Participants at Gen Con in 2023. Photo: Screenshot

An annual awards event that recognizes outstanding achievement for tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) canceled its ceremony at the largest and longest-running gaming convention in North America after receiving backlash for excluding Zionists from being eligible for nomination.

This year, the Creator Recognition in TTRPG (CRIT) Awards updated its code of conduct so that people who “identify as Zionists,” “promote Zionist material,” or “support Zionism” would be ineligible to be nominated for one if its awards.

Facing backlash, the CRIT Awards doubled down on its policy change earlier this month, announcing the decision on social media “so there is no confusion.”

Hello, we at the CRIT Awards would like to take a moment to publicly acknowledge this so there is no confusion.

Thank you, and happy voting! pic.twitter.com/xV5HtpUznY

— CRIT Awards – VOTING OPENED (@crit_awards) June 14, 2024

The process for awarding CRIT Awards is similar to an election for many democratic legislatures. First, members of the TTRPG community submit nominees who are subsequently vetted and voted on in a primary election. The winners of the primary then compete in a general election.

The ceremony announcing the winners of the vote was scheduled to be held at the Gen Con convention in Indianapolis, Indiana in August. However, the CRIT Awards announced this week that it would not be participating in the event, citing unspecified “safety concerns,” after receiving significant backlash for excluding Zionists from eligibility — a decision that critics argued was antisemitic.

This is extremely difficult on us, as we navigate the situation that we are finding ourselves in.

Updates as to what any physical event will look like will come at a later date, until then: pic.twitter.com/4UF4QKh7Zc

— CRIT Awards – VOTING OPENED (@crit_awards) June 25, 2024

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) lambasted the CRIT Awards for its new policy.

“Disqualifying individuals based solely on the fact that they are Zionist — aka they support the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and Israel’s right to exist — is antisemitic,” the civil rights group wrote on X/Twitter.

Neither Gen Con nor the CRIT Awards responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.