Old school role-play system Shadowdark wins top honors at Gen Con’s Ennie awards

The Shadowdark tabletop role-playing game won the top prize in this year’s Ennie Awards. And that’s not all! A panel of experts gave the old-school-inspired RPG three other gold medals as well, including Best Game, Best Layout and Design, and even Best Rules. That gives creator Kelsey Dionne and her team at The Arcane Library about as clean a sweep you can get in Gen Con’s biggest awards program.

Shadowdark was a bit of a slow burn among dedicated fans of the TTRPG genre, where it made a name for itself mostly via word of mouth in the years following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it took a high-profile Kickstarter campaign in 2023 to truly bring the game into the public consciousness. There it raised nearly $1.4 million — a hefty sum for a TTRPG of any kind, let alone a throwback like this one. Its a rules-light system that translates well for players who cut their teeth on 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons. It’s perfect for Game Masters and groups looking for more open-ended, less linear experiences.

While physical copies of Shadowdark are currently sold out, you can pre-order one from the next printing for $59. If you do, you’ll also get access to a PDF version of that content immediately. There’s also a free quickstart, featuring slim booklets for both players and game masters alike. It comes with a beginning dungeon crawl titled Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur.

Photo: Charlie Hall/worldnetgames

Rowan, Rook and Decard’s ultraviolent Eat The Reich also won multiple awards this year, bringing home gold medals for Best Art, Cover and Best Art, Interior as well as Best Adventure – Short Form. It’s easy to see why: The TTRPG puts players in the role of a powerful vampires who get “coffin dropped” into occupied Paris with the singular goal of “drinking all of Adolf Hitler’s blood.” It’s written by Grant Howitt, of Honey Heist fame, and illustrated by Will Kirkby, who has worked with Critical Role as well as Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and Boom! Studios.

Here at worldnetgames we love the Ennie Awards because of their unique format. Judges are volunteers from the EN World community who follow a useful set of ethical guidelines, and are asked to promise not to have a professional relationship with an RPG publisher in the lead-up to the awards. Guidelines such as these help ensure that the Ennies aren’t just a popularity contest but a more grassroots survey of the best the TTRPG industry has to offer. You can find the complete list of nominees and winners in every category at the Ennie Awards website.