EN World, also known as Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG News, is a British-owned tabletop role-playing game news and reviews website founded in 2000, which grew from the earlier "Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News" site.
Description
The main focus of EN World is on tabletop role-playing games news, initially Dungeons & Dragons, but since 2004 the website has covered the whole tabletop RPG hobby. The website is run and owned by Russ Morrissey, more commonly known as Morrus. EN World publishes news about the tabletop role-playing game hobby. It is known for current news and product rumors, and often scoops major product release announcements before they are officially unveiled. EN World's forums, opened in 1999, are one of the world’s oldest online tabletop RPG communities. An international community of over a quarter-million gamers constitutes the forum members, who discuss tabletop RPGs in-depth in forums devoted to tabletop RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. Play-by-post games are also played using the EN World message boards. In October 2005, the EN World GameStore opened, selling downloadable RPG products. Sellers on the GameStore could use their profits to buy other people's products, or transfer the money to PayPal to make it otherwise usable. Likewise, buyers could 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. In 2018 the site launched its official podcast, Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk, a weekly look at tabletop roleplaying game news.
Every year in association with the Gen Con gaming convention, beginning in 2002, EN World 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 were officially known as the "Gen Con EN World RPG Awards" from 2002-2019, for all tabletop role-playing game products, and as of 2017 are run by Business Manager, Stacey Muth. In 2019, EN World owner Russ Morrissey retired from the ENnies, which were officially renamed "The ENnies".
EN Publishing
EN Publishing was established in 2001 and is the publishing arm of EN World. It has published over 300 books, including the What's O.L.D. is N.E.W. roleplaying game system, as well as its popular EN5ider magazine, and the official Judge Dredd. In 2016 Angus Abranson joined EN Publishing as business director. Abranson left in 2019, and was replaced by Jessica Hancock, while Marc Langworthy joined as 2000 ADline manager.
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 sub-forum on Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News 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. It quickly developed into a news website covering d20 System products, while Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News focused on official D&D news. When Eric Noah's site closed, EN World took on the site's D&D news role.
