Hey all- Andy here with the Indie RPG Awards. Before I slap my 9 inches of PR on the table, I just had a few additional comments for the Forge crowd:

1) HELP! More than anything else, I need help contacting potential designers. So if you know anyone who released an indie RPG or RPG supplement last year in print, PDF, or whatever, please contact them and ask them to register. At the very least, come to the site and fill out the form under the Help section so that we can contact them ourselves. The former is more appreciated, though, as we've already got a lot on our plates.

(NOTE: The definition of Indie for the Awards is NOT Ron's definition, mind you- You can find online at the site, URL below)

If you approached me earlier to help out additionally, I will be contacting you this week. If you haven't approached me earlier, but feel like you want to help more (mostly correlating data received from submitted forms, roughly 1 hour of work a week maybe, for approximately 3 weeks) please PM me.

Also, get the word out on other sites/lists/etc that you frequent. Just don't spam, that's all I ask.

2) Just a reminder: The idea for the Indie RPG Awards was spawned from a conversation I had at the Forge some 2 years ago. But they're emphatically not the "Forge Awards". Just wanted to make that clear. They're not associated in any way, save for the fact that a lot of people here have been very helpful in helping me get the word out to others, or providing useful feedback and the like.

Here's my PR notice, as it will appear on various Industry websites shortly:

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The 2003 Indie RPG Awards are now live!
http://www.rpg-awards.com

The 2003 Indie RPG Awards have gone live. Registration is now open for Games published in 2003, as well as Peer Voters to vote on the best Independently-Published games and supplements of 2003. Registration is open from June 1st to June 30th.

The Indie RPG Awards are one of the few awards in the gaming industry that are decided entirely by peer voting. Voted on solely by dozens of other game designers and publishers, these awards celebrate the efforts and passion of independently produced ("Indie") Role-Playing game designers and their games.

The awards consist of the main award for Indie RPG of the Year for 2003, and eight minor awards including Best Free Game, Best Production, Best Support, and "Humans of the Year". Registration is now open for indie games produced in 2003, as well as Voter registration for indie game designers from 2000-2004. Registration lasts from June 1st to June 30th, after which voting begins.

Voting takes place thereafter in two rounds. Unlike other awards, the vote for each category in the final round is weighted according to how familiar the voter is with all of the other games in that category: This prevents "popularity contest"-style voting that often occurs in industry awards. Final vote tallies will be disclosed, and the winners will be announced at GenCon Indy 2004.

This is the second year for the Indie RPG Awards. Last year was a great success, with over 50 games and supplements registered for the awards, and dozens of registered peer voters. Dust Devils by Matt Snyder/Chimera Creative was voted Indie RPG of 2002.

As always, we are looking for your help and support: If you know of an independently produced RPG or supplement that was released in 2003, either in hard copy or PDF, please contact the designer and direct them to the awards site, else contact us through the awards site and tell us the name of the game and designer so that we can attempt to contact them ourselves.

The Indie RPG Awards website is at http://www.rpg-awards.com

Hey all, just a quick update for those of you who have been following:

1) There's a new look to the site. It's gone from "suck" to "decent". Check it out if you're bored.

2) This is a Call to Forge: I'm hoping... praying... to get more games and supplements into the awards. If you have a minute or two, please check out the Registered Games list, or Registered Supplements list, and if you see anything not there that you think came out in 2003, please either:

a) Contact the designer and point her to my site, or
b) Use the Contact Us form to give me the name of the designer or game, so that I can contact them myself.

I'm really looking forward to this year's awards: Namely because I don't know some of these games, and researching them is gonna be fun!

-Andy

The new site looks very nice.

Note: Tales from the Wood is in the supplement list but is denoted as a full game.

Ahhh, thanks for catching that! I'll fix that today.

-Andy

Supplements listing: it may be mostly self-explanatory, but an additional line with the title of the game that the supplement supplements might be helpful.

Ninjas: I didn't notice any on the old site design (insert "that's why they're ninjas!" joke here)... shouldn't it be 100% more ninjas then?