Where to buy the best TTRPGs from Gen Con 2024

Every year, the tabletop RPG community votes on a collection of the best TTRPGs and other products shown off at Gen Con. Known as the Ennie Awards, games and other products can be nominated for a variety of categories, including excellence in art direction, design mechanics, writing, and more.

If you’re excited to try some of these new titles, you’ll be pleased to know that many of the winners featured at Gen Con 2024 are already available to purchase.

Below, you’ll find links to all of the first-place and second-place winners in all of the relevant categories featured in this year’s Ennie awards.

This category represents the overall fan favorite showcased at Gen Con 2024. This year, that distinction belongs to Shadowdark RPG, which can be purchased directly from The Arcane Library in both PDF and hardcover formats. Second place went to Outgunned, which is available to buy from DriveThruRPG as a PDF for $11.90.

Awarded to the best seeds and one-shots, the gold medal for Best Short Adventure this year went to Eat the Reich, which can be purchased in both physical and PDF formats from publisher Rowan & Deckard. Second place went to One-Shot Wonders which is available from Roll & Play Press.

The award for best long-form adventure goes to works with awesome campaign ideas. This year that distinction belongs to Delta Green: God’s Teeth, while the runner-up Call of Cthulu: Alone Against the Static took home silver.

Extra bits and bobs can make a campaign or setting feel more real. This category belongs to the best physical and digital accessories that add a little extra flavor to your game. First place in the digital category goes to LegendKeeper, which is available as a free trial, but offers monthly subscriptions for $7.50. Second place goes to Hexroll 2E, a hex-based world-building tool that’s available for free, but offers additional benefits to Patreon subscribers at $2.50 a month.

For physical accessories, first place went to the luxurious Arkham Investigator’s Wallet, a $100 prop set developed for Call of Cthulu. While second place belongs to the Hexcrawl Toolbox.

You can’t always judge a book by its cover, but occasionally you can. This year, the best cover art belongs to Eat the Reich, with illustrations from artist Will Kirkby. Koriko: A Magical Year was the runner-up with its cozy and evocative cover drawn by Deb JJ Lee.

Eat the Reich also took home first place for interior illustrations. But UVG 2E took home second place, with illustrations by designer Luka Rejc.

Like the warrior poet Karen O once said, “Maps, they don’t love you like I love you.” Every year, Gen Con awards Best Cartography to games that deliver outstanding art and technique to flesh out the topography of a given setting. This year, first place went to the Dragonbane Core Set, which is available from Amazon and Modiphius for around $44. The expansion for the Alien RPG, Building Better Worlds, took home second.

The gold award for Best Family Game from Gen Con 2024 goes to BREAK!! Tabletop RPG, which can be purchased as a $25 PDF directly from the publisher. Second place goes to the cleverly named If I Were A Lich, Man, which can be purchased as a $35 hardcover from Hit Point Press.

Ready to play out of the box, the Best Game category is all about RPGs that bring together the best overall art, writing, and rules under one roof. This year, that distinction belongs to the Shadowdark RPG, while Outgunned took home second place.

Shadowdark RPG again took home the gold medal for layout and design at Gen Con 2024. However, the silver medal belongs to CBR+PNK: Augmented, which is available as a deluxe, $30 box set from the publisher, or a $10 PDF from itch.io.

The Best Monster/Adversary category is awarded exclusively to books full of beasties, baddies, and other XP-granting nightmares. The 2024 gold medal in this category was tied between Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory Threat Assessment Xenos and Monsterous.

The devil is truly in the details. Best Production Values is a category that recognizes attention to detail and quality. This year, first and second place replicate the recipients of the best physical accessories of 2024. The Arkham Investigator’s Wallet and the Hexcrawl Toolbox.

Not necessarily awarded to games, this category is awarded to products inspired by TTRPGs and their communities. This year, first place goes to the long-winded, but extremely helpful GM text, So You Want to Be a Game Master: Everything You Need to Start Your Tabletop Adventure for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and Other Systems. Second place in this category went to the KOBOLD Guide to Roleplaying.

Occasionally referred to as the “crunchiest game,” like perfectly interlocking gears that turn each other with Swiss precision, Best Rules is awarded to games featuring excellent mechanical design. This year, Shadowdark RPG took the gold, and the Pathfinder Player Core set was the runner-up.

A pair of clear favorites from Gen Con 2024 took home awards for best setting, fleshing out their respective worlds with a powerful combination of rich text and illustrations. This year, first place went to Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide, and second place went to Valley of Flowers.

Building Better Worlds, the expansion for the Alien RPG, took home first place for the best supplementary content of 2024, while The Griffon’s Saddlebag: Book Two received second place honors.

This category is awarded to games with the best prose and other descriptive text. The gold medalist, Call of Cthulhu: Alone Against the Static is available from Amazon or Chaosium in print format for $29.99, or from Chaosium as a $15 PDF. Runner-up Cloud Empress: Land of Cicadas, a fantasy campaign setting for the Mothership RPG system, can be purchased from DriveThruRPG as a PDF for $11.99.

The open-source nature of tabletop gaming is one of its greatest strengths, evidenced by the wealth of free tools, systems, and campaigns available online. This award celebrates the best stuff you can use to juice up your next campaign, free of charge. While these all deserve a gold medal in my book, first place went to Rivers of London: The Domestic, and second place went to Level 1: The Free RPG Day Indie RPG Anthology 2023.