You can already buy Gen Con’s Ennie-winning RPGs
Every year at Gen Con, fans choose the best tabletop RPGs and other products featured in the show. There are several categories, with Ennie Award winners chosen based on excellence in art direction, design mechanics, writing, and more.
If you want to see what all the fuss is about with these new titles, you might want to know that some of the best games featured at Gen Con 2023 are on sale today.
Below we’ve rounded up all the gold and silver medalists you can currently pick up. We’ve also included links to winners in all categories.
Product of the year
This category represents the overall fan favorite that was shown at Gen Con 2023. That award belongs to the Mythical Britain and Ireland extension for vases. You can pick up the PDF from DriveThruRPG for $21.99, or a hardcover copy of Amazon for $36.86.
Second place goes to the JRPG-inspired Fabula Ultima, which is available in PDF format from DriveThruRPG for $11.99. A paperback version is available at Amazon for about $26.91.
Best Adventure
Awarded to the best seeds, one-shots and campaign ideas, this year’s Best Adventure gold medal went to the Seasons of mystery extension for vasesavailable from DriveThruRPG for $19.99, or hardcover from Amazon for about $34.
Second place went to the D&D campaign Travel through the radiant citadelwhich you can find on Amazon in hardcover format for around $27.49.
Best Tool/Accessory – Non-Digital
Extra things can make a campaign or setting more realistic. This category is among the best physical accessories to add some extra flavor to your next game. First place goes to Decumaa tarot-inspired world-building tool that provides players and GMs with relationships, locations, and other clues to shape their campaign. Decuma is currently available from Woodburn Games for $34.99.
Second place in this category goes to a beautifully crafted set of dice inspired by The Witcher. The heavy black and gold Golem’s Heart set is currently available at Q workshop for $99.
Best art, cover
You can’t always judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you can. Swords of the Serpentine took home the gold medal for best cover art at Gen Con 2023. You can currently pick up a $30 PDF from DriveThruRPG. The hardcover copy is available at Press Pelgrane or Amazon for about $60.
The number two, Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent, is available as a hardcover bundled with a PDF from Metis Creative for $49.99.
Best Art, Interior
This year’s gold medal for excellent illustrations goes to the Mythical Britain and Ireland extension for vasesAvailable at DriveThruRPG in pdf format for $22, or in hardcover format for Amazon for $37. Seven sinners took home second place, and you can pick up a hardback copy from Modiphius for around $23.
Best cartography
As the warrior poet Karen O once said: “Cards, they don’t love you like I love you. Each year, Gen Con awards Best Cartography to games that deliver outstanding art and engineering to flesh out the topography of a particular setting. This year’s gold medalist is the Blade Runner RPG Starter Setwith its moody depiction of Los Angeles available from Amazon in the near future for around $38.71, or for Modiphius for about $52.
Claw Atlas: new maps for beak, feathers and bones took second place in this category. You can find the paperback chicken crab-inspired wilderness guide at Possible World Games for $13, or a PDF version from $5 Itch.io.
Best electronic book
This category is reserved for print-and-play games. This year’s gold medal winner is one of our favorite RPGs from the past year, Brindlewood Bay, which can be purchased through DriveThruRPG for $14.99. The silver medal goes to Host and Hostility: Three Regency Call of Cthulhu Scenariosavailable from DriveThruRPG for $7.99.
Best family game
The gold award for Best Family Game of Gen Con 2023 goes to Avatar Legends: The starter set for the role-playing gamewhich is available at Target for $25. The runner-up in this category goes to The Goblingswhich is available in its digital format for $10 from DriveThruRPG.
Best game
Ready to play out of the box, the Best Game category is all about RPGs that bring together the best overall art, writing, and rules under one roof. This year, that distinction belongs to the JRPG-inspired core rulebook for Fabula Ultimawhere pdfs are available from DriveThruRPG for $12, and include a printed paperback version Amazon for about $27. You can also find PDFs for the runner-up Trophy RPG at DriveThruRPG for $14.99.
Best layout and design
The basic rule book for the Blade Runner RPG won the Gold Medal for Layout and Design at Gen Con 2023, and is available in hardcover format at Amazon for $59.99. The silver medal belongs to the sour western RPG Border scumwhich is available in PDF format at DriveThruRPG for $9.99.
Best Monster/Adversary
The Best Monster/Adversary category is awarded exclusively to books full of beasts, baddies, and other nightmares that earn XP. The 2023 gold medal in this category goes to Ruins of Symbaroum – Bestiary, which is available in PDF form from DriveThruRPG for $24.99. Second place is for the creatures 2 manual for fateforgeavailable in hardcover format from Studio 2 Publishing for $50.
Best RPG Related Product
Look into the eyes of this poor Owl Bear and tell them they didn’t win the best RPG related product category. You can’t, because they won. To adopt your own $35 Owl bear plushcan you go to Metal Weave Games.
Second place in this category went to the Dragons of the Red Moon miniatures Dragon League by Draco Studios – a project funded on Kickstarter for its incredibly detailed 200 millimeter dragon minis, which are currently in production.
Best rules
Occasionally referred to as the “crunchiest game”, like perfectly interlocking gears spinning each other with Swiss precision, Best Rules is awarded to games with outstanding mechanical design. This year the gold medal went to Avatar Legends: The starter set for the role-playing game, which you can find for $25 at Target. The runner-up in this category was Rivers of London: the role-playing game, which is available in PDF format from DriveThruRPG for $30, or in hardcover direct from the publisher Chaosium for $60.
Best attitude
A few clear favorites from Gen Con 2023 took home awards for the best setting, fleshing out their respective worlds with a powerful combination of rich text and artwork. The gold medal in this category belongs to the Mythical Britain and Ireland extension for Vaesen, while the silver medal belongs Swords of the Serpentine.
Best addition
Barkeep on the Borderlands took first place for Best Addition at Gen Con 2023, featuring a detailed compilation of taverns, bars, pubs and dives, complete with clients to add a little extra sauce to your next campaign. You can get a PDF from Barkeep on the Borderlands from DriveThruRPG or Itch.io for $10.
The second place winner, In the Cess and the Citadel, features a huge amount of system-agnostic flavor for characters, factions, and monsters to populate sprawling urban fantasy cities and undertowns. PDFs are currently available from Itch.io for $19.95.
Best writing
This category is awarded to games with the best prose and other descriptive text. The gold medalist, Swords of the Serpentineis available in PDF format for $30 at DriveThruRPG, or in hardcover for about $60 at Press Pelgrane or Amazon. Second place The Wild Sea is currently available in PDF format for $25 through itch.io.
Best free game/product
The open-source nature of tabletop gaming is one of its greatest strengths, evidenced by the wealth of free tools, systems, and campaigns available online. This award celebrates the best things you can use for free to spice up your next campaign. While these all deserve a gold medal in my book, the first place went to the quick start guide for Origin: the RPG by Talon Hill, while second place went to the 54-page module for the Shadow dark RPG system, Sanctuary of the Jaguar Princess.