Barkeep on the Borderlands Wins an Ennie

I started writing Barkeep on the Borderlands not long after starting this blog. On a February evening of 2021, the pair of barred owls that lives behind my house began incessant hooting (“Who cooks for you?! Who cooks for you?!”) outside my bedroom window. While I find our owl neighbors charming, and they are welcome to return to our backyard anytime they want, it reminded me of a friend with a woodpecker problem who, at wits’ end, threatened to carry out lethal violence against the bird but admitted defeat when said friend learned of the woodpecker’s protected status. That night, I wrote a little tavern, The Birdcage, and Barkeep on the Borderlands was born.

But Barkeep had a long gestation period and no shortage of parents. For about nine months, we wrote and edited Barkeep into a quite solid adventure (err, supplement), if I do say so myself. Then a couple months of final tweaks and running it through layout. Printing and fulfillment took even longer, but thankfully it was in backers’ hands before voting began. Barkeep began as just me typing away late one night, but it took a huge team to actually pull it off. Recruiting the perfect team felt a bit like the first act of a heist movie, and I’m glad we pulled it off and got the gold.

I must thank all the artists. Commissioning art is one of the great joys of being a non-artistic writer of games. I don’t get the people who are anti-art, other than it being a cheaper way to make games. But working with artists informs my process. They make choices in their art that surprise and delight me and influence how I write the same way that, when you are running a game and your players say something too cool to ignore, it might change the course of your campaign as you steal some of their ideas. All of the artists on Barkeep were a joy and I won’t delude myself into thinking that I could have achieved nearly as much without them on board. Cheers and thank you to Sam Mameli, Jim Hall, Acid Lich, Amanda Ho, Artie Esquire, Bertdrawsstuff, Caleb Nelson, Connor Ricks, Demidevilqueen, Emiel Boven, Gus L., Guy Pradel, Hodag RPG, Keny Widjaja, Luka Rejec, Norn Noszka, Sam Miller, and TorTheVic.

I must thank all the guest writers. When I kickstarted Barkeep on the Borderlands, I had just finished my first year of blogging and was basically an unknown (or, more accurately, known only for a very popular tweet about malls and dungeons). The bloggers-cum-writers who agreed to pitch in and be a “stretch goal” lent me some of their credibility at the start, but when it really counted, they gave me creativity. Even though I wrote half the pubs in Barkeep, many of my absolute favorites are the ones from the guest writers. They are each so distinct, flavorful and add such depth to the adventure. Each could be an adventure in its own right, and given the limited space that each writer had to work with, it is an absolute feat of writing. Each guest writer is also not only an accomplished writer but also a legendary blogger of the OSR, Post-OSR, or adjacent scenes, and I am happy to consider each my colleague and my friend. Cheers and thank you to Anne Hunter, Ava Islam, Ben Laurence, Chris McDowall, Emmy Verte, Gus L., Luka Rejec, Marcia B., Nick LS Whelan, Ty Pitre, and Zedeck Siew.

I must thank all the editors. Editing is invisible work. You don’t notice great editing when it is there, but you will notice its absence. Barkeep has editing in droves, and it is why it is so consistent in quality, why it is able to pack so many ideas in such little space, and why each encounter is “sticky” enough to inspire an entire session of gaming. If Barkeep stands the test of time and is still played and recommended in a decade’s time, it is not just due to the great team of artists and writers, it is because of the many, many hours the editors put in to sharpening it and honing it into an adventure worthy of its praise. Cheers and thank you, again, to Ava Islam, Nick LS Whelan, and Ty Pitre. 

I must thank Ty “Mindstorm” Pitre. The bulk of the work on Barkeep wasn’t writing or editing, it was project managing. It typically requires a professional, full-time staff working for a hoity toity publishing company to manage so many people all working in tandem on the same thing, but for some reason, I thought I could do it alone. I was wrong, and Barkeep simply would not have happened without Ty’s constant help. Ty is one of those people willing to jump in on any task and assist in any way he can, no matter how small or thankless the task may be. It is, in fact, a good thing he is named “TY” because it is the only way he can get half as many “thank you”s as he deserves. In particular, Ty put on the ostrich mask and filled in for me while I was off getting married and Barkeep was still going through its printing turmoils. Cheers and thank you to Ty Pitre. Also, he called the Ennies thing way before anyone else. 

I must thank my wife. Everyone always thanks their partners for the support, etc., when they win an award, but my partner did more than just support me as I was making Barkeep–she helped make it too! K.T. Nguyen has been a proofreader on everything from undergrad to this very blog post, and that, of course, includes proofing Barkeep. More than that, she is the layout artist who was able to cram so much into such a (relatively) small book. Every layout flourish is 100% her, and she gets a lot of credit for how usable Barkeep is at the table. Shortly after the Barkeep kickstarter, K.T. Nguyen and I got engaged. Shortly before Barkeep started shipping worldwide, we got married. I am thankful that she didn’t let those small, personal matters distract her from the important work of laying out Barkeep on the Borderlands! I am the only person she can stand to be around, and she is the only person who can stand being around me, so we are a perfect fit. Cheers and thank you to my wife, K.T. Nguyen.

And, of course, I must thank you. When I started blogging, it was just as a way to exorcize all of my TTRPG ideas while I was stuck at home during the pandemic. While I hoped people would read what I wrote, I didn’t write anything with the expectation that they actually would. But people, presumably you, seem to care about what I have to say, and you’ve encouraged for me to write more and more. Readers embiggen the writer, and I feel mighty embiggened as I write this tonight, immediately after the Ennies have been announced. It is cliche to feel humbled after you win a big award, but I see where people are coming from. I feel profoundly un-humble because I freaking won (gold), but at the same time, the achievement itself reminds me that I didn’t win anything alone. I couldn’t have made jack squat, much less Barkeep, without my friends (i.e., the whole Barkeep team), and it would have never been anything more than a vanity project without people who care and engage with my work and the work of my colleagues and friends. So thank you for reading blogs in 2023 and for keeping the DIY spirit alive in TTRPGs.