The RPG Site of the Year contest and award was thought up and implemented with three goals in mind:
- To provide a fun event that readers and bloggers can take part in,
- To bring to light some interesting blogs that readers may not have seen before,
- And to award that one gaming blog for a job very well done.
Well, I think we’ve accomplished the first two goals, so all that remains is for the 2012 RPG SOTY judges to look over the five finalists to determine the winner!
Oh wait, I guess I should list the finalists…
Listed in order of their competition days, the five finalists for the 2012 RPG SOTY are:
Gnome Stew
Dungeon’s Master
G*M*S Magazine
The Id DM
Nearly Enough Dice
Day 1 voting – This was fun to watch because the first day of voting really set the tone for the rest of the week, in my opinion. Watching Kobold Quarterly and Gnome Stew go for the win was like watching a couple of buddies going after the last slice of pizza. Maybe the folks behind those two blogs really are close buddies, maybe not, but the light-hearted rivalry I saw posted in various places was both respectful and fun to read.
- Gnome Stew collected 44% of the votes for this day.
Day 2 voting – On this day we saw a good line-up of gaming blogs, and (at first) the lead changed a few times. What I like most about this competition, though, is discovering blogs that I’ve never seen before, and for this day of voting there were two.
- Dungeon’s Master collected 50% of the votes for this day.
Day 3 voting – I don’t really want to mirror what I said about Day 2 voting, but man! Were there a lot of cool sites never before seen or what? [ok, I may be a hermit] I’m familiar with only two of the sites for this day, and all I can say is that my RSS list grew five sites bigger.
- G*M*S Magazine collected 55% of the votes.
Day 4 voting – I really had no clue who was going to become the finalist for this day of voting. No clue at all. I read several of the sites for this day of voting pretty regularly, so I was really curious. This day, though, had the most narrow margin of success. The Id DM took a very late lead to win by only one vote.
- The Id DM collected 40% of the votes.
Day 5 voting – This year we expanded our contest entries to podcasts and webcasts, and for this day of voting we had a podcast take the win. To be honest, I have yet to start listening to podcasts regularly, but with their proliferation these past couple of years, I think it’s imperative to start making more time. I’m definitely looking forward to reading – um… listening to Nearly Enough Dice…
- Nearly Enough Dice collected a whopping 62% of the votes.
The judges for the 2012 RPG SOTY will be reading the five finalists over the course of this week. From their efforts a winner will emerge as their collected favorite, which will be posted this Monday (April 30th). The judges each have a set of guidelines with which to use (if they wish), but ultimately, it all simply boils down to which gaming site ends up being their favorite. Of course, if any readers out there would like to show some positive support for their favorite, please do so in the comments below!
See you on Monday, April 30!
Chris Stevens
In Chris's opinion, the very best vices are dirt bikes, rock music, and gaming, while the very best medicine is fatherhood. If he could just learn to balance them all, he'd live forever. He's much more creative than intelligent, often wakes up belligerent, and ponders many things insignificant. Lastly, in an effort to transform his well-fed body, P90X, Roller Blades, and Food are all laughing at him. And the pain continues.
Congratulations to all the finalists. These are all great sites. Last week was a lot of fun to browse through a huge list of new sites. This week, I’m going to go back and do it all again so I can expand my RSS list as well. (it was enough last week to just read them all)
Thanks for putting this on, Tourq! And I couldn’t possibly list a favorite out of those sites. Three of them were already on my watch list before the contest and they’re not leaving my sight anytime soon.
Thank you to everyone who voted for Gnome Stew!
Yes, we are friendly rivals with Kobold Quarterly. Wolfgang Baur (the Kobold in Chief) wrote the foreword for our second GMing book, Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs, and we’ve written about KQ on several occasions — and duked it out in the ENnies.
I’m excited to see sites I hadn’t heard of as finalists, and I look forward to checking them out. That’s one of my favorite things about RPG awards in general.
Thanks to everyone who voted for The Id DM and to Tourq for hosting the contest. It was a pleasant surprise to learn this morning that the site made it to the final round. And I want to echo the thoughts of others that it was great to learn about new sites throughout last week.
Good luck to those remaining!
Congrats to all the finalists! I enjoyed the sites.
Congratulations to everyone and Thank you so much for those who voted for Nearly Enough Dice. We are rather proud to be the first podcast to make it through to the Finals of this competition!
Another Massive thank you to Tourq for this contest as well, so many blogs I hadn’t even heard of that now have become my new favourites. Good luck everyone.
So close! Don’t let anyone tell you that 1 vote can’t make a difference 😉
Congrats to the finalists and a big thanks to everyone who voted for Ménage à Monster!
Congrats to all the finalists and congrats to the sites who did not make it to the final five. I loved all the sites I saw and am happy to say I now have too much reading to do.
Thanks to everyone who voted for Dungeon’s Master. We’re thrilled that we made the final five. With so many great gaming sites out there it’s tough to narrow the list. To echo what’s been said above it was great to get exposed to some new gaming blogs. Congratulations to all the finalists.