THE WELLS/ROBERTS AWARDS The mailing cover of this issue contains the ballot for the H.G. Wells and Roberts awards presented each year by GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association) at Origins. The award process has gone through many trials, tribulations and modifications through the years, nevery fully satisfying a majority of those involved in the process. This year is no exception. In previous years, the wargaming public nominated the products (or personalities) they felt deserved consideration for an award. The final selection from among the nominees was by the awards committee, a group of gaming "professionals" who were recognized in the hobby by dint of their positions as Editors, Game Designers, Rules Writers, or many-times-published Authors in the genre. The committee members also paid for the privilege of being on the committee about $5 per head, or $100 a year taken by GAMA to cover the expense of the awards. The complaint under this system was that large companies sent around already filled out photocopies of the nomination ballot to their employees (usually one and all gamers - at least for this exercise). This blatant ballot stuffing was countered somewhat by the awards committee "Senate" who voted based on their own personal experience with the product but limited by the nominations generated by the ballot stuffing. A further complaint was that smaller producers with small followings never had their product nominated, no matter how superior it was. In the new system, the Awards Committee nominates and the wargame public votes - for a fee of $2 each; perhaps a take of $10,000 for GAMA to cover expenses! The opportunity for a corrupted vote is exactly the same. It just costs companies more money to accomplish it. The final arbiter is the honest gamer, with or without company affiliation, who votes his conscience perhaps even writing in his selection. To give a fair chance to your favorite candidate you must vote to counter any ballot stuffing that might go on. This year there has been a reduction in the number of awards. This was done, according to a GAMA spokesmen, "to reduce the confusion of the media who would report on the awards and make them more creditable and understandable to the public" (approximate quote - ED). Frankly the direction of the simplification makes the awards less understandable and creditable to me and perhaps to most Historical Miniature Wargamers: 1. Historical Miniature rules are grouped together with Fantasy, Science Fiction and Role Play miniature rules. 2. Historical Vehicles and Accessories are grouped together with Science Fiction and Fantasy Accessories. 3. All Professional Wargame Magazines are grouped together. Thus, very large circulation magazines like the Dragon are competing in a popularity contest with small circulation magazines like The Courier. The problem being that their circulation number does not reflect the popularity visa vis one another but is a measure of the population of the wargame area they cater to. You will note that neither the magazines mentioned above, nor any miniature magazine (there are many good ones besides The Courier), are listed. The simplification is all from the Historical end; there are 2 Historical Miniature only categories but 4 Role Play categories and 7(!) Boardgame categories. You will note that The Dragon and The Courier are conspicuous by their absence from the list of award nominees. This is not because they have suddenly become trash over the last year but that they have been "honorably retired" from the list, having won every year since their inception. They will be given a special award at Origins, I understand, the exact nature of which I am not privy to. So I have mixed feelings about the situation. An on-going recognition of these two magazines' contribution to the hobby could be established in the GAMA Awards in a Dragon Award and a Courier Award for some aspect of Wargame publishing endeavor. Then we could, with honor, be indefinitely retired from the awards and give others a chance. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VIII No. 2 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com