The successful old-school RPG Shadowdark wins 4 gold medals at Gen Con

The Shadowdark Pen & Paper RPG won first prize at this year’s Ennie Awards. And that’s not all! A Expert panel gave the old-school-inspired RPG three other Gold medals, including Best Game, Best Layout and Design and even Best Rules. This is what creator Kelsey Dionne and her team at The Arcane Library At Gen Con’s biggest awards ceremony, you can probably win hands down.

Shadowdark was a rather slow process among dedicated fans of the TTRPG genre, where it gained a name mainly through word of mouth in the years following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it required a high-profile Kickstarter campaign in 2023 to really bring the game into the public consciousness. It raised nearly $1.4 million there – a significant amount for a TTRPG of any kind, let alone a throwback like this. It’s a rules-light system that’s well-suited to players who are getting their first taste of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. It’s perfect for Game Masters and groups looking for more open, less linear experiences.

While physical copies of Shadowdark are currently sold out, but you can pre-order a copy from the next edition for 59$. When you do so, you will also get instant access to a PDF version of this content. There is also a Free quick startwith slim booklets for players and game masters. It contains a first dungeon crawl entitled The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Rowan, Rook and Decard’s ultra-brutal Eat The Reich has also won several awards this year, taking home gold medals for Best Illustration, Best Cover and Illustration, Best Interior, and Best Adventure – Short Form. It’s easy to see why: the TTRPG puts players in the role of powerful vampires who are dropped into the coffin in occupied Paris with the sole goal of “drinking all the blood of Adolf Hitler.” It was written by Grant Howitt, by 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 Polygon, we love the Ennie Awards for their unique format. The judges are volunteers from the AND World Community that follows a useful set of ethical guidelinesand are asked to promise not to have a professional relationship with an RPG publisher in advance of the awards ceremony. Policies like these help ensure that the Ennies are not just a popularity contest, but a more down-to-earth survey of the best that the TTRPG industry has to offer. The full list of nominees and winners in each category can be found on the Ennie Awards website.