[ENnies] PERSREP: Zachary, the First

Ihr erinnert euch evtl. daß wir, die deutschen Internetties uns mit Mehrheit für den theRPGSite indigena Zachary Houghton ausgesprochen haben. Dies hat u. a. zu seiner tatsächlichen Einzughaltung in das ENnies Jurorenkommittee geführt.

Nun, was hat es gebracht? Eine Menge! Zunächst hat er so gut er konnte uns alle über die Vorgänge und Abläufe informiert, in seinem Blog.

Darüberhinaus gab es immer wieder Sonderthreads, die über die zum Teil fragwürdigen Cliquenwirtschaftereien aufklärten. Welch wichtiger Segen war doch Zachary für diese Inzuchtbande!

Doch nicht nur den Finger auf Wunden legt er, nein, er eraarbeitete sich den Respekt seiner Conjuroren:

I’ll admit. When the judges were announced at the 2007 ENnies, I was skeptical. I was super-excited to be a judge myself, and a bit disappointed that Jeff Ranger, a good friend of mine, hadn’t made it in. Who was this Zachary Houghton, anyway? He’d never worked with the awards before, and I wasn’t familiar enough with his corner of the RPG inter-webs to know his handle.

After Gencon, when we started the awards process, it became quickly evident that Zachary was prepared to work his ass off to contribute to the ENnies as much as he possibly could. He read every product multiple times, play tested every product we got, was involved (and in many cases started) all of the discussions about the submissions, and was completely active on his blog. All of this came at a time when the rest of us were just starting to get a good handle on our first batch of submissions. (I excuse Chris Gath from that statement. He ALWAYS seems to have a good grasp on every product ever released).

I was so impressed with Zachary’s motivation in the first few weeks that I was almost appalled. In order to be able to spend that much time on the ENnies, the guy had to be a scuzzy basement dweller with no job or bills to distract him from his calling of RPG product evaluation. But boy howdy was I wrong. Aside from being amazingly devoted to the awards, Zachary is also able to hold down a normal life with normal job and a family (which includes a small child). When we sat down in the evenings to chat via gmail, Zachary always made sure that he still took time to be with his family, reading his daughter stories and tucking her into bed. Then he’d be back, talking about this product or that. I often saw him on the gchat in the late late evening, and if I pinged him, he was always reading an ENnies submission. I can’t even attempt to fathom how little sleep he got in May and June. I got little enough myself, and I don’t have the added responsibility of a 3 year old.

So yeah yeah yeah, the guy works his ass of for the awards, and is a great person to boot. But to top it off, his selections as a judge were impeccable. In many areas, I found him to be my twin in product ranking. We agreed much of the time, and when we didn’t, he was always respectful of my opinions. When we disagreed, he was still able to see where I was coming from on my own evaluations. He was able to look past what I considered to be glaring flaws in certain products, and he could always pull out the positives. I attribute a large portion of the diversity in this year’s nominees to his tenacity. He put in the good fight for quite a few spectacular products that otherwise might not have received a nomination.

What I’m trying to say here is that I hope Zachary Houghton runs for ENnies judge for many years to come. If he does, he certainly has my vote.

DISCLAIMER: This is not meant as an aspersion on any other ENnies judge this year. I think everyone did a fantastic job and put in alot of solid effort. I would be happy to serve with anyone on this year’s judging panel in the future, and it has been a great pleasure this year to work with such a fine group of people.

— Xath via Circus Maximus

Keine Frage, daß Leute wie Zach unglaublich wichtig für die ENnies sind. Und so hoffen wir, daß er sich dieses Jahr wieder zur Wahl stellt!

Ein Gedanke zu „[ENnies] PERSREP: Zachary, the First

  1. Zach hat in der Tat meine Erwartungen _übertroffen_, nachdem ich ihn als geringstes aller wählbaren Übel eingeschätzt hatte.Ich kann nur hoffen dass er dranbleibt und sich wieder aufstellen lässt.

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