ENnie Nominations 2006

As I write I've just checked out Matt Forbeck's blog as I do regularly, to find the news that this year's ENnie Awards nominations are up.

Ignorant of the ENies last year (shameful admission, eh?!), I first found out about them when the news broke that Black Industries' WFRP2 and the Old World Bestiary had taken 3 golds. I was pleased to see such success on the part of 2 products that I liked and which had brought me back into regular roleplaying. So I've decided to cast my votes this year.

Looking through the categories I see that Green Ronin's superhero rpg Mutants & Masterminds 2e is very well represented, with 9 nominations in 8 of the 16 categories. M&M 2e really impressed me when I got my copy last year, and the product line went straight onto my 'buy on sight' list. There is only 1 category in which GR's M&M won't be getting my vote- Best Interior Art for the Mastermind's Manual. Sure, there are some nice illustrations in that book, but there are easily enough that are indifferent or worse that I just can't cast a vote for this book in that category. In fact I doubt I could vote for the Mastermind's Manual at all if it wasn't for its lovely cover.

The core rules though are really good, and easy to vote for as often as possible. And the M&M campaign setting- Freedom City; well this is simply the single best setting product I have ever owned. So votes for this are a shoe-in too.

Black Industries get a look-in again this year, with their Realms of Sorcery nominated for Best Supplement. There are no M&M products nominated in this category, so that's another easy vote for me.

I will have to choose between Green Ronin and Black Industries when it comes to the Fans' Choice: Best Publisher category. I have enjoyed the most use and most entertainment from BI's products in the past year, and am looking forward to still more in the future. With M&M and True20 though GR have produced the products whose rules excite me most, and which I am most interested in using if I'm not GM'ing WFRP. The Old World or the new? Hmm.

Finally, on the 'Oh, dear me- NO!' front, I note that Hero Games' Pulp HERO garnered 2 nominations. One was Best Product, the other was Best Writing: "Awarded for the book containing the best prose and descriptive text (ie."cream" or “fluff”)." Erm, let's just say that I have a bee in my bonnet about this book, and really don't believe it deserves to win in either category. ;)