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August 21st, 2007
10:23 am - 2006 Indie RPG Awards Posted
So at GenCon on Friday, the Indie RPG Award winners were announced. The full listings of everything is available on the Indie RPG Awards list:
http://www.rpg-awards.com/2006/
I'll include the short form below, though. It was a very tight race for Game of the Year this time around -- though there were clear leaders in Supplement of the Year and Best Production. Incidentally, Spirit of the Century also won the Silver prize for "Best Rules" in the ENnie Awards this year and the Ogre's Choice Award for "Best Roleplaying Game". Burning Empires won "Roleplaying Game of the Year" at the Origins Awards. And Zorcerer of Zo won Ken Hite's Outie Award and the KublaCon Award for "Best game that doesn't include elves or vampires".
EDIT: Here's Fred's pictures from the awards ceremony.
2nd EDIT: I also added a text page with all the comments and scores, unedited, for completists.
Indie Game of the Year
1) Spirit of the Century [with 51 pts]
2) Burning Empires [with 44 pts]
3) The Zorcerer of Zo [with 43 pts]
Others (in order): Lacuna Part I (second attempt); Don't Rest Your Head; A Thousand and One Nights; Shock: Social Science Fiction; Faery's Tale; The Shab-al-Hiri Roach; In Harm's Way; Agon; Cold City; EABAlite; Mortal Coil; Hearts & Souls; Roanoke; Covenant; six gun assassins
Indie Supplement of the Year
1) Dictionary of Mu [with 110 pts]
2) Push, Volume 1 [with 52 pts]
3) Steampunk Musha [with 28 pts]
Others: The Wushu Guide to Wyrd-Fu, Stuff!, Kwaidan
Best Free Game
1) JAGS Revised [with 49 pts]
2) EABAlite [with 34 pts]
3) Mexican Standoff [with 33 pts]
Others (in order): Unistat; Simple20; Beat the Clock; Inntil vi synker; Chimaera; Kazekami Kyoko Kills Kublai Khan; Battleaxe RPG: Reforged Edition
Best Support
1) Burning Empires [with 52 pts]
2) Spirit of the Century [with 46 pts]
3) The Zorcerer of Zo [with 19 pts]
Others (in order): JAGS Revised; Hollow Earth Expedition; Wild Talents; Cold City; Faery's Tale; Agon; Don't Rest Your Head; EABAlite; Dictionary of Mu; The Shab-al-Hiri Roach; Lacuna Part I; Covenant; Stuff!
Best Production
The winner, with 100 points, was:
1) Burning Empires [with 100 pts]
2) Spirit of the Century [with 29 pts]
3) Dictionary of Mu [with 24 pts]
Others (in order): Lacuna Part I; Hollow Earth Expedition; Agon; Wild Talents; The Zorcerer of Zo
Most Innovative Game
1) Lacuna Part I. The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl [with 38 pts]
from Blue City (second attempt)
2) Don't Rest Your Head [with 30 pts]
3) A Thousand and One Nights [with 26 pts]
Others (in order): Shock: Social Science Fiction; Agon; Mortal Coil; The Shab-al-Hiri Roach; The Zorcerer of Zo; Spirit of the Century; Shooting the Moon
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August 3rd, 2007
10:49 am - Indie RPG Awards Voting Begins
The voting period for the Indie RPG Awards has officially begun for games released in 2006, to be presented at GenCon Indy in just a two weeks. After a week, I'll add up the votes. The winners will be announced at 3PM on Friday, August 17, at GenCon seminar event SEM00076.
This year we have 44 games and 15 supplements registered. That's the most games ever -- compared to 39 games in 2003, 41 games in 2004, and 29 games in 2005. You can check out the full lists (in order of registration) at Indie RPG Awards 2006.
All of the voters should have received links to the new voting form that I set up -- please contact me via info-at-rpg-awards-dot-com if you haven't received your link. Also, the emails I had on file for the following people bounced:
- Evangelos Hugo Paliatseas
- Kenneth Douglas Woolsey
- Golgotha Kinslayer
- Scott Mitchell
- Justin Dagna
- Gary Pratt
- William A. Rae
If anyone has info on how to contact them, please let me know.
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July 23rd, 2007
01:44 pm - Podcat Chat on the Indie RPG Awards
So I had a talk with Paul Tevis Have Games, Will Travel, which just came out as part of his podcast episode #96 talking about the Indie RPG Awards. Sadly, I'm rather embarrassed about it. I'm not used to speaking in a format like that, and I'm afraid I blathered a bit. I feel I emphasized various sidetracks rather than having a central thrust to my side of things.
Basically, I get a sinking feeling at the thought of being unable to edit it like I do written posts. All of which is mostly kudos to Paul and other podcasters, whose work I respect more now that I had to deal with trying it out.
The main points I wanted to get across were the diversity of the games represented in the Indie RPG Awards, as well as some facts I didn't have handy. I did not manage to rattle off the actual winners for the past four years. There are 82 people on the list of approved voters -- a wide list of independent RPG publishers. Each year they vote in the process, with three votes in each category. In order of year from 2002 to 2005, the winners have been:
Best Game: Dust Devils, My Life With Master, Dogs in the Vineyard, Polaris
Best Supplement: Charnel Gods, JAGS Have-Not, Monster Burner, Jihad
Best Free Game: Nicotine Girls, FATE, The Shadow of Yesterday, Perfect20
Best Production: Children of the Sun, My Life With Master, a|state, Artesia
Best Support: The Riddle of Steel, FATE, Burning Wheel / Monster Burner, Truth & Justice
Most Innovative: Universalis, My Life With Master, Dogs in the Vineyard, Polaris
I think it's an interesting mix, and I look forward to the votes from this year. Reminder for voters: voting will start on August 1 and go through August 8. The awards will be presented at 3PM on Friday, August 17, at GenCon Indy event SEM00076.
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May 3rd, 2007
02:47 pm - Best Free RPGs of 2006?
So the Indie RPG Awards have come to the end of their official registration period. There are 32 games (and 11 supplements) registered -- compared to 39 games in 2003, 41 games in 2004, and 29 games in 2005. However, when I review the list, we're a bit short on free games. I think it's a bit natural that people aren't as pushy to promote free games since, well, they don't make money on them. But the Indie RPG Awards do have a special award for Free RPG, so I'd really like to get some more of them onto the list. So I'm extending things a bit to look for more qualified free entries.
So I'd like to ask people to give suggestions and pass the question around -- what were the best Free RPGs of 2006?
You can comment or post on the Indie RPG Awards Registration Form. I'll put some suggestions in comments as I think of them.
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March 27th, 2007
10:29 pm - Indie RPG Awards Covered in Dragon #354
So, my thanks to Michael Fiegel, who covered a bit on the Indie RPG Awards in Dragon #354. (Alongside coverage of ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) chadu's Zorcerer of Zo game and edible dice.)
Mark Delsing posted a picture of the mention in a Story Games thread, "Dragon #354 features some indie".
So that raises the stakes that this year's GenCon ceremony needs to live up to.
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January 31st, 2007
09:30 pm - Ken Hite's Outie Awards for 2006
Apropos of my recent post on The Games of 2006, Ken Hite has posted his Out of the Box for January 2007 with his world-famous Outie awards -- as already discussed on Story Games as "Outies", and by an ecstatic chadu as "I've Got A Golden Ticket".
Best New RPG
Honorable Mentions: Tim Gray's Questers of the Middle Realms, Merwin Shanmugasundaram and Andrew Kenrick's Dead of Night, Robin Laws' The Esoterrorists, and Patrick Sweeney's Faery's Tale.
Second Runners Up: Fred Hicks, Rob Donoghue, and Leonard Balsera beef up Spirit of the Century and Bill Bridges' Promethean: the Created.
First Runners Up:Fred Hicks' Don't Rest Your Head and Brennan Taylor's Mortal Coil
Winner: Chad Underkoffler'sThe Zorcerer of Zo
Best Licensed Thing of 2006
Honorable Mention: Jon Zeigler's GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars.
First Runner-Up: Mike Pohjola's Star Wreck Roleplaying Game.
Winner: Luke Crane's Burning Empires.
Best Sui Generis RPG of 2006
Second Runner-Up: Shreyas Sampat's Mridangam (found in Jonathan Walton's journal Push)
First Runner-Up: John Wick's Wilderness of Mirrors
Winner: Jason Morningstar's The Shab-al-Hiri Roach
Best Supplement of 2006
Honorable Mention: Rob Schwalb's True20 Sorcery and Steve Long's The Ultimate Skill
Second Runners-Up: Judd Karlman's The Dictionary of Mu and Monte Cook's Ptolus
First Runner-Up: Robert J. Toth's Damnation Decade.
Winner: Will Hindmarch's Requiem Chronicler's Guide.
Best Retread of 2006
Honorable Mentions: Dave Pulver's GURPS Bio-Tech and Chris O'Neill and Dan Landis' Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition.
Second Runner-Up: Bruce Cordell and James Wyatt's Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.
First Runner-Up: John Chambers' Exalted Second Edition.
Winner: Greg Stafford's King Arthur Pendragon 5th Edition.
Most Improved Retread of 2006
Winner: Greg Stafford's The Great Pendragon Campaign.
Most Blatant Plugs of 2006
Dubious Shards and Tarot of Cthulhu: Major Arcana
(Minor technical complaints about this Out of the Box posting... It's mis-titled as "1/25/06"; it's attribution looks wrong; it's missing a bunch of links, and it doesn't appear in the OotB Section Page.)
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January 11th, 2007
09:29 am - Indie RPG Award Nominations Open
So, the Indie RPG Awards Site has been re-vamped with a new look, and the nominations for the games and supplements released in 2006 have been opened.
Just go to the site and click on "Register" to send in info on your favorite Indie RPG or RPG supplement of 2006.
I'd like to start some sort of blog or forum for announcements regarding the awards, including threads for each of the newly nominated games and supplements(). I rather like LiveJournal, so I could create a community or account here, but I'm not sure what would be most appropriate.
EDIT: Aargh! My apologies. Having directed people to the form, I immediately updated and broke it by mistake. The form should be working now, though. (9:30PM PST)
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August 23rd, 2006
02:26 pm - GenCon Info Posted
So my RPG blog has been a bit lax since GenCon, but that's because I was doing my writeups in a huge chunk. Also, I was editing together the announcements -- with voter comments -- for the Indie RPG Awards. So, first of all, head over to the awards site for the winners and comments:
Indie RPG Awards
As an interesting followup, robin_d_laws had a post on "Indie Explosion". Also, on the sales front, there was thread on the Forge on "Forge Booth Triumphant 2006".
Second, is my exhaustive convention report with details on the numerous games that I played, posted as:
GenCon Indy 2006 Report
It occurs to me that all of that is pretty huge document, and maybe I should break it up into separate files for each game. I'm not sure, though.
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April 10th, 2006
09:33 pm - April is Indie RPG Award Registration Month
So over at www.rpg-awards.com, I'm trying to get my act together. This year, I'm taking over for Andy Kitkowski in administering the Indie RPG Awards, and I'd getting organized now. So, what are the cool RPGs, and especially RPG supplements and/or free RPGs released in 2005? Use the "Game Registration" form to submit suggestions, and pretty soon I'll be posting the current list of eligible games.
Also, I'm still working on overhauling the site, but suggestions are welcome.
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March 15th, 2006
03:12 pm - Origins Awards a Taint??
So the nominees for the 2006 Origins Awards were announced on Monday. The GamingReport.com article on the subject puts "announced" in quotes, saying that there was no formal announcement save that a handout of the list was available at the GTS 2006 registration desk. The nominee announcement doesn't even appear on Matt Forbeck's Origins Award Blog Category.
Wow. I have heard before that Ken Hite mocked the awards-giving in his Origins 2005 Con Report. And now with the 2006 nominees announcement I hear even more mockery. mearls calls them ineffective. bruceb calls them "more of the same". And eyebeams says that they're "either meaningless or a curse". There are some even juicier bits in comments.
So this gives me a certain amount of guilt that I have taken over running the Indie RPG Awards from Andy Kitkowski and haven't yet done much for them. I am now hosting the website, but haven't updated them at all yet. My conclusion: set myself and the voters a schedule, list out a set of tasks, and get cracking. We should be able to show up the Origins Awards.
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August 2nd, 2005
03:41 pm - Awards Updates
So there are a couple of RPG awards of the summer, for those who haven't been keeping track.
The Game Chef Awards Winners have been announced: 1984Prime by Mischa D. Krilov with runner-ups Beneath a High Pillow (by Jason A Petrasko) and The Last Supper (by Eric Finley). My own entry, Morpho Londinium, was correctly judged as incomplete -- as it turns out, I had no time that week. But I hope to take some time to finish it up properly.
The Diana Jones Awards Short List has been announced, namely: Dogs in the Vineyard, Code of Unaris, and Ticket to Ride.
The other noteworthy award is the ENnies, the somewhat D20-focused awards hosted by ENWorld. The nominees were announced two weeks ago, and the winner is announced at GenCon Indy (August 18).
Voting for the Indie RPG Awards has started. The nominees have been around since April. The results will also be announced at GenCon Indy.
While I have had some doubts about these awards in the past, the need is clear. I offer Ken Hite's description of the Origins Awards from his Origins 2005 Report:
I and a tiny knot of industry folk stood in slack-jawed mortification as two belly-dancers, a stormtrooper, and "not Sailor Moon" carried nominee placards past the podium like the ring girls at Purgatory Arena and the winners were hustled up and down to grab their own celebratory signage without so much as a "thank you" for the tepid crowd. God knows what the gamers made of it all, but as far as I could tell, only about thirty of them were watching at any given time. This kind of thing makes it very hard for me to continue my argument that the Origins Awards are not a joke, or at least are no more a joke than, say, the Golden Globes. The Vanguard and Gamers' Choice awards were announced on succeeding mornings, and for all I know there was a packed house dazzled by holographic presentations from Boba Fett. I had panels to attend instead. But I suspect I didn't miss anything.
Incidentally, the Origins Awards for RPGs went to Ars Magica 5th Edition and Eberron, with Gamer's Choice Award to the World of Darkness RPG Corebook. While I love Ars Magica, I think it is saying something when new editions are taking over the awards. In general, there is a lack of critical community within RPGs, in my opinion.
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