie awards are great. We were honored to be nominated last year, and I would recommend giving it a go to others. I can't give any hard data on whether the nomination affected us one way or the other, but I'd be surprised if we didn't benefit a fair bit from the exposure that being nominated gave us.

However, I will say that I was looking at the ENWorld page Why Alternative Vote/Instant Runoff Vote? and was really dismayed at the way it read. I'm sure that it was not written maliciously, but early on you have a sentence that reads, "Let's suppose that the voter, in this example, is a fan of mainstream D&D and actually dislikes products that make it and its designers look bad."

The example of a product that 'makes D&D and its designers look bad' is a fictional text--Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming--written by Ron Edwards. And the rest of the text goes on to explain how to use the ENnies AV/IRV ballot in an effort to ensure that D&D wins and Ron Edwards loses.     

Now Ron Edwards is not the sum of indie games and gaming, but most of us here look to him as a respected member and one of the leaders of our community. To see this as an example of how the ENnie balloting system works was disappointing.

It didn't lead me to believe that the ENnies are biased. However, I can see how some designers in our community would be wondering whether they'd get a fair shake.

Regardless, I'm sure it won't stop us from giving it a go next year with Burning Empires!

[btrc]

Greg, I'm very interested to hear if there's been any backlash with regards to your Origins Award win, or your ENnie nomination over the next while.

Backlash for the Origins Award? Not even a smidgen. Not even for my shameless shilling of Infinite Armies, which while it might have ruffled a feather or two, didn't spark any negative comments as I recall. As for the Ennies, I can't imagine why there would be any for that either. After all, its only nomination is in the "best electronic book" category, which it clearly qualfies as. The "electronic book" part, anyway. The "best" part is up to the voters...;) And as far as that goes, being in the "electronic book" category means I don't have to compete with any of the "big boys" (this time, anyway), so I'll just mercilessly flog my fan base, grovel on this forum for votes, and activate my strategic banner reserve as soon as voting opens. I expect the other nominees will do the same. If I win, I'll have a funky four-armed statue at the Forge booth and maybe more people here will submit something next time around.

"What good does an award do, anyhow?", you ask? I don't know, but it's still nice to win one occasionally. If I win an Ennie? I know that 20 years from now, as I sit shivering in my cardboard box, eating expired cat food heated over the stub of a discarded candle, I'll clutch that statue tightly to my chest, caress it and whisper softly, "yes my precious, you were worth it...", with the gleaming rheumy eyes of a game-designing madman...

Greg Porter
BTRC

[Jason Morningstar]

Most of the hypothetical titles in the IRV article were facetious.  I got the joke, although Thor's right - you'll save yourself a headache if you just change your examples to something innocuous.  It won't alter their usefulness. 

I have a feeling Burning Empires will do very well next year! 

Denise, I'll reiterate that it is cool of you to reach out to this community. 

[Denise]

Wow, Thor,

I had never thought that our little tongue-in-cheek example might raise some ire.  I've asked Ron what he thinks about it, and am taking your comments into serious consideration.

I certainly don't want to discourage indie RPG-ers from participating- as publishers or voters!

Hi Denise,

As one of the Burning Wheel crew, I'd like to say that I think the ENnie awards are great. We were honored to be nominated last year, and I would recommend giving it a go to others. I can't give any hard data on whether the nomination affected us one way or the other, but I'd be surprised if we didn't benefit a fair bit from the exposure that being nominated gave us.

However, I will say that I was looking at the ENWorld page Why Alternative Vote/Instant Runoff Vote? and was really dismayed at the way it read. I'm sure that it was not written maliciously, but early on you have a sentence that reads, "Let's suppose that the voter, in this example, is a fan of mainstream D&D and actually dislikes products that make it and its designers look bad."

The example of a product that 'makes D&D and its designers look bad' is a fictional text--Postmodernist Sociology and Gaming--written by Ron Edwards. And the rest of the text goes on to explain how to use the ENnies AV/IRV ballot in an effort to ensure that D&D wins and Ron Edwards loses.     

Now Ron Edwards is not the sum of indie games and gaming, but most of us here look to him as a respected member and one of the leaders of our community. To see this as an example of how the ENnie balloting system works was disappointing.

It didn't lead me to believe that the ENnies are biased. However, I can see how some designers in our community would be wondering whether they'd get a fair shake.

Regardless, I'm sure it won't stop us from giving it a go next year with Burning Empires!

[Ron Edwards]

I should speak up here. I think the article was funny and timely, and I don't mind being spoofed at all. However, I requested that the spoof title for me be amended to "Sociobiological roots of gaming," because I think both postmodernism and sociology are significantly, if not wholly, full of ass. Whereas sociobiology is something else and will suit very nicely as a title for a book I'll never write, but might like to.

Best, Ron