My Picks for the 2023 Ennies, Part 2

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The ENnie Awards are an annual recognition of excellence in the tabletop role-playing game (RPG) industry. They celebrate outstanding contributions from publishers, writers, artists, designers, and other creative professionals involved in the creation of RPG products. The awards cover various aspects of RPGs, including game design, writing, artwork, layout, supplements, adventures, and more. The ENnie Awards are highly regarded within the RPG community and serve as a platform to showcase and honor the best and most innovative work in the industry.

With the 2023 awards coming up soon, the nominees have been announced. Here, I take a wee look through the nominations and give my picks for each category. There are a lot of categories, so I’ve split this post into two parts. For each category, I’ll list the nominees before giving my pick and my reasoning.

You can click here to revisit Part 1 or continue below to part 2:

Best Monster/Adversary

My Pick: Twilight Fables

I do like a good bestiary. As a category, this one doesn’t seem particularly diverse; all of these bestiaries are very dark. A dark setting is not a bad thing, and I do love man dark settings. It’s just… wasn’t there anything else this year? Looking at them, it all feels much of a muchness. Of the three that really caught my interest (Darklands, Ruins of Symbaroum, and Twilight Fables) it is Twilight Fables that comes out on top. The content seems solid, the art is good, and there’s a range of digital formats for accessibility. It was a close thing, this category.

Best Online Content

My Pick: TTRPGKids

I did some work around TTRPGs with children (ASD and neurotypical) as part of a postgrad, so this site was quite interesting to me. There are a ton of great resources in there. Well worth a read to anyone with a particular interest in playing RPGs with children.

Best Organized Play

My Pick: Cat’s Paws

Most of these adventures look great, but Cat’s Paws sounds the most fun. Let’s break it down; it has cats, mystery, and it’s set in the Feywild. For what more could a mortal man ask? I don’t tend to do the whole organised play thing, but this does sound rather good, based on the preview available at DTRPG.

Best Podcast

My Pick: Seth Skorkowsky

None of these are channels or series that I regularly engage with. Most are actual play content, which isn’t really a genre I enjoy (with some notable exceptions). Skorkowsky, meanwhile, has a really nice mix of content and I’ve really enjoyed some of his videos. Here’s a highlight from a few months back:

I am always on the lookout for new content to dive into, so I’ll have to have another delve into his channel.

Best Production Values

My Pick: DIE: The Roleplaying Game Special Edition

Rowan, Rook, and Decard is rapidly becoming one of my favourite RPG publishers. I’ve picked up a few of their books this year and have been pretty impressed both with the writing and the production quality. DIE continues this trend. The artwork is stunning and consistent throughout, the layouts are clean and readable… the whole thing is just so polished.

Best RPG Related Product

My Pick: The Fablemaker’s Animated Tarot Box Se

These. Are. Amazing.

Although they are pricey, and something I don’t actually have much use for, I’m sorely tempted to pick up these cards. They are absolutely gorgeous and the animation effect is fantastic. Go take a look for yourself!

Best Rules

My Pick: Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game

This is a strong category, with Hunter, Rivers of London, and High Guard all being good picks for me. The reason I’ve gone with Avatar is that it’s a system I’ve had a lot of fun with, and I think it’s probably one of my favourite implementations of the PbtA system.

Best Setting

My Pick: Vaesen RPG – Mythic Britain & Ireland

Free League continues to hit it out of the park. Vaesen is a horror game based on Nordic mythology. This book expands the scope of the game into British and Irish mythology. The book is a thing of beauty, and obvious care has been taken both in presentation, and in the research carried out as the basis of the setting. It’s an exciting book that with a wee bit of work could well be adapted to other games, too.

Best Supplement

My Pick: Into the Cess & Citadel

We’ve got another really strong category here. Into the Cess & Citadel wins out for me because of how broad it is and the potential it has to really take your urban adventures to a whole new level. I love city settings, and would much rather play out a game in a well-developed city than a dungeon or cavern. Fantastic!

Best Writing

My Pick: Necrobiotic

Despite hearing really good things about Meccanismo and really loving The Book of The New Jerusalem, my choice for this category is Necrobiotic. This setting is fantastic, and it’s so well presented both in terms of the artwork and, more importantly for this category, in its writing. It is delightfully dark and dystopian with some really cool and unique mechanics.

Product of the Year

My Pick: Fabula Ultima

Its hard to really pick out a single product of the year, but I think Fabula Ultima ticks a lot of boxes. The game is fun, functional, and thematic. It really captures the JRPG vibes well. The artwork is fantastic throughout, with the character class pictures being my favourite examples of this.

This is a game I’ve been reading for a while. It’s one that I’d be keen to get to the table, but I don’t think it will be an immediate priority. Still, it’s an exciting, beautiful game that captures the theme of my favourite childhood video game genre!

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