ENnie Awards 2016, Battling Vampires and Eleven out of Ten

The ENnies are annual awards which celebrate and reward the year’s best roleplaying game releases. They are run by ENworld – a huge and popular forum devoted primarily to roleplaying games.  Each year at Gen Con they host a ceremony which acknowledges and rewards that year’s roleplaying game highlights. As with many awards the recipients get more excited about them than the customers who buy the products. But we are recipients, and this article is about our excitement!

First the judges examine all the entries to select the nominees, then it goes to a popular vote. As a small publisher whose products punch above their market weight critically, it’s always been about the nominations. We do not have the sheer numbers of potential votes of likes of Paizo, Monte Cook, Fantasy Flight and Wizards of the Coast.

But this year, something was different. Some of it, as always, is circumstance; many of the bigger publishers didn’t have anything out this year. But, that can’t be the sole explanation for what happened: Pelgrane Press won 11 awards out of 10 nominations.

The 2016 ENnies featured battling vampires, a gradually more inarticulate Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, and a triumphant Cat Tobin clutching more awards than she could reasonably carry. It also featured an epic battle between newcomer Strahd and ancient rival Dracula. Or is it the other way round?

Dracula Dossier – Director’s Handbook gained a silver for Best Adventure, to The Curse of Strahd’s gold. In Product of the Year, the positions were reversed.  The Director’s Handbook also grabbed the gold Best Writing, while Strahd snatched the top honour for Best Cover. All is even! But then, Dracula Dossier: Hawkins Papers grabbed gold Best Supplement. Strahd called foul – that was a separate product – and then returned to his tower to brood and emote. The Dracula Dossier All Rolled Up from our friends at the Black Archive gained a gold for Best Aid/ Accessory just above the 13th Age GM Screen and Resource Book‘s silver.

13th Age also featured in Race to Starport by ASH LAW for the Best Free Product. To get your copy, login to or create a bookshelf, tick the Organised Play box, and grab it and many others. All of them are of the same high quality as Race to Starport.

Our multiply nominated Page XX snagged a silver for Best Website. If you are reading this, you may well have voted for us – so thank you! Page XX is a time-consuming labour of love, but this award has played its part in our continuation of the webzine.

Long-time Pelgrane Press writer Adam Gauntlett, together with artists Pat Loboyko and Eric Quigley achieved silver for the Trail of Cthulhu adventure The Long Con – to describe it is to spoiler it – all I can say is it’s full of surprises and well worth playing.

Ken Hite, adding to his share of the Dracula hoard, gained a gold for Ken Writes About Stuff volume 3.

Ennies

Finally and most proudly, we won the silver ENnie for Fan’s Choice for Best Publisher. This is an award where all entrants are considered for the vote – so we don’t count this as a nomination. But what this meant was our relatively small and plucky band of fans must have voted en masse for us. This award is yours – thank you so much!

Just for fun, here is a breakdown of the ENnies we’ve been nominated for and won over the years.

ENnie Chart

 

Product Year Award Category
Esoterrorists 2007 Nomination Best Rules
Esoterrorists 2007 Honourable Mention Best Game
Trail of Cthulhu 2008 Silver Best Writing
Trail of Cthulhu 2008 Silver Best Rules
The Book of Unremitting Horror 2008 Nomination Best Monster / Adversary
Trail of Cthulhu 2008 Honourable Mention Product of the Year
Armitage Files 2010 Silver Best Adventure
Shadows Over Filmland 2010 Honourable Mention Best Adventure
Rough Magicks 2010 Nomination Best Art, Cover
The Dance in the Blood 2011 Honourable Mention Best Adventure
Bookhounds of London 2011 Silver Best Cartography
Bookhounds of London 2011 Honourable Mention Best Setting
The Dance in the Blood 2011 Nomination Best Writing
Dead Rock Seven 2012 Nomination Best Adventure
Invasive Procedures 2012 Nomination Best Adventure
The Rending Box 2012 Nomination Best Adventure
Cthulhu Apocalypse: The Apocalypse Machine 2012 Gold Best Electronic Book
Lorefinder 2012 Silver Best Rules
Cthulhu Apocalypse: The Apocalypse Machine 2012 Nomination Best Setting
Ashen Stars 2012 Silver Best Setting
The Investigator’s Guide to Occult London 2012 Nomination Best Setting
See Page XX 2012 Nomination Best Website
Investigator’s Guide to Occult London 2012 Gold Best Writing
Night’s Black Agents 2013 Silver Best Game
Night’s Black Agents 2013 Silver Best Writing
Eternal Lies 2014 Gold Best Adventure
Hillfolk 2014 Nomination Best Game
Eternal Lies 2014 Silver Best Production Values
Dust and Mirrors: Music for Night’s Black Agents 2014 Nomination Best RPG Related Product
Complete Eternal Lies Suite 2014 Nomination Best RPG Related Product
13th Age 2014 Silver Best Rules
Hillfolk 2014 Nomination Best Rules
Blood on the Snow 2014 Nomination Best Supplement
Owl Hoot Trail 2014 Nomination Best Writing
See Page XX 2014 Nomination Best Website
Hillfolk 2014 Nomination Product of the Year
Eternal Lies 2014 Nomination Product of the Year
13th Age 2014 Nomination Product of the Year
Dreamhounds 2015 Nomination Best Art, Interior
Ken Writes About Stuff Volume 2 2015 Silver Best Electronic Book
13th Age: The Archmage’s Orrery 2015 Silver Best Free Product
13th Age Bestiary 2015 Nomination Best Monster / Adversary
Dreamhounds 2015 Nomination Best Setting
Ken Writes About Stuff Volume 2 2015 Nomination Best Writing
Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook 2016 Silver Best Adventure
13th Age Screen and Resource Book 2016 Silver Best Aid/ Accessory
The Long Con 2016 Silver Best Electronic Book
Race to Starport 2016 Silver Best Free Product
Ken Writes About Stuff Volume 3 2016 Gold Best RPG Related Product
The Dracula Dossier: Hawkins Papers 2016 Gold Best Supplement
See Page XX 2016 Silver Best Website
Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook 2016 Gold Best Writing
Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook 2016 Gold Product of the Year
Pelgrane Press 2016 Silver Fan’s Choice for Best Publisher
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