EN World
EN World is a British-owned role-playing game news and reviews website, which has grown from the earlier "Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News" site (which was active from 1999-2001).
Description
The main focus of EN World is on tabletop role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons in particular, although discussion of all role-playing games also takes place. The website is run and owned by Russ Morrissey.
EN World publishes news about new product releases, and also acts as a database of different d20 products. An international community of gamers constitutes the forum members. Play-by-post games are also played using the EN World message boards. The Living EN World games use a "communal rogues' gallery" for all characters that have been accepted into the "living world"; these characters, once approved, may be used in any game being run in the particular "living world."
The website also hosts other sites, such as the Creature Catalog, which features monsters from previous editions of the D&D game that have been converted to d20 format.
Every year in association with the Gen Con gaming convention, beginning in 2002,[1] ENWorld has hosted the ENnies - an award show recognizing the best role-playing game products and publishers for the preceding year. The first ENnies were held online in 2001, and the following year they were officially announced at Gen Con. The ENnies are now officially known as the "Gen Con EN World Awards" show, for both d20 and non-d20 games, and as of 2014 are run by Business Manager Gabriel Whitehead.
In October 2005, the EN World GameStore opened, selling downloadable RPG products. Sellers on the GameStore can use their profits to buy other people's products, or transfer the money to PayPal to make it otherwise usable. Likewise, buyers must transfer cash from PayPal or a similar service to purchase any non-free product. The GameStore was sold to DriveThruRPG a year later, in 2006.
EN World began experimenting with media content in 2012, starting with a six episode animated show 'The Perturbed Dragon', video coverage of DragonMeet and the Battle of the Bards music competition. This trend is expected to continue in 2013 with coverage of Gen Con and a second season of The Perturbed Dragon.
History
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News was the primary source of information about the third edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game prior to its release by Wizards of the Coast. The site gathered rumors and released information about the game, and many members were playing a hybrid game using the rules from this site along with the existing second edition rules.
In 2001, Eric Noah announced that he was closing the website for personal reasons. A diaspora of other d20 news sites sprung into action at that time to replace it, of which EN World was the best known and most used. EN World was originally created as a message board to support a community project that had originally been launched on Eric Noah's site to design a campaign world for 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons. As such, it already had a large number of members from Eric Noah's site using the site at enworld.org