It's not about the winners, it's about the nominees. It's a straight up popularity vote to win, but to be selected is a sign of quality, and I'd encourage everyone out there at GenCon to take that nominee list and go shopping.

Quote from: RPGPundit;320837From what I understood, it was nominated for four awards.

RPGPundit

Yes, but how if it wasn't available during the voting period?

Quote from: Fifth Element;320892That just means the voters don't share your tastes. They disagree that it's "by far the best game." Shouldn't be surprising, really.

No, it should be surprising, on account that Starblazer Adventures is objectively the best game.

You see, you seem to be making the common mistake among relativist buttwipes that somehow objective values of quality are subjective "Tastes". They are not.

RPGPundit

Quote from: brettmb;320927Yes, but how if it wasn't available during the voting period?

Well, that's a good question. I believe its that the PDF was released like 10 months ago, and a very very limited run was released last gencon, so the game qualified.

But that certainly might explain the problem they had. You had three crap games plus SA nominated for an award, but SA!, due to the failure of the Cubicle 7 people to actually publish a regular print run of the damn thing until sometime last month, was a game very few people had even had a chance to look at. Whereas the other three games were games many people had played; and they ended up choosing the best choice out of the three games that they'd actually gotten to see.

In a way, its a comedy of errors. In a way, its C7's own damn fault for taking a fucking YEAR to release the game after their announced release date. In another way, its a real issue with the way that the ENnies classify what games are "eligible" for which year. Does releasing a single print copy at last years gencon make you ineligible? Does releasing a PDF but not having an actual print book out make you eligible if you promise super-pinky-swear that someday you'll release an actual book?

But I think that the one thing that would have been true without a doubt is that had C7 actually released this game (for real) in September 2008, it would have swept the awards now. Or were it eligible next year, I think the same could be said.

It was a gross error of timing.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;320954You see, you seem to be making the common mistake among relativist buttwipes that somehow objective values of quality are subjective "Tastes". They are not.

Your insanity is the cutest insanity there is. I love it.

(Starblazer Adventures is pretty awesome, I'll give you that.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;320957In another way, its a real issue with the way that the ENnies classify what games are "eligible" for which year. Does releasing a single print copy at last years gencon make you ineligible? Does releasing a PDF but not having an actual print book out make you eligible if you promise super-pinky-swear that someday you'll release an actual book?

What makes a product eligible is submission by the publisher.  You can find out what it takes to submit a product at this site:  http://www.ennie-awards.com/publishers/how_to_enter.asp

I can only agree that it was terrible timing, it is a good game, and that things may have been different had it been released under different circumstances.

Can someone tell me more about Starblazer? Here, or another thread.  Sounds interesting...

Here's a link to Cubicle 7's page on it:  http://www.cubicle-7.com/starblazer.htm

Mouse Guard won silver for Product of the Year.  Sweet! Loving that game so far (only about a third of the way through reading it).  Meshes well with the graphic novels.

I think the answer would for theRPGsite.com to havbe its own self indulgent nomination and award ceremonies.

To be honest, I couldnt give a toss re: the Ennies, Im doing my own thing anyway.

I dig that Benoist wanted to discuss things and all, so I am not bagging on that, but my question is:  Why do people think the ENNies are relevant?  I never got that.

Quote from: StormBringer;321253I dig that Benoist wanted to discuss things and all, so I am not bagging on that, but my question is:  Why do people think the ENNies are relevant?  I never got that.

It was relevant when there was a thriving OGL market and ENWorld acted as the hub of all d20 convergences, for sure. Also, the Ennies at the time contrasted with the Origins awards which were always criticized as rigged-insider pats on the back with not much relevance to the general gaming public. So at some point, from my POV, they certainly were more relevant than they appear to be now.

ENWord's support of 4e and WotC makes it less and less relevant on the OGL front, IMO. Or rather, all ghettos compared, it makes ENWorld now about as relevant to OGL products and general gaming as RPGnet is relevant to d20 games.

As for the lack of relevance to the general gaming public, I think the clique-ish, "better than thou" attitude of some of ENWorld and CM's members is taking care of it much faster than any critic ever could.

Quixotically, I don't think they are relevant, but I'm still a bit annoyed that a quickstart won best free game.

I don't think quickstarts should be eligible for that prize, they're not full games.

Well done S&W though.

There's nothing at all relevant about them, apart from making a product look good when you want to sell it. They mean absolutely nothing since it is both agenda driven and a popular vote.

They're relevant because they're given away at GenCon and they get game designers some praise.

It might sound sad to say, but that is why designers care so much about awards. Recognition and praise.

We aren't driving gold-plated cadillacs, so a little pat on the back is enough lol.

As for why the Ennies are more relevant than other awards, I think it's a function of them being better than the Origin Awards, which are terrible.