News Collider - Board Game News 10th July

This week's News Collider is one of those odd ones.  Its a Big Little, or maybe a Little Big one, as there hasn't been a huge swarth of news in our little board gaming community...but, there has been one really big story that has been raging since it broke on Friday.

So, without further ado, read on for RPG awards nominations, how Dungeons & Dragons is now more inclusive and plagiarism

2019 Ennie Nominations

The Ennies Award nominations have been revealed ahead of the results presentation on August 2nd at Gencon.  The Ennies are a fanbased award, celebrating the cream of the RPG crop each year.

There are 22 categories, including everything from Best Adventure to Best Cartography and then, so whether you're looking for something new or if you just want to see what is hot the full.short list of nominations can be found here.

Audio Form Player’s Handbook

The National Library Service (NLS) has converted the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook in to a full navigable audio form to enable those with visual impairments the chance to now more fully experience the world of D&D.

The NLS, part of the US Library of Congress provides a free braille and talking book library service for American citizens with temporary or permanent low vision, blindness, or a physical disability that prevents them from reading or holding the printed page.

This fantastic undertaking is the first step into converting the 5th edition core books into an audio format, with the Dungeon Master’s Manual and Monster Manual up next.

The Katie Aidely Plagiarism Scandal

Here’s a slightly difficult news story.  Difficult because the idea of plagiarism in our hobby is nothing short of reprehensible.  Difficult because Katie was, for a long time, a fellow board game reviewer and content creator. Difficult because, despite all the pratting around and ramshackle nonsense, we take a great deal of pride in what we put out and contribute to the board game community and although it’s not strictly “work” in many ways it can feel like a part time job.  Difficult because I want to present the facts as clearly and as plainly as possible without it spilling over into an opinion piece.

So, to begin.

Katie Aidley was a board game reviewer who wrote reviews as well as other board game adjacent subjects and also covered other issues such as mental health in their articles and posts on the website Katie’s Gaming Corner among guest writing on a number of others.  In 2017 Katie posted a review of Caylus which took, almost verbatim, multiple lines from a review posted on Board Game Geek in 2007.  With the announcement of the reprint of this game some people noticed the similarities between these reviews and the accusations and the investigations were published via a thread on Reddit.

Quickly, the Katies Gaming Corner website was removed, as too were the reviews posted on BGG by Katie.  The various Social Media platforms attached to Katie were set to private, locked or closed.

More accusations of plagiarism were raised (the number and extent of which is beyond the scope of my investigative skills).  An apology was presented on Katie’s personal now-private-Facebook page. Later that same day Punchboard Media, of which Katie was an original member, released a statement further clarifying the incidents.

The discussion these incidents are still being held widely across pretty much every platform with lots of addition details, opinions and arguments, but the above is, as far as we care to delve into this subject, the facts.