Tyler Raymond Johnston
Introduction
My name is Tyler and I’ve been playing ttrpg for just about 10 years now. I stared in the hobby when I was helping f a friend and his dad clean out his game closest and we found his old ADND 1e books from when he was are age and it’s just snowballed into a huge part of my life. I think I would be a great judge because this hobby has become a huge part of my life over the last 10 years to where I’ve made some of my closest friends and even met my wife through. I love everything about ttrpg and I feel like this would be a great way to give back to the community to help recognize and give attention to what this community has to offer.
Why do you play/run RPGs?
I play/run RPGs because it’s a great way to stay in touch with past friends after I’ve moved countries and at this point has become a hyperfixation for my autism so I’m needing to be constantly reading/playing to fill that need.
The ENNIES requires a major commitment of time and energy. What resources do you have that will help you discharge these responsibilities? Will your gaming group or other individuals be assisting you? Does your family support you?
I have plenty of free time as a stay at home father of 2 children with level 3 autism so I also have time to read new books as they have reached the age where they are becoming less dependent for everything. My group loves trying new games as after every campaign we’re usually hoping from one system to the next so to hear that they will get to help shape the outcome of the ENNIES would be a fun opportunity for us. My wife is also a big fan of RPGs and a part of my groups so she would 100% fully back me on this.
Judging requires a great deal of critical thinking skills, communication with other judges, deadline management, organization, and storage space for the product received. What interests, experience, and skills do you bring that will make you a more effective judge?
My past experiences that would help the best was back in highschool I wrote reviews for different RPGs from time to time for my highschool news paper for some extra credit from the TV and video teacher who was also into the hobby and ran both the newspaper club and DND club my school had. Also before becoming a stay at home dad I was the store manager of a Wendy’s so my deadline management and organization skill I feel are quite a bit above average as I had to send in weekly reports to the regional manager for my franchise and be in charge of how the back of house area with sorted and organized for the best way for my fellow employees to be able to safely and effectively get to supplies or food products. As for storage space my wife and I own have plenty of space in the house we currently live in between my bookshelf and some storage boxes.
What styles and genres of RPGs do you enjoy most? Are there any styles or genres that you do not enjoy? Which games best exemplify what you like? Do you consider yourself a fan of a particular system, publisher, or genre?
I mostly enjoy running medium to rule lite games with a bit more emphasis on player input so how things play out like fabula ultima. For genres I’m a life long fan of science fiction/science fantasy. For a rules medium/lite science fantasy game I find star wars d6 fills my need every well and one of my favorite old school games and one I use quite a bit to get people to try out the hobby. Lately I’ve found myself really fond of the essence 20 system by renegade games and the AGE system from green ronin.
List (up to 5) games you’ve played in the last 2 years. What drew you to playing them? Which did you like best and why?
5 games I’ve played in the last year were fabula ultima which grabbed my attention seeing it on drive thru rpg one day and just falling in love with the art and loving how to combines forge in the dark with riutama, Terminator rpg was a no brainer for me to pick up as a long time fan of the franchise and wanting to see how a roleplaying game would handle both the future war and the time travel elements from the series, power rangers the role playing game and perfect draw for my attention as being the best I’ve found for emulating the stories of the franchises they represent as someone who’s tried for years to find something that really fit what I wanted for years, and dragon age the role playing game does a great job of capturing the feel of the video games and the stunts just add some much to the game with making each class able to add something to each scene no matter if it was exploration, combat, or roleplaying. There’s been more I’ve played in the last 5 years but my favorite out of that list has got to be perfect draw as it really is the first game I’ve found that just captures the story telling potential of a card game anime in a ttrpg with its blend of pbta rules and card game rules. I’ll definitely be going back to that system again and again.
Have you been a game master in the past 2 years? If yes, what games have you run? What made you decide to run those games?
I’m my groups permanent DM for the most part, sometimes one of the people in my groups find a game they would like to run so I’ll let them. But for the last 2 years I’ve ran the 5 games listed above, a basic fantasy rpg campaign, Transformers rpg, Daggerheart, Masks, Beam Saber, Fallout, Animon Stories, Mork Borg, Pirate Borg, and I’m sure I’m missing a few as well.
Summarize the criteria you would use to determine if a game deserves to be nominated for Best Game.
The criteria I would use to determine best game in an order for what I find the most important to least important would be, how well the game feels and runs while playing, readability, how well rules are explained, layout, includes an index, and art.
How will you judge supplements or adventures for game systems whose core rules you are unfamiliar with or you believe are badly designed?
I would judge them based on how well they either improve the rules for a system I wasn’t particularly a fan of which the supplements for the power rangers rpg have done incredibly well by making a mediocre system so much more fun to play with all the fun new stuff they add. And for and adventure book it would be based on how well written or how unique the adventure was that either would make me want to pick up the system as soon as possible to get to run it or even put aside any gripes I have against a system that I don’t like to run it anyways.
How would you like to see the ENNIEs change? What should remain inviolate?
I would like to add a third place winner as just having gold and silver has always bothered me in a way that’s hard to explain and I think a category that helps promote a bit more untraditional games like those that use tokens or playing cards instead of dice. I think everything else at least from the public side is done really well and wouldn’t want much else changed.