Prestige for a Price? Accolade by Voice Acclaim?

 

SURELY THERE'S A BETTER WAY

An ever-growing list of awards shows and web festivals want your money and your attention -- but what do you get in return? What role should festivals and awards play in our quest to expand the actual play universe beyond Critical Role and Dimension 20, broaden its reach within the tabletop community, and professionalize the relationship between publishers and creators? Artificial intelligence might be sexier and the war to replace Twitter might be more relevant, but on this, the Great Day of Ennie-ing, let's pause to talk about something else that has evaded serious critique despite multiplying rapidly and claiming hold over the tabletop world: actual play awards.

Ned Donovan, human perpetual-motion machine, actual-play advocate, and organizer of the Audio Fiction World Cup once told me the purpose of awards should be to recognize and celebrate quality work, and to promote that work to consumers and potential investors. It will come as no surprise that I agree. A laurel should be more than an ego boost -- it should be a reliable signal of quality, and a bar for other creators to aspire to, and to exceed. Beyond their value as promotional tools, accolades should inspire creators to develop their skills, hone their craft, and raise the overall quality of our genre. In competing with one another, we push creative boundaries, develop new artistic and technical techniques, and encourage others to do the same. If these awards are meant to ascribe technical and artistic merit, they should also be awarded by an entity with the relevant expertise.

The thing is: expertise is expensive, and festivals are expensive. Assume for a moment you want to take your actual play podcast on a chase for the Audio Fiction World Cup, a year-long competition consisting of ten festivals. The average price to enter is $35 per project, increasing to $55 per show as final deadlines approach. Since podcasts earn year-end points for every acceptance, nomination, and award, it behooves an ambitious producer to enter every festival, at a total cost between $350 and $550. These is no season-spanning equivalent for video actual plays, but entering each of the festivals accepting them will set you back between $215 and $340. Both numbers are likely to increase next year, as the Audio Fiction World Cup expands and more festivals open their doors to actual play podcasts and streams. And that's without putting a price on your time.

If your production finds its way onto a festival's screening list, the costs multiply. The average actual play has between four and six cast members; what does it cost to fly them all to Baltimore, feed them in Duluth, room them in Los Angeles, or drive them in Montclair? Folks who've attended a major gaming convention are already familiar with this math -- now do it four more times if you plan to attend the full slate of U.S. festivals.

It's prudent, then, to ask each award show or festival: what do creators get for their time and money? For the cost of a season-long festival run, creators could, among other things, invest in an important computer upgrade, purchase more powerful software, commission original music or artwork, buy costume pieces, or attend an acting workshop. For the cost of attending a convention or festival, they could do all those things. That is, they could use that money to develop their skills, hone their craft, and raise the overall quality of the actual-play genre. Any festival should at least meet, if not exceed, that utility.

WHAT IS USEFUL

1. Robust, Transparent Judging

The primary weakness of juried competitions is their reliance on individual preference. None of us can claim the label of "objective expert." No matter the judge, the result will always be opinion with a dash of professional taste. An especially concerned juror might limit the influence of personal beliefs with a bit of introspection. Was I being unfair to a comedy because I didn't like its particular brand of humor? Did my enthusiasm for novelty lead me to be overly lenient with a show that made bold choices, but executed them poorly? But as is true of all things, "as fair as possible" can still be unfair.

Only by broadening the pool of judges can a festival ensure no one perspective becomes determinative. This means not only ensuring a healthy number of judges, but also ensuring a diversity of personal and professional backgrounds. There are plenty of experienced and qualified voices to choose from, and one needn't only rely on established actual play creators or industry names -- actual play is not so unique that creatives from adjacent art forms would find it unintelligible. This is good for the entrants, whose submissions represent a broad mix of approaches, genres, systems, and storytelling styles. It's also good for festivals, whose year-to-year existence hinges on creators' trust in their organization and process.

Where possible, festivals should also let entrants know who the judges are. Whether this occurs before or after judging is a matter for festivals to decide, but in either case allows creators to get a sense of the qualifications and backgrounds the organizer values. Informed consumers can prioritize festivals that align with their expectations, and value awards accordingly. This, of course, also requires creators to not be assholes. No judge wants their identity revealed if it leads to angry e-mails or Twitter threads. Most festivals strive to compensate their judges for reviewing submissions, but none pay for the additional labor of being yelled at on the internet.

2. Professionalization and Networking

If success in actual play means competing with studio-produced, multi-camera content, creators not already working in film and television need a place to learn those skills. Personal relationships can help bridge the gap, but for most, festivals represent the best opportunity to meet, collaborate with, and learn from people in the industry. Successfully facilitating these interactions should be part of the festival's DNA.

Organizers should arrange screenings such that actual play is interspersed with other content and include actual play creators on panels where their perspectives have value. Knowledge sharing goes both ways. Scripted media don't have a monopoly on storytelling, and actual play has its own expertise with insurgent fundraising and building fan communities. Additionally, festivals should construct workshops with an eye towards attendees who aren't selling a feature to Netflix or a webseries to Hulu. That content of course has its place -- I'm ambitious, not delusional -- but the greater the percentage of programming that's applicable to actual play work, the greater the likelihood actual players will show up.

Where actual play teams can't attend, this content should also be accessible online. Where they can attend, organizers should be ready to put in the facetime. Organizers need to be ready to make introductions and encourage mingling -- if they don't treat actual play as worthy of attention, neither will the other attendees. Creatives can't connect with people they don't meet, and no one wants to spring for an entry fee or gala ticket only to see their work creatively or socially consigned to the kid's table.

3. Actionable Critique

I'll admit, here we journey into the realm of wishful thinking. When judges are being asked to sort through dozens upon dozens of submissions for pennies on the hour, even minute quantities of advice-giving start to add up. Still, our stated goal is to provide value to creators and drive improvement across the world of actual play. Self-critique is difficult, and you can't fix something if you don't know it's broken. A little outside advice can go a long way.

Organizers should solicit feedback from judges as part of the submission process. The response should be ambivalent towards other entries, and specific enough to act upon. "Doreen's Dungeoneering Guild did a better job" is self-evident if their project was selected and mine wasn't, but "The storyteller lacked fluency when describing environments" tells me I need to improve my polish when bringing a setting to life. "The sound design was lacking" introduces a fresh hell of guesswork to the production process, but "Vocals were too soft, so the music overpowered with narration" tells me exactly where I need to re-evaluate my audio. And while we're at it, why not add something positive along the way?

Is it painful for organizers to send out hundreds of e-mails? Yes, although I expect the work can be automated with a bit of effort. Does it add to the judge's workload? Yes, but one assumes they've already identified what they did and did not like about a project as part of judging it. Might a submitter simply dismiss the criticism as uninformed drivel? Yes, but there are plenty more with an eager and honest desire to improve. Pushing through the challenges brings us closer to our goal of providing value to creators. And if yours is one of the only festivals offering this unique selling point, it may well push you to the top of a cash-strapped producer's list.

WHAT IS NOT USEFUL

1. Another Popularity Contest

My least favorite thing about the Ennies is that they're attached to an unfeeling corporate machine that dresses itself up in the language of equality and inclusion while also funneling millions of dollars into Indiana, despite the state's long history of using that money to inflict suffering on women, people of color, and the LGBT community. Mike Pence made a promise; GenCon's organizers believed him, and now we all have to set aside our morals if we want to take part in the Best Four Days in Gaming. My second least favorite thing about the Ennies is the voting.

I take a small measure of amusement in the Ennies for bestowing a medal for "Fan Favorite" Publisher, and then proceeding to scrub that phrase from every other category despite the remaining awards also being doled out by fan vote. If we described the Ennies as "awarded by members of the web forum ENWorld.com," would they still carry the same weight? Or would we (rightfully) conclude that the assorted membership of an internet forum does not represent an authority on craft? No other entertainment industry assigns its most prestigious awards via fan vote, and it's a bit embarrassing that ours is determined by a combination of person-on-the-street interview and internet poll. If nothing else, we should at least admit that a system where Kenneth Hite and I are considered equal authorities on the topic of TTRPG writing is probably failing to hit the mark.

That's not to say fan awards don't have their place, that fan awards have never gone to excellent products, or that popularity and quality cannot be positively correlated. Rather, they should merely be labeled for what they are -- or in GenCon's case, unmasked. This is the mistake repeated annually by the Ennies and the Audioverse Awards, and most recently The CRIT Awards. Any system whose results can be reasonably predicted by putting the nominees in a spreadsheet and sorting by "Twitter followers" or "marketing budget" is measuring clout, not quality. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous; to charge admission for the privilege is taking advantage of your entrants.

2. Extortionate Pricing

A few hundred dollars is a rounding error for Critical Role, but they're not the ones submitting to festivals. For everyone else, the decision to fund a season's worth of submissions must be weighed against multiple other competing interests. Festivals must, of course, cover their costs -- vendors and judges and venues all need to be paid -- but there is one practice we would do well to stamp out.

Any production that submits for a given category should automatically be eligible for all awards in that category. The judges can decide whether its worthy of being nominated, but under no circumstances should entrants be asked to pay an additional fee to be considered for awards, or, god forbid, each individual award. If your festival can only make ends meet by charging $100 per submission, the market can decide whether it provides enough value to be worth the price.

Spreading that cost among individual awards obfuscates the true cost of submission and tilts the odds towards better-resourced productions. When a cash-strapped producer is forced to decide which cast member is considered for Best Player Character, or if their Sound Designer deserves the opportunity to be recognized, a festival has introduced budget as a discriminating factor in their awards process. The Webbys, Ambies, and Signal Awards may disagree, but for the rest of us? It should be obvious that this is unacceptable.

MOVING FORWARD

For an award to have meaning, one must first consider the process by which it was awarded. For an event to have value, one must first consider the utility it provides for creators. In both cases, neither popular acclaim nor a golden wreath is a sufficient justification. Events like the Ennies, various festivals courting actual plays, and the Audio Fiction World Cup have an obligation to label themselves honestly and distinguish between marketing and craft, between achievement based on expertise and achievement based on vibes. When those goals are achieved, then we as creators can decide which are valuable. Voting with your wallet is fine when deciding who attends an awards ceremony, not so much when deciding who wins one.

 

With thanks to Ned Donovan for a thoughtful conversation. This article was written in advance of today's Ennie announcements, which Queen's Court Games declined to participate in on account of GenCon's financial support for conservative attacks against reproductive rights and the LGBT community.