The nominees for the 2010 ENnies judges are now online for you to look over! Please visit and study each nominee carefully as only five of them will judge next year's entries. I will update this thread later today once voting goes live.

http://www.ennie-awards.com/nominations/2010judges.asp

Edit: Voting is now live!

http://www.ennie-awards.com/voting/jvoting.asp

Half-watching a movie on a rainy sunday, I decided to aggregate the ENnies nominees answers to the question asking what games (up to a maximum of 10) they had played in the last year. I put them in alphabetical order, with multiple instances of the same game indicated by a number on the right. Here are the results:

All Flesh Must Be Eaten
Angel
Burning Wheel
Call of Cthulhu 2
D&D (unspecified)
D&D 3.5 7
D&D 4th 10
Dark Heresy 2
Delta Green
Don't Rest Your Head
Dread
Dread (Jenga version)
Esoterrorists/GUMSHOE
Everway
Exalted 2nd Edition
FATE
GURPS 2
Hollow Earth Expedition 3
Hunter: The Reckoning
Hunter the Vigil 2
Marvel Superheroes
Marvel FASERIP
Mutants and Masterminds 4
Mouse Guard 2
Ninja Burger (PDQ)
Pathfinder Society 3
Scion
Shadowrun 3
Savage Worlds
Song of Ice and Fire
Sorcery
Spycraft 2
Starblazer Adventures
Star Frontiers
Super Science
Star Wars D6
Star Wars Saga Edition 3
Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies 2
Traveller
Vampire: The Requiem
Vampire:Dark Ages
Warhammer FRP 2
Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Wild Talents
Witch Hunter
World of Darkness 2

Of that list, the following games were released in 2008 or later:
D&D 4th
Dark Heresy
Delta Green
Hunter: the Reckoning
Mouse Guard
Pathfinder
Song of Ice and Fire
Starblazer Adventures
Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies

I might have made a mistake or two with the above list. But I think it makes a disturbing point. While I do think you can have a decent judgement of a game by simply reading it, I would want my judges to at least be trying out some of the newer games. Take out D&D and White Wolf games and games that are new or evolved editions, we are left with Delta Green, Mouse Guard, Song of Ice and Fire, Starblazer Adventures and S7S. That is a pretty meagre list!

There is a disturbing lack of diversity in the games that are at their tables. No old school games, no indie games, no free games, very few small press publishers. Obviously, I expect D&D, WW and the other more popular games to be in the strong majority, but I would like at least to see some representation from some of the smaller, but important, sectors of our hobby.

I understand that the nomination process is open and it's really up to individuals to put themselves forth, so I don't know what is the reason for this phenomenon, but it makes me very doubtful about any of these nominees to fairly represent the state of the hobby in 2009.

Voting is live! I've updated the original post.

Take a hobby that is relatively small
Add the fact that most roleplayers seem to be more comfortable playing with a group of 4+ people
Add the fact that most group seem to prefer sessions that last 4 hours+
Add the high factor of replay value and customizability of most RPGs out there
Take into consideration that for many, learning new rules and then teaching those rules is an obstacle, due to all the logistic involved (see other stuff above)

What you are left with is groups of people for whom it is usually a nightmare just to find the right time and right place to roleplay. These people will usually prefer "safe bets", games that they have successfully run/played and then use it for extensive campaigns.

Now, there are certainly gamers who fit other profiles, but I think it's pretty tough to have decent, comprehensive RPG awards.

These days, I see RPG awards as simply celebrating because the hobby is still going, some people are still creating stuff, some people are still interested in seeing new stuff, some people are still playing stuff. That's pretty much the extent of it.

I understand that. But maybe those people shouldn't be the judges for an award program that purports to represent the length and bredth of the hobby. There are also people who are very busy and only game once every two weeks, but still are able to branch out and stay in touch with some of the new games being released. I'd prefer to at least have some of those on the panel.

Honestly, walkerp, does it really matter? It seems to me that the big releases for the year pretty consistently get nominated. For that matter, are extremely diverse gamers even representative of the hobby?

I'd like to do the judging thing, but I also think that almost any random group of folk that enjoy games would result in nominations that are perfectly reasonable and fulfill the function of getting folks excited about talking about the best games of the year.

Edit: Btw, that compiled list is a pretty neat idea. I found some of the results interesting, so thanks for doing it!

Hey all,

Like the others who I am sure will be posting here, I am one of the Judge candidates as well. I have been gaming since I was nine years old and it has been my biggest hobby for all of those 21 years. I have always had a strong love for supers games but that won't prevent me from paying equal attention to everything that comes my way, and judging each product fairly on its own merits. I have never been one to shy away from any genre or system and I don't intend to start now. I know that the people behind the games put a lot of effort into what they create and I can say that I will put just as much into reviewing each product without any bias. I have almost no professional gaming experience outside of being a playtester for a couple systems, so my industry experience pretty much ends with being a retailer eight years ago in Coeur d'Alene, ID. Back then I had purchased a gaming store and ran it for one reason and one reason only: I love gaming.

The above paragraph had only two sentences that didn't start with "I..." so enough about me! The links have been posted but just in case you are digging through that list of names looking to find out more about me, I'm Justin Peters (friends call me Jay) and my page is here.

Thanks in advance to everyone that votes!

Good evening! My name is Mark Green and I'm a 2010 ENnies Judge candidate.

I won't bother to re-post all my answers to the questionnaire here; you can view that online at http://www.ennie-awards.com/nominations/j_green.asp

I will say that I'm strictly a hobby enthusiast and not an "industry guy." In other words, gaming isn't part of my profession. I don't write reviews for a living and I've never worked for a gaming company. I play strictly for fun and have been gaming for 25 years, the last 10 of which have been with my current group. Most of that time, I've been a GM, but I like to take a break as a player once in a while.

I've played alot of games along the way (including board games, miniatures, and card games). My mainstay will always be fantasy RPG, with my original "Red Box" Basic D&D set and 3.5 OGL competing for favorite. I also enjoy all things Star wars (WEG d6 and Saga). Mouseguard is a recent favorite as well.

Even though I have my favorites, I will be open and objective as a Judge. I love both the crunch and the flavor and like to see a nice balance between the two. Originality is always appreciated, whether it is original mechanics, concepts, or even just an interesting twist on a staple concept.

I hope you take the opportunity to vote in the coming week, and especially that you decide to vote for me as a Judge for the 2010 ENnies. For me, that would offer an awesome opportunity to give something back to the gaming community.

-Mark

While I kind of fall into the category that Consonant Dude mentioned, I can see your point. However, being a judge for the ENnies doesn't usually involve digging through our old collections and nominating our favorite games to win awards. The most important thing I think any of us can do is set aside our favorites and branch out as much as possible this year, without any sort of bias, and give as many games a shot as we can in that time. This goes for new and old games.

As far as the sparse number of indie and free rpgs on that list, I am definitely lacking on that end. I recognize that everyone has a different opinion of what makes a game "indie" but I'll do my best. I do consider Esoterrorists to be an indie game and I just got my printed copy today, so hopefully I'll get a few games in soon. I do consider Don't Rest Your Head to be an indie game and I have run two one-shots since receiving my copy two weeks ago. I am also currently a playtester for BASH! Ultimate Edition, and I definitely consider BASH! to be an indie game. There should be more, and this year I'm going to do my best to break my group out of the box and try some of the lesser known games as well as keep an eye on the things coming out this year. I know that this reply makes it sound like I am behind the times when it comes to some of these games, but I am admittedly at fault for falling into a comfort zone with my group and running some long-standing games using the same system instead of mixing it up. Unfortunately, I think that is the same for a lot of people.

The most I can say is that I will do my best to review whatever comes my way with the same enthusiasm that I'd give my favorite game, and nothing will be shot down just because it's free or indie. But I think everyone on the nominees list can say the same.

Well obviously, it matters to me, or I wouldn't have brought it up! While I am happy to see some pretty good games up there (both you and Kinetic top the list right now for gaming diversity), and I don't expect the less popular games to dominate, I just believe that there should be a bit more representation of some of the outlying, but creatively dynamic and inlfuential, sub-sectors of our hobby. There is a significant minority of gamers for whom those sectors are the most interesting and exciting.

I do believe the judges probably mostly do have open minds and I appreciate the emphasis on that in a lot of the write-ups. I also recognize that most people play D&D and a few of their old favorites and that's about it. I know it can be a struggle to get your group to change. I also know it's a really hard job to be a judge. I couldn't handle it, that's for sure.

But I don't think it's unreasonable to want to see a bit more variety among the favorite and played games of the judges.


Yes, I'm really glad that that question was asked. That's been a concern for me with the ENnies, so I compiled the list after only skimming through all the write-ups. I'll go back and read them more thoroughly and then vote.