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You can already buy Gen Con’s Ennie-winning RPGs

Get the best RPGs that Gen Con 2023 had to offer

By Alice Newcome-Beill
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Key art for Rivers of London, The Blade Runner RPG, and Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. Graphic: Alice Newcome-Beill/Polygon | Source images: Wizards of the Coast, Free League Publishing, Chaosium
Alice Newcome-Beill (she/her) is a commerce writer, and she has been writing about gaming and tech since 2005. Prior to Polygon, she worked at publications such as The Verge.

Every year at Gen Con, fans choose the best tabletop RPGs and other products in show. There are several categories, with Ennie Award winners being picked 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 like to know that some of the best games showcased at Gen Con 2023 are available to purchase today.

Below, we’ve rounded up all the gold and silver medal winners that you can currently pick up. We’ve included links to winners in all categories as well.

Product of the Year

This category represents the overall fan favorite showcased at Gen Con 2023. That distinction belongs to the Mythic Britain & Ireland expansion for Vaesen. You can pick up the PDF from DriveThruRPG for $21.99, or a hardcover copy from 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 on Amazon for around $26.91.

Best Adventure

Awarded to the best seeds, one-shots, and campaign ideas, the gold medal for Best Adventure this year went to the Seasons of Mystery expansion for Vaesen, which is available from DriveThruRPG for $19.99, or hardcover from Amazon for around $34.

Second place went to the D&D campaign Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, which you can find on Amazon in hardcover format for around $27.49.

Best Aid/Accessory - Non-Digital

Extra bits and bobs can make a campaign or setting feel more real. This category belongs to the best physical accessories to add a little extra flavor to your next game. First place goes to Decuma, a tarot-inspired world-building aid that provides players and GMs with relationships, locations, and other prompts to flesh out their campaign. Decuma is currently available from Woodburn Games for $34.99.

Second place in this category goes to an exquisitely crafted set of dice inspired by The Witcher. The weighty black and gold Golem’s Heart set is currently available from Q Workshop for $99.

Best Art, Cover

You can’t always judge a book by its cover, but occasionally you can. Swords of the Serpentine took home the gold medal for best cover art at Gen Con 2023. Currently, you can pick up a $30 PDF from DriveThruRPG. The hardcover copy is available from Pelgrane Press or Amazon for around $60.

The runner-up, Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent, is available as a hardcover bundled with a PDF from Metis Creative for $49.99.

Best Art, Interior

The gold medal for excellent illustrations this year goes to the Mythic Britain & Ireland expansion for Vaesen, available at DriveThruRPG in PDF format for $22, or in hardcover format at Amazon for $37. Seven Sinners took home second place, and you can pick up a hardcover copy at Modiphius for around $23.

Best Cartography

Like the warrior poet Karen O once said, “Maps, they don’t love you like I love you.” Every year, Gen Con awards Best Cartography to games that deliver outstanding art and technique to flesh out the topography of a given setting. This year, the gold medalist is the Blade Runner RPG Starter Set, with its moody depiction of near-future Los Angeles available at Amazon for around $38.71, or at Modiphius for around $52.

Claw Atlas: New Maps for Beak, Feather, & Bone took second place in this category. You can find the chicken scratch-inspired wilderness guide in paperback format from Possible Worlds Games for $13, or a $5 PDF version from Itch.io.

Best Electronic Book

This category is reserved for print-and-play games. This year, the gold medalist 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 Scenarios, available from DriveThruRPG for $7.99.

Best Family Game

The gold award for Best Family Game from Gen Con 2023 goes to Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, which is available at Target for $25. The runner-up in this category goes to The Goblings, which 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 Ultima, which has PDFs available from DriveThruRPG for $12, and a paperback printed version at Amazon for around $27. You can also find PDFs for the runner-up Trophy RPG at DriveThruRPG for $14.99.

Best Layout and Design

The core rulebook for the Blade Runner RPG took home the gold medal for layout and design at Gen Con 2023, and is available in hardcover format from Amazon for $59.99. The silver medal belongs to the acid Western RPG Frontier Scum, which 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 beasties, baddies, and other XP-granting nightmares. 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 belongs to the Creatures 2 manual for Fateforge, available in hardcover format from Studio 2 Publishing for $50.

Best RPG Related Product

Look into this poor Owlbear’s eyes and tell them they didn’t win the best RPG-related product category. You can’t, because they won. To adopt your own $35 Owlbear plush, you can head over to Metal Weave Games.

Second place in this category went to the Dragons of the Red Moon miniatures for Dragonbond 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 that turn each other with Swiss precision, Best Rules is awarded to games featuring excellent mechanical design. This year, the gold medal went to Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, which you can find at Target for $25. The runner-up in this category was Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, which is available in PDF format from DriveThruRPG for $30, or in hardcover directly from publisher Chaosium for $60.

Best Setting

A pair of clear favorites from Gen Con 2023 took home awards for best setting, fleshing out their respective worlds with a powerful combination of rich text and illustrations. The gold medal in this category belongs to the Mythic Britain & Ireland expansion for Vaesen, while the silver medal belongs to Swords of the Serpentine.

Best Supplement

Barkeep on the Borderlands took first place for best supplement at Gen Con 2023, providing a detailed compilation of taverns, bars, pubs, and dives complete with patrons to add a little extra sauce to your next campaign. You can pick up a PDF of Barkeep on the Borderlands from DriveThruRPG or Itch.io for $10.

The second place winner, Into the Cess and Citadel, contains a vast amount of system-agnostic flavor for characters, factions, and monsters to populate sprawling urban-fantasy cities and undercities. 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 Serpentine, is available in PDF format for $30 from DriveThruRPG, or in hardcover for around $60 from Pelgrane Press or Amazon. Runner-up The Wildsea 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 stuff you can use to juice up your next campaign, free of charge. While these all deserve a gold medal in my book, first place went to the quickstart manual for Root: The RPG by Talon Hill, while second place went to the 54-page module for the Shadowdark RPG system, Shrine of the Jaguar Princess.

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