In light of the events of the day, I am going to make a single post and be done with it.
First, a list of what I am not going to do
1. I am not going to denigrate the award itself. Some people have already done that in the comments to my previous post, but I am not going to do that. I think it smacks of sour grapes and I don't have sour grapes. That is when you say you never wanted it in the first place. I wanted it. I didn't get it. That makes me sad, but it doesn't mean I am going to trash the award. There have been other people in the past who have made extensive arguments against the Ennies, there are links to that in my post that I just linked above, but I am not going to rehash that. After all, I downplayed it in my original post, so I can't very well turn around on it now, can I?
2. I am not going to denigrate any of the nominees. I may have personal feelings about them on their own, and in relation to my work. Throwing a big tantrum about that would also strike me as being a sore loser, even if I think rational heads could discuss it (because as we all know, rational heads don't dominate such debates, hotheads do).
So what am I going to do?
First, I am going to offer truly heartfelt congratulations to a number of people, which I kinda already did but I want to add Tyson Hayes because I didn't notice him the first scan through.
- Zak Smith and James Raggi: I feel really sorry that you guy's did not make the top cut, because I would have voted for you. Despite my aesthetic distaste of the heavy black Vornheim layout, the content of the product is superb and I would have loved to have seen it win the award. If anyone could win the vote-war vs the industry, it would be Zak Smith. It deeply saddens me to see that kind of opportunity slip by. However, it is an honor to get honorable mention and I congratulate you on that.
- Kicked in the Dicebags podcast. Similar sentiment to above, very sad that you only made honorable mention, but that is it's own reward so congratulations for that.
- Tyson Hayes and others at Apathy Games: Congratulations, I hope you win the award.
Second, I am going to be posting a fairly detailed "perspective" later today on where I am going with my design work in the next year or so. Some of it you will have seen before, some not. I am going to be incorporating some of the ideas hinted at in this recent post. And some commentary on layout design.
Third, I am going to make a simple argument here that I think quick-start rules should not be judged against truly free gaming products. I actually remember making this argument last year, but I can't find the post. Maybe it was a comment somewhere. Anyway, I have felt this way for a long time. As I commented on RPG Blog II this morning, I think it is unfair because of the resources available to the producers being so different. They are using art they paid for already, layout's they already designed for a pay-product, writing they already paid for, etc. It just isn't a fair comparison. For this reason (and for it's own merit), I hope Old School Hack dominates the category and wins the award. Now that I have made that argument, I will not address it again. I have no desire to make it a crusade, it is an eligibility issue more than anything else and I just don't care enough at this point to fight over it.
Fourth, I am not going to talk about it again. As some have commented, the nominations list shows how far outside of the industry some of us have moved. I have never seen, nor have a strong desire to own, the vast majority of the products in the list. I have not paid for an RPG product since the Haiti Bundle, if that even counts as buying something. In physical form, I bought a Battletech book about 9 months ago. That's it. I am off the grid, in a sense. And I am not going back. C'est la vie.
