Quote from: Abyssal MawAlthough I'm all for them submitting their books through normal channels if they want to participate. Didn't Chad Underkoffler win something this year?

He sure did (and deservedly so, IMO):  2 silvers, both for his RPG Truth & Justice.  One was the Best E-Book category, and one was an Innovation Award or some such.

My feeling is, if Forgites want to be a part of this, go ahead and go through the regular channels of competition, like Truth & Justice did.  Burning Wheel also certainly didn't seem to have a problem doing so.  They already have the Judge's Award For Innovation, which should be more than enough.  The Academy Awards don't have a separate category just because a film is independently made or low-budget.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstMy feeling is, if Forgites want to be a part of this, go ahead and go through the regular channels of competition, like Truth & Justice did.  Burning Wheel also certainly didn't seem to have a problem doing so.  They already have the Judge's Award For Innovation, which should be more than enough.  The Academy Awards don't have a separate category just because a film is independently made or low-budget.

I agree with you there.  If any Forge inspired people want their games to win accolades with the rest of the industry, they can do it like everyone else.  At least, that goes for their games that are actually RPGs.

The one thing that I really liked about the thread at the forge was the post talking about how the judging works, I've learned something really cool, thanks to Settembrini for posting the link.

As to the ennies and the forge coming together, I'm another vote for them submitting thier material like anyone else.

I was crushed that Wilderlands didn't win.

Quote from: SpikeI seem to be in a minority in that I don't find the lack of a character sheet or index particularly damning in a game.  In fact, often I find that the character sheets included in a game are far shittier than anything a fan can find on the internet.

Any game that is a marketed product I pay for needs to have a character sheet I can photocopy or else I consider it incomplete.  A fan shouldn't have to scour the net looking for a charsheet.

But I agree that a lot of games have shitty character sheets in the back.  Few companies seem to realize that a good charsheet is the best cheap advertisement you'll find.  After all, it's sitting in front of players all throughout the game.  A functional and well-presented charsheet is a great thing to show to passerby at cons and demo events.

A related anecdote: Years ago I was at the local con and I found a charsheet left over from a previous event.  The sheet had "Fu Powers" on it and gave the impression of a fairly simple game focused on asskicking.  For years I didn't know it what game the sheet belonged to because the numbnuts who made the thing hadn't bothered to put the name of the game on the damn thing!  Turns out the sheet was copied out of the back of the Atlas Games version of Feng Shui.