The ENnie Awards

There's a lot of discussion about the Origins Awards online lately, as there often is after every Origins. Before we game industry folks and fans had the Internet to discuss them, we discussed them in person. Every discussion I've heard in my 15 years in the industry deals with "how I'd change the awards" or "I can't believe product X won," or, far more often, "I can't believe product Y wasn't even nominated."

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of it. Tired of these awards, with people trying to come up with ways to fix them, and with everyone complaining about them.

But then, just when we need them, the ENnies come along.

The ENnies are awards sponsored by the EN World website. They are mainly for d20 System and Open Game License products, although there is a category for non-OGL products as well. This will be the ENnies' third year, and I have to say, so far so good. The thing I like most about the ENnies is that the winners are chosen entirely by the fans. Even the panel that creates the list of nominees is made up of game fans, not industry professionals.

A close second among things I like about the ENnies is that they are limited in scope. One of the Origins Awards' biggest problems is that they cover too broad a spectrum of games and game-related products. I like that the ENnies focuses primarily on the d20 industry, which in turn helps create a feeling of community among those publishers and fans.

And what's also cool is that I was asked to be a presenter at the awards this year. I consider that a real honor.

The process for voting this year is a bit different than in the past, with both potential good and bad points. This year, you don't just vote for one option in the category, but you rate each product in the category from 1 to 10 (or you choose "I am not familiar with the product.") It takes 100 votes to qualify, and (I assume) the best average score of those qualifying wins. This is cool because it allows you to essentially vote for more than one product in a category, and if there's something that you really feel doesn't deserve an award, you can make that point as well. People point out that the drawback is that you can vote 10 for your favorite product and 1 for all the rest, skewing the vote. I don't think that will actually be too much of a problem -- and it's something the moderators can watch for, in any case. The potential problem that I see is that the system favors products with fewer votes. For instance, a product that gets 99 votes of 7 and one vote of 8 receives an average rating of 7.01, which beats out a product that gets 5,000 votes of 7, generating an average of a straight 7. (Again, this assumes my understanding of the process is correct.) But that's only a potential scenario.

I hope that someday the ENnies can expand so that d20 and D&D fans not tied into the EN World site become aware of them and vote. It would be cool, for example, if game stores passed out hardcopy ballots, or if Dragon or Polyhedron printed the ballot. But that's the future.

As I've stated on the front page, we're nominated for five awards this year.

Best Publisher
Best Website
Best Adventure: The Banewarrens (read a preview)
Best Setting Supplement: Requiem for a God (read a preview)
Best Electronic Product: Mindscapes (read a preview)

It's honestly very gratifying to be nominated. Winning in any of these categories would be a real thrill. I have to admit that the awards that would mean most to me are the first two I've listed, because they would show a response to all the work we've put into the company and the website for the past few years. I can't tell you how proud I am of montecook.com and of Malhavoc Press.

But I digress. If you haven't yet, please vote in the ENnies. Show your support for a cool process.

Back to Another Rave Archive Page / Back to Monte's Home Page