ENnie Awards 2022 winners: Thirsty Sword Lesbians sweeps top TRPG categories amid tough competition
Call of Cthulhu and Wanderhome among other big winners.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians adds two more wins to its growing pile of accolades after claiming the top two awards at the 2022 ENnies, the top honours in tabletop RPG awards shows.
The Powered by the Apocalypse game of swashbuckling storytelling and flirting at knifepoint clinched both the Best Game and Product of the Year awards at a ceremony hosted during Gen Con 2022. The former is awarded to the tabletop RPG considered the best game among the judge’s nominations, while the latter category encompasses all kinds of releases - books, supplements, tools, art and more.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians has been on a popular tear since its release. Published by Evil Hat Productions and written by a host of talented designers, it won a Nebula Award for best game writing earlier this year and has been a darling of actual play groups on Twitch and YouTube (Dicebreaker, included). A recent supplement, cleverly titled Advanced Lovers & Lesbians, expanded the already sizeable playbooks and scenario options for groups to use in their decidedly queer tabletop RPG campaigns.
The silver winner in the Best Game category was Magpie’s Root: the RPG, which Magpie Games adapted from the extremely popular asymmetric board game from Cole Wehrle and Patrick Leder’s design studio. Root: the RPG’s Travellers and Companion book also picked up a silver ENnie for best supplement, ultimately losing out to Call of Cthulhu’s Cults of Cthulhu, which details five fervent organisations for groups to encounter in Chaosium’s tabletop RPG that beats out Dungeons & Dragons in popularity contests, at least in Japan.
Speaking of Call of Cthulhu, its Classic Prop Set took home silver in the Product of the Year category. Created by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, the set contains 124 props designed to be used in LARPs, tabletop games and other play that draws upon the cosmic horror genre, including broadsheets (a precursor to modern newspapers), maps, diaries and letters and legal documents.
The art categories have become a more varied and contentious race since Mörk Borg cleaned house a few years ago. Possum Creek Game’s Wanderhome managed to claim gold in Best Cover Art - Silver went to Uncaged Goddesses - and a silver in Interior Art, losing to The One Ring 2E. The game’s pastoral, post-war fantasy setting and focus on interpersonal play did earn it a win in Best Family Game, as well.
Other wins deserving a mention include Best Writing going to Dune: Adventures in the Imperium from Modiphius and Best Rules going to indie solo journaling game Colostle. The Tal Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, Critical Role’s core world sourcebook, beat out Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Halls for best setting, though the concept of an immigrant family running a restaurant by day and hunting traditional demons by night won it critical acclaim among fans and players.
All of the 2022 ENnie Awards winners can be viewed on the organisation’s website, and a recorded version of the awards show is now on Youtube. These winners were chosen by a public vote on a shortlist selected by a panel of judges. The ENnies have been running for more than 20 years and are widely considered one of the biggest honours in the tabletop RPG space.