Crit Awards - Tumblr Posts

As this post mentions, I'm eligible for Best Game Master | Indie at the CRIT Awards! If you enjoy my GMing on @merelyroleplayers, I hope you'll consider honouring me with a nomination!

If you're feeling extra generous, my work is also eligible in the Best Supplement or third party content category. To tie in with Merely Roleplayers' Monster of the Week campaign, I've been releasing mysteries for Monster of the Week; these three all came out within the CRIT Awards eligibility period:

Sherrydown Enquirer 3: Tourist Trap https://merelymatt.itch.io/touristtrap

Sherrydown Enquirer 4: Bad Dog https://merelymatt.itch.io/baddog

Sherrydown Enquirer 5: Quarry https://merelymatt.itch.io/quarry

The CRIT Awards: for your consideration

The Creator Recognition in TTRPG (CRIT) Awards are open to nominations until 1 June!

Things released between 1 Jan 2022 and 31 Jan 2023 are eligible. In the case of Merely Roleplayers, that means:

Main House productions: Vigil: Quarry

(Vigil: All Aboard is also on the borderline, the final story act came out on 7 Feb 2023)

Studio productions: Monumental Exit & The Feed (series 1)

(The Lost Andromeda Ward Christmas Special is also on the borderline, it kicked off on 14 December 2021 but extended into the eligibility period)

See our Past Productions page for more about all those productions.

Here's the CRIT Awards nomination form.

It would mean the world to us if you considered nominating Merely Roleplayers in some or all of these categories:

Best TTRPGs, Supplements, APs, and Channels of this year

Best storyline | In a AP: Vigil: Quarry (Merely Roleplayers)

Best Series: Vigil (Merely Roleplayers) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCMIHyd_TMSpZ_HMrmThX2HcM_zP2yR5-

Best NPC: Ernie Bering, agent of DoOm (Merely Roleplayers: Vigil)

Best Villain: The Stranger (Merely Roleplayers: Vigil)

Best in their TTRPG Category

Best Game Master | Indie: Matt Boothman

Best Player | Indie: choose your fighter—

Natalie Winter (for either Gwynned in Vigil: All Aboard or Sue Sherpa in Monumental Exit)

Alexander Pankhurst (for Mike Sherpa in Monumental Exit)

Marta Da Silva (for Harper in Vigil: All Aboard)

(also eligible are Ellen Gould and Josh Yard for The Feed, and Helen, Strat, Vikki and Chris Starkey for Vigil: Quarry – but Nat, Alex and Marta are professional actors and a nomination could make a real difference to them!)

Best Podcast: Merely Roleplayers

Best Audio and Sound Design | Podcast: Merely Roleplayers

Artist Categories

Best Instrumental of the year by a musician in TTRPG: Vigil theme by Alexander Pankhurst https://youtu.be/KRsdcFLK0F4?t=104

Enter your nominations in the CRIT Awards form or find out more about the awards

And if you don't fancy nominating us for all these categories, hopefully you'll shower some nomination love on other podcasts in the community who are doing incredible work, like @realmspod, Interstitial AP by @revryebread, @monsterhourpod, @legendlarkpod and @campaignskyjacks. We can't nominate ourselves so we'll be putting all of these luvvies and more forward instead!

Please give my morally bankrupt Cockney failson an award for his awfulness

Who is Ernie Bering?

Our Ernie is a finalist in the Best NPC category in this year's CRIT Awards, so let's have a quick rundown of who the man is.

If you already know, you can cast your vote for Ernie (and for Merely Roleplayers for Best Storyline!) at the CRIT Awards site:

Ernest 'Ernie' Bering is a craggy, barrel-chested man usually seen in a nondescript grey suit, cut to conceal a shoulder holster. In a visual medium, he would be played by Tommy Lee Jones, but voiced by Ray Winstone.

In our show, he's voiced by Matt Boothman. Matt and Chris Starkey came up with the character and Ellie Pitkin came up with his name.

Ernie is a career field agent of the Department of Omissions (DoOm), tasked with minimising the disruption the supernatural world causes to ordinary British citizens. He's a man shaped by life in the shadows.

Ernie was the point man for a disastrous DoOm scheme to release ghouls into the English countryside as bait for the Hunt, which legends say would scour England of evil. The Hunt didn't show but the ghouls massacred a family on a camping trip.

The only survivor was the youngest child, Cameron Jarvis (played by Chris Starkey). Ernie kept an eye on Cam as he moved through the foster system, mainly out of guilt, but also because Cam had fought off a ghoul, so he might be useful to Ernie in the future.

Completely off DoOm's books, Ernie trained Cam to deal with ghouls and other otherworldly threats. He's been both a handler and something of a surrogate father to Cam.

Years after the tragic experiment with the ghouls, the Hunt finally arrived in England and invited Ernie to join their ranks – via a ghoul being used as a combination errand boy and hunting hound. Ernie declined and took a nasty stab wound from the ghoul.

After Ernie tried and failed to keep Cam out of things, the truth finally came out and Cam put the injured Ernie on notice: if Ernie ever shows his face to Cam again, he'll find himself on the receiving end of his own deadly training.

And that's where we left Ernie at the end of Vigil: Quarry. He will return later this year in Vigil: Fear Itself...

In the meantime, show your appreciation for our favourite highly competent moral vacuum in the Best NPC category at the CRIT Awards!

On top of all these Merely Roleplayers possibilities, a couple of things I've been a guest on are also eligible this year!

Unfortunately the Heart: The City Beneath two-shot on Actual Play UK, which I'm legitimately proud of, straddles the eligibility cutoff; part 1 came out within the period but part 2 was outside it. Because of the way the CRIT Awards do their awarding periods, though, it might well qualify for the 2025 round! So keep it in mind for next year 😂

In the meantime, here's what I've been in that does qualify:

Best of Actual Plays

Best One Shot

I'm Not Lion https://youtu.be/gkAg_Mqiq1U

(with Actual Play UK, in which I played a lawyer who's a literal snake and we reached a critical mass of animal wordplay beyond anything @maddyisabstract's lion judge could have anticipated)

Jason Statham Live https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/d20futureshow/episodes/2023-11-04T03_38_30-07_00 | https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/d20futureshow/episodes/2023-11-18T02_00_00-08_00

(with the D20 Future Show, in which I played Jason Statham's agent Grayson Bacon; recorded in Dec 2022 but aired on the podcast in Nov 2023)

Best of Their Games

Best Player | Indie

Matt Boothman https://www.instagram.com/merelymatt/

(I technically qualify for this category for my performances as Crawl Newman and Grayson Bacon in the above 2 one-shots – gotta shoot your shot, right? 🤣)

Nominate Merely Roleplayers in the CRIT Awards 2024

The Creator Recognition in Tabletop RPG Awards are open for nominations until the end of May, and lots of our stuff from the past year is eligible!

You all got us to the final ballot in 2 categories last year – thank you again, it was incredible to hear the words "Merely Roleplayers" read out alongside so many luminaries of roleplaying and storytelling!

Could we make it 3 this year?

Could we even make it to a win??

At this nomination stage, you're free to nominate whoever and whatever you like in each category. It's free choice, not multiple choice. Then people/things with enough nominations get put on the final ballot for everyone to check out and vote on.

Most of the categories ask for a link or social media handle to help the CRIT team vet nominations. Plus, I know from filling out my own nominations how hard it can sometimes be to work out what actually falls within the eligibility period (which this year is 1 Jan 2023–29 Feb 2024 – RPG vendors please put the publication date on the game's page!!).

So here's a handy list of what we've done that came out in that period, the categories you could nominate them in, and the relevant links and handles:

Best of Actual Plays

Best Series

Vigil: The Great Fire https://foggyoutline.com/roleplayers-episodes/category/The+Great+Fire

Vigil: Chief/Exec https://foggyoutline.com/roleplayers-episodes/category/Chief%2FExec

Vigil: Fear Itself https://foggyoutline.com/roleplayers-episodes/category/Fear+Itself

(and in the Studio...)

Falling Cadence https://foggyoutline.com/roleplayers-episodes/category/Falling+Cadence

The Queen's Dead https://foggyoutline.com/roleplayers-episodes/category/The+Queen%27s+Dead

The Office Party https://foggyoutline.com/roleplayers-episodes/category/Office+Party

Best NPC

Any and all NPCs from the above 6 productions, including 2023 nominee Ernest Bering, Agent of DoOm...

It's up to you to decide, based on his actions in Vigil: Fear Itself, whether oor Ernie belongs in this category or in:

Best Villain

Any and all villains from the above 6 productions, including Ada Lovelace (Great Fire), Max Dashwood (Chief/Exec), Morrigan the War Chieftain (Chief/Exec), the Harlequin (Fear Itself) and (possibly, as above) Ernest Bering, Agent of DoOm.

Best of their Games

Best Game Master | Indie

Matt Boothman https://www.instagram.com/merelymatt/

Josh Yard https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

Best Player | Indie

Ellie Pitkin https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Persephone 'Percy' Byron in Great Fire and Camilla Parnell in Falling Cadence)

Dave https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Mick Mason in Great Fire and Josh in Office Party)

Strat https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Brier in Great Fire and Jerome Picklepants in Office Party)

Chris MacLennan https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Kincaid in Great Fire)

Natalie Winter https://www.instagram.com/winternatters/

(plays Gwynned in Chief/Exec and Bess in Office Party)

Marta Da Silva https://www.instagram.com/nanaluvren/

(plays Harper in Chief/Exec)

Josh Yard https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Jinny Greenteeth in Chief/Exec)

Vikki https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Renko in Chief/Exec and Cadence Fairchild in Falling Cadence)

Alexander Pankhurst https://www.instagram.com/apankhurst/

(plays Graham in Fear Itself and Reginald 'Skinsy' Skinner in Falling Cadence)

Chris Starkey https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Cameron Jarvis in Fear Itself and Neville Flounder, aka the Living Shadow, aka Night Gannet in Office Party)

Ellen Gould https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Jess Butterworth in Fear Itself)

Helen Stratton https://www.instagram.com/merelyroleplayers/

(plays Stella Sylvester in Falling Cadence)

Fiona KT Howat https://www.instagram.com/unspeakablyfiona/

(plays the Skeletal Duchy in The Queen's Dead)

Naomi Clarke https://www.instagram.com/naomithinksit/

(plays the Draugr Earldom in The Queen's Dead)

Best of Podcasts

Best Podcast

Merely Roleplayers https://www.merelyroleplayers.com

Best Podcast Host

Matt Boothman https://www.instagram.com/merelymatt/

Thank you! Can't wait to see who gets nominated this year!