After a day of comments about the fan-made unlicensed Mass Effect RPG being nominated for multiple ENnie awards, Russ “Morrus ” Morrissey of ENWorld, stated that the game would be removed from the slate of nominees. The Mass Effect RPG, nominated for Best Electronic Book, Best Free Product, and Product of the Year, was written and designed by RPG industry veteran Don Mappin. The game is based on Galileo Games’ Bulldogs!, a Fate Core-based game.

“For this year, we have decided to disqualify the fan-created Mass Effect RPG on the basis of IP violations,” the statement read. “The creator of the product, after discussion with him, has already been notified. Don Mappin, the creator of the product, has additionally told us that ‘Based on this outcome I will be removing the work and its associated files.'” The game’s three award nominations will be replaced with other items to keep the number of entries in a ballot equal at five, ten for Product of the Year.

About the game, Mappin writes the game is “solely a labor of love”. The game states that despite using the setting and illustrations from the Mass Effect property, the game is unlicensed and done without the permission or involvement of the IP holders. Mappin writes “it is our hope to expand the outreach of the Mass Effect property to another segment of games—role-players—who have long coveted a way to bring the events of Commander Shepard to life at their gaming tables.”

“I am very public and open that it is an unlicensed product, made available free of charge and that no renumeration is to be made from its distribution. The Fate core OGL is adhered to (to the best of my ability) as well as content from Brennan Taylor of Galileo Games and their Bulldogs! product, with permission,” Don Mappin responded. “I don’t believe that I have violated any aspect of the rules for the ENnies and would hope that my work could be considered.

After game industry professionals and gamers began commenting on the inclusion of an unlicensed work being nominated for Product of the Year, Morrus posted a comment on Twitter and facebook reading, “We are currently discussing an issue re. an ENnies nomination. Info soon.” This was followed up an hour later with a post on facebook reading, in part, that while the nomination categories don’t distingush between fan and publisher work, that this is the first time they’ve had issues concerning a product’s licensed status. “We’ve never had to ask about a product’s licensed status before – we’ve always left a publisher’s own legal matters to them – so this is a new situation for us.” The facebook post says that the issue was being discussed as they wanted to do the right thing.

Nicole Linroos of Green Ronin, publishers of the Dragon Age RPG, said in 2012 that although their relationship with Bioware is “pretty damn happy”, that the video game company was not interested in a Mass Effect roleplaying game. She writes, “the idea has been tossed around and discussed between the Mass Effect team, the Bioware licensing folks, and Green Ronin on more than one occasion. They’re not interested in taking Mass Effect to tabletop, it’s as simple as that.” In a more recent statement, she says that while she would love to have a legitimately licensed AGE-powered Mass Effect game, the company would is not allowed to do so, “not even for free, not even to “give back” to the community. In fact, doing so would likely endanger the legitimate license my company does hold from EA.”

 

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The 2015 ENnie Award Nominations and Judges’ Spotlight Winners were announced this morning. The list of nominees covers roleplaying games and related items that were released between May 1, 2014 and April 30, 2015. This year’s list was developed by a panel of five judges who have no professional ties to any game publisher. The nominees will be voted on by the public between July 4th and July 14th.

This year, the ENnie Award committee commissioned a physical medal to be awarded, created by Campaign Coins and designed by Daniel Solis. (Image from Daniel’s blog on the right.)

Each category in the awards has five nominees, except for Product of the Year, which has ten. Interestingly, the Mass Effect RPG, a fan-created unofficial game based on EA and Bioware’s popular video game, was nominated for three awards: Best Electronic Book, Best Free Product, and Product of the Year.

The award was created in 2001, hosted by EN World (originally a Dungeons & Dragons message forum and fan site) and a fan-run D&D 3rd Edition news site. The awards quickly moved from D&D and d20 System related products to covering tabletop roleplaying games and is now a major award in the industry. The ENnies are awarded at Gen Con Indy.

The full slate of nominees are available at the ENnie Awards website.

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USAopoly surprised me at Toy Fair. I mostly know them for their licensed versions of Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Yahtzee, etc…, but a handful of original titles filled their booth this year. Before I get into those, I’m going to post a gallery of all the licensed products that are new.

OK! There’s a lot of material to cover above.

Monopoly

The Legend of Zelda version is new as of last year, and has been an excellent seller. New to the scene are Mass Effect, Pokemon, Jurassic World, Doctor Who: Villains, Firefly, and Penny Dreadful.

Yahtzee

There’s Back to the Future (the Flux Capacitor case lights up!), Firefly, The Legend of Zelda, and new versions for The Avengers, Age of Ultron. These I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of, but the dice come in either an Iron Man or Ultron head.

Clue

Doctor Who. It rhymes.

BANG!

It was really cool to see that there’s a Hereos of the Storm version, and a comic book Walking Dead version. Also, Halo.

Munchkin

A Walking Dead expansion for Munchkin Zombies was shown, as well as Adventure Time Munchkin. I actually took a copy of the latter home from a Steve Jackson party, and it’s pretty sweet. USAopoly did an excellent job of capturing the feeling of the show and fitting it in with the equally zany world of Munchkin.

Puzzles

Two beautiful Legend of Zelda puzzles. One is of the Hyrule Map, and the other is a colorful piece from The Wind Waker.

Risk

I wasn’t able to take pictures of either Risk title I saw, but they’re both very exciting. The first is an Avengers: Age of Ultron version that comes with little painted miniatures of the Avengers. The packaging said something about “collect them all,” but the rep showing me around didn’t know what that was about. It could be a pretty interesting mechanic if there were an element of randomness to the figures in the box.

The second, and by far one of the most exciting licensed products, was the Game of Thrones version of Risk. This thing was huge. It comes with 2 giant boards depicting Westeros and Essos, and the game is played over both maps at once. The pieces were amazing in their detail, and the box was minimal and beautiful. This is one I’d go out of my way to purchase.

 

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OK. That horizontal line above is where we break from the licensed copies of classic and well known board games and get into original titles USAopoly is putting out.

TacDex – $9.95

TacDex is a newer game to the USAopoly line, and is a War-style card game developed by Richard Borg. Already having a Pirates! deck, they’ve now added a Super Mario Brothers deck, Walking Dead deck, and Halo deck. I was told you can mix and match the decks, if so desired. Right off the bat I’m interested because of Richard Borg’s involvement.

Rollandia

Rollandia is a really cool looking game where you’re rolling dice to try and build your castle. You need to roll groups of numbers to build each piece, and there’s a component of using your already-claimed numbers to effect other players. The whole look and feel of the game caught be totally by surprise after seeing such a huge amount of licensed Monopoly, Clue, Yahtzee, etc… games. Nothing against those, but it’s always nice to see new and innovative titles hit the market.

Nefarious – $29.95 – Ages 13+

Rollandia was really cool looking, but one look at Nefarious and I had already moved on. In Nefarious you’re playing evil scientists trying to take over the world. You do this by inventing devices, performing espionage, and doing research. Visually stunning, designed by Donald X. Vaccarino, and slick looking game play make this one to keep an eye on.

Pass the Blame : The Party Game for Irresponsible and Telestrations 8: After Dark  – $29.95 and $19.95 – Ages 17+

Two adult games following the new trend in the wake of Cards Against Humanity. Both party games involve compromising situations and foul thoughts. Pass the Blame has situations cards that players must write excuses for. Not as filthy as Telestrations After Dark, but it can get a bit dicey. Telestrations After Dark has you playing a game of Telephone, but with sketches. One player sketches a phrase, the next guesses what the phrase is and tries to draw it again, and so on. This one is a bit more intentionally dirty with terms like “doggie style”, “human centipede”, and more.

Wonky

Wonky comes with a box of mostly-cube-like pieces and cards that tell you what color cubes to place and where. Players have to follow the directions on the cards and build a tower as high as they can without it falling. A quick, easy, family game.

Tapple

A word game with an interesting twist. A card is drawn with a category, after which each player takes turns naming something in the category and tapping down the letter the word started with. Once a letter is tapped down it can’t be used again. Players who can’t think of a word are knocked out.

Lift It

This one had a pretty cool hook to it (pun intended.) Lift It has you trying to build certain structures with the pieces provided, but you must do in within a time limit, and by only using your hook on a string to pick up and place pieces. Some challenges are even cooperative, where 2 players need to each hook pieces and work togehter to build something. I gave this a shot, but was met with an almost insurmountable challenge trying to get my shaky, carpal tunnel ridden hands and wrists to do as I asked.

 

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