EN World, also known as Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG News, is a British-owned tabletop

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

news and reviews website founded in 2000, which grew from the earlier "Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News" site (which was active from 1999-2001).

Description

The main focus of EN World is on tabletop role-playing games news, initially ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

'', but since 2004 the website has covered the whole tabletop RPG hobby. The website is run and owned by

Russ Morrissey Russ Morrissey, also known as Morrus (born June 1974), is a British reporter, game designer, podcaster, author and owner of EN World. Morrissey founded the ENnie Awards in 2001, which he ran until 2018. He also founded the book publisher EN Publi ...

, more commonly known as Morrus. EN World publishes news about the tabletop role-playing game hobby. It is known for current news and product rumors and often scoops major product release announcements before they are officially unveiled. EN World's forums, opened in 1999, are one of the world’s oldest online tabletop RPG communities. An international community of over a quarter-million gamers constitutes the forum members, who discuss tabletop RPGs in-depth in forums devoted to tabletop RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. Play-by-post games are also played using the EN World message boards. In October 2005, the EN World GameStore opened, selling downloadable RPG products. Sellers on the GameStore could use their profits to buy other people's products, or transfer the money to PayPal to make it otherwise usable. Likewise, buyers could transfer cash from PayPal or a similar service to purchase any non-free product. The GameStore was sold to DriveThruRPG a year later, in 2006. EN World began experimenting with media content in 2012, starting with a six-episode animated show 'The Perturbed Dragon', video coverage of DragonMeet and the Battle of the Bards music competition. In 2018 the site launched its official podcast, Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk, a weekly look at tabletop roleplaying game news.

ENnies

Every year in association with the

Gen Con Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playin ...

gaming convention, founded by

in 2002, EN World has hosted the

ENnies The ENNIE Awards (previously stylized as ENnie Awards) are awards for role-playing game (RPG) products (including game-related accessories, publications, and art) and their creators. The awards were created in 2001 by Russ Morrissey of EN World ...

- an award show recognizing the best role-playing game products and publishers for the preceding year. The first

were held online in 2001, and the following year they were officially announced at

. The

were officially known as the "Gen Con EN World RPG Awards" from 2002-2019, for all tabletop

products, and as of 2017 are run by Business Manager, Stacey Muth. In 2019, EN World owner

retired from the ENnies, which were officially renamed "The ENnies".

EN Publishing

EN Publishing (originally called Natural 20 Press) was established in 2001 and is the publishing arm of EN World. It has published over 300 books, including the ''What's O.L.D. is N.E.W.'' (WOIN) role-playing game system, as well as its popular EN5ider magazine, and the official

Judge Dredd (role-playing game) ''Judge Dredd'' has been the inspiration for four role-playing game systems. These games are based on the fictional world of the ''Judge Dredd'' series from the British comic '' 2000AD''. The role-playing games are unrelated to each other excep ...

. In 2016

Angus Abranson Angus Abranson is a game designer, publisher and poet who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career Angus Abranson started playing ''AD&D'' in 1984, and by the age of 14 he was working for Leisure Games - one of the top game retailers ...

joined EN Publishing as business director. Abranson left in 2019 and was replaced by Jessica Hancock, while Marc Langworthy joined as 2000 AD line manager. In August 2020 EN Publishing announced a project code-named ''Level Up'', an advanced take on ''

'' 5th Edition. In October of the same year, the company announced the ''Awfully Cheerful Engine'', a comic-book-inspired tabletop game.

History

Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News was the primary source of information about the third edition of the ''

'' role-playing game before its release by Wizards of the Coast. The site gathered rumors and released information about the game, and many members were playing a hybrid game using the rules from this site along with the existing second-edition rules. In 2001, Eric Noah announced that he was closing the website for personal reasons. A diaspora of other d20 news sites sprung into action at that time to replace it, of which EN World was the best known and most used. EN World was originally created as a sub-forum on Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News to support a community project that had originally been launched on Eric Noah's site to design a campaign world for 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons. It quickly developed into a news website covering d20 System products, while Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News focused on official D&D news. When Eric Noah's site closed, EN World took on the site's D&D news role.

References

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External links