EN World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
EN World is an online community which grew out of the message boards for "Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News" (on the web from 1999-2001).
The main focus of EN World is on d20 System-based role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons in particular, although discussion of other types of role-playing games also takes place. As of February 2006, there are approximately 40,000 registered users, making it the largest Dungeons & Dragons-related website after Wizards of the Coast's own site, and one of the largest roleplaying-related sites on the web. Currently, the website is run and owned by Russell Morrissey.
EN World publishes news about new product releases, and also acts as a database of different d20 products. The members can review and comment on different products. In addition to this, the website also has active d20 and D&D forums. An international community of gamers constitutes the forum members.
The website also hosts other sites, such as the Creature Catalog, which features monsters that have been converted to d20 format.
Every year at GenCon, beginning in 2002, ENWorld has hosted the ENnies - an award show recognizing the best tabletop 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 GenCon. The ENnies are now officially known as the "GenCon ENWorld Awards" show, for both d20 to non-d20 games.
In October of 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.
[edit] 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
[edit] Culture
- EN World and its predecessor have been the birthplace many active sub-groups, including the Pantheon and the Hivemind. The Pantheon eventually homed itself in Nutkinland, which later became Nothingland.
- EN World's story hour forum has perhaps the largest collection of re-tellings of the events of D&D (and other RPG) campaigns on the internet, both in narrative and game log.
