Voting for the 2025 Ennies Awards opened up this past weekend and the TTRPG community (most noticeably the OSR side of it) is abuzz with many notable nominations this year. What follows is a short breakdown of my own picks and a little bit behind the choices, most to aid me when voting but also just for funzos. Any category I fail to mention take as I have no picks.
[Works I own a physical copy of will be marked with Bolded Italicized text.]
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Judges’ Spotlight Winner: Punk is Dead by Tim Roberts
I have a soft spot for Punk-themed TTRPGs; punk to me is the pinnacle of the DIY ethos, an ethos which has permeated and steeped into the OSR. So voting on such to me is a tip of the hat.
Best Adventure – Long Form: Hamel’s House of Oddities by Jon Hage
The look and feel of Hamel’s House of Oddities appeals to me despite being geared for 5E. Runners Up: The author of The Shrike, Leo Hunt, has worked on the lauded Vaults of Vaarn and written for Old School Essentials. Because of its general high-lethality, it’s hard for me to envision a lasting campaign in Mörk Borg, likewise its campaign Crown of Salt, but I do find it enticing.
Best Adventure – Short Form: The Dream Shrine by Brad Kerr & Skullfungus
The Dream Shrine is a surreal dream world excursion that could easily be dropped into any ongoing campaign. It’s a collection of bizarre connected areas which loop filled with an assorted collection of puzzles, traps, dream/nightmare denizens. It may also be worth mentioning that on top of the ‘main’ adventure a small mini bonus adventure is found at the back of the book. Further Additional bonus: Though it’s primarily statted for Old School Essentials it also has conversion notes of Cairn.
Honestly, I think The Dream Shrine is pretty fun and well put together, and I look forward to running it for my group, but there is a tiny part of me that feels it lacks a certain ‘Wow’-factor that makes me question it or any of the other short adventures being award worthy. Regardless, as I’m not as familiar with the other entries in that category, it’s still my pick. Plus I have a couple of other adventures by Brad Kerr so I’m for both him and Skullfungus getting some deserved recognition.
Best Aid/Accessory – Digital: Dungeon Scrawl
I’ve used Dungeon Scrawl to map out the Ruined Temple for my ongoing DCC game as well as some more recent ongoing projects, and I can certainly recommend it as a mapping tool, particularly for talentless hacks like myself.
Best Aid/Accessory – Non–Digital: Small and Boss Party Series by Severed Books
I have several of the Small Party wooden meeple sets, though I haven’t really used them; I tend to be more theatre-of-the-mind and less tactical in the games I run. Still they’re kinda fun, though honestly I think all the nominees in this category are kinda lacklustre.
Best Art, Cover: Darkened Hill & Dale cover by Camilla Sicignano
One of the functions of a good book cover is it draws you in and makes you interested in what it contains, which this rendition of an oil-painted gloomy landscape absolutely does for me.
Runner up: Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast by Katie Hicks.
Best Art, Interior: The Painted Wastelands by Tim Molloy
The Ennies website only provides a few examples of the interior art of each nominee, so unless you own a copy you’re missing the entire scope of how the interior art interacts with the text, the layout, etc., and are forced to vote based solely upon the examples provided. Nevertheless, The Painted Wastelands by Tim Molloy gets my pick as I’ve been a follower of his art before and its just so damn evocatively weird and wonderful.
Runner up: Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland by Jon Hodgson, Paul Bourne has some great bizarre realism.
Best Cartography: Wonderland by Andrew Kolb
I watched an overview by Questing Beast that broke down the clever use of Wonderland’s cartography, i.e. the flexible/random geomorph placement. Plus the previous public domain settings Neverland and Oz are also thoroughly impressive as well. Aside from His Majesty the Worm and Mythic Bastionland, I feel like this is another book I must acquire.
Runner Up: Pendragon: Map of King Arthur’s Britain by Francesca Baerald
Best Free Game / Product: Helene of the Blue Ridge
As I didn’t I have the time to dig deep into each Free Game/Product before voting ends, I did peruse each one:
Garbage & Glory – Seems like just another racoon seeking garbage game. Meh.
Grimwild: Free Edition – The website for this appears to be down. How unfortunate for the author.
Helene of the Blue Ridge – I fully support using TTRPGs to raise awareness and education of dealing with environmental catastrophes and the like.
Slay & Plunder – A humanocentric Sword & Sorcery TTRPG built on a Basic/Expert D&D chassis that uses only d6s instead of the standard polyhedral array. Otherwise seems pretty standard.
TEETH: False Kingdom – A group of conniving courtiers attempt to survive a bloody succession crisis in a cursed corner of 12th-century England. Uses the Forged in the Dark ruleset. Like Blades in the Dark probably seems more complicated than it is and hopefully as fun to play.
Fan Award for Best Publisher: Here’s my top 1o publishers in rough order:
Games Omnivorous
The Arcane Library
Exalted Funeral
Prismatic Wasteland
Bastionland Press
Wet Ink Games
Goodman Games
Bully Pulpit
Free League
Necrotic Gnome
Best Game: His Majesty the Worm by Josh McCrowell
Though I do own His Majesty the Worm on PDF I haven’t had the opportunity to dig deep into it. That said, it is a game I have heard many positive things about and have been interested in acquiring a physical copy of for my collection.
Best Layout and Design: Tephrotic Nightmares by Johan Nohr
Flipping through this book again, it has a very solid layout and design. Unlike the colourful in-your-face design of the front half of the Mörk Borg corebook, Tephrotic Nightmares is laid out like the latter half’s starter adventure Rot Black Sludge, in a clear and concise two-column format. Very easy to read and parse. Does lack a Table of Contents but the Index and bold page headers help make up for this.
Runners up: Though I haven’t read either yet, from what I have seen both Wonderland and Mythic Bastionland respectively have superb layouts.
Best Online Content: Prismatic Wasteland Blog
TBH I’m not a big blogger as I would like to be. I just find it difficult to find the time on top of everything in life and all my other interests; how some published game designers do it is beyond me. So my pick boils down to which of the nominees am I familiar with which are Playful Void and Prismatic Wasteland, and of those two the latter barely gets the top pick. I’m not familiar with the others though now I’ve been given a reason to check them out.
Runner Up: Playful Void for obvious reasons.
Best Production Values: Tephrotic Nightmares by Johan Nohr
I dunno if this counts as good Production values, but the first experience of literally cracking open my copy of Tephrotic Nightmares, separating the painted-together pages, was pretty memorable. Along with the extra-thick cardstock cover with its sharp edges and exposed binding, makes Tephrotic Nightmares a unique book on the shelf. I appreciate an out-of-the-box design that also doesn’t sacrifice good Layout (see above).
Runner Up: I admit to my deepest shame I don’t own actually Mothership but I’ve heard rave reviews on the boxed set for this game, which looks gorgeous.
Best RPG Related Product: Prismatic Wisdom by W.F. Smith
I just recently obtained a copy of this book before the Ennies were announced and I will admit I’m still making my way through it, but thus far I will agree the book does contain a great deal of ‘Wisdom’ for running tabletop games.
Best Setting: The Painted Wastelands by Tim Molloy
Partially for the aforementioned excellent Interior Art, but also because really dig weird wastelands.
Runner Up: Doomsong does look pretty neat, but honestly I’m wary of using up limited shelf space with another big fancy box set; feels like a limited return on investment.
Product of the Year: Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall
Aside from the plethora of glowing written reviews, it was Quinns Quest Review on Mythic Bastionland that sold me on adding this both to my shelf and roster.
If you haven’t done so yet, go vote!
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