While
the idea of giving annual awards for various in-game events, characters,
etc. had been talked about for years and even sloppily attempted
in 1986, it was not until 1987 that any kind of nomination
and voting process was put in place. That year, 5 awards were
voted on between the then-players of Dafan,
Telenet and Aerth
after a rather informal round of nominations while a 6th
was given out after statistical determination; those 6 were:
Most Valuable Character
Most Valuable Player
Rookie of the Year
Play of the Year
Most Humourous Incident
Iron Man
The
winners received no physical award or trophy.
1988
saw the introduction of the
Futility Award, this soon
proved wildly popular. This same year saw the first attempt at
award certificates; modified many times since, these are
still given out today as keepsakes for the winners. The idea
of write-in awards – both by players and DMs – also arose
in 1988; with the write-in awards being considered in most cases
less formal and no certificates given. Some notable exceptions
have been the Most Co-operative Player
awards given out by DMs at various times between 1989 and 2001,
and the Order of the Bronze Casket
which has been awarded on a mostly regular basis since 1996.
By
1989, the community of games and players had become large and
diverse enough to render the nomination and voting process impractical;
thus in this year – and again in 1991 – awards were decided by
closed-door meetings among the DMs of the various then-active
games. This proved unsatisfactory, and as the community had also
contracted somewhat the original process was reinstated for 1992.
After
this, no major changes took place until 2003, when a new award
– Most
Entertaining Character – was introduced. A similar
write-in award given in 2000 was folded in to this category.
2003 also marked the first time that some award winners received
actual trophies: The Arrow,
for Most Valuable Character; and the Greenhorn
Trophy, for Rookie of the Year, were introduced.
2005
saw the presentation of two more trophies: the Gold
Cup for Most Entertaining Character, and the Kaylorelle
Memorial Cup for
Play of the Year. That year also saw the start of a two-year
process that resulted in the retroactive determination of awards
for the years 1981 through 1986 by a committee of long-time players;
these were announced at the 2006 awards ceremony. As a nod to
voting history, there is still no Futility Award for 1987.
In
2007 two more trophies were introduced: the Enterprise
Trophy, for Futility, and the
Laughing Cat for Most Humourous Incident.
2008
saw a huge expansion in both the number of games and number and
diversity of players, so much so that the award process had to
be broken down into stages. The first stage saw each individual
game determining its own winners via whatever means it saw fit;
in the second stage those winners were then put forward as nominees
for the overall awards, and a committee of DMs were charged with
making the final selections.
In
2009, a new trophy was introduced: Time Stops, donated
by Randie for presentation to each year's inductee into the Order
of the Bronze Casket. This year also saw a return to the traditional
all-hands voting process.
