Last year when we handed out the first annual Adventure Gamers Underground Awards, we talked about how excited we were that the strength of the field led to so much lengthy debate to settle on our nominees and our eventual winners. We certainly couldn't have foreseen how much stronger the field would be this year—a fact which will become even more evident as we reveal the winners for 2004 in the coming pages.

To avoid repeating such exhaustion, though, we changed our methods this year. Last time we attempted to settle the awards by lengthy, subjective debates, and vowed never again to put ourselves through that. This year, the five members of the Underground staff each cast their votes for winner, plus first and second runners up. Using a 3-2-1 scoring system, we arrived at our winners (and were fortunate enough to avoid ties). I think you'll find the results to be quite interesting.

Of course we want to thank all of the dedicated Underground designers out there who continue to devote their time to creating free adventures simply for a love of the genre. We salute you and hope to see the quality of Underground adventures continue to grow in 2005. Now, take some time to refresh yourself on who the nominees are, and then let's begin handing out the awards!

(Berian Williams and Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw contributed to this article.)