• The Beast
• End of the Line
• Gen Con 
• Gloomhaven
• The Romance Trilogy
• Terraforming Mars

Plus, it features a brand-new logo (seen above) designed by my pal Jeff Mackintosh, who died last fall, way too young.

Congrats to all the people behind those things that made the shortlist! The winner will be announced the Wednesday night before Gen Con.

• Evil Hat Productions, a publishing company run by Robert Donoghue and Fred Hicks
• Hillfolk, a roleplaying game written by Robin D. Laws (Pelgrane Press)
• Paizo Publishing, a publishing company run by Lisa Stevens
• ROFL!, a family card game designed by John Kovalic (Cryptozoic Entertainment)
• Terra Mystica, a strategy board-game designed by Helge Ostertag and Jens Drögemüller (Feuerland Spiele/Z-Man Games)

Congrats to everyone involved in each of these wonderful games and companies!

For fuller descriptions of each of these fantastic things and why they each belong on the list, check out the Diana Jones Award site. We’ll give out the award at our annual party on August 13, the evening before Gen Con. If you’re an industry professional, ping me at matt@forbeck.com to get on the entry list.

Last Wednesday, I hosted the Diana Jones Awards, as I’ve done for the past 11 years, and it was fantastic fun. Because our old venue (Jillian’s) closed, we had to find a new super-secret location, and that gave me a bit of worry, both because I didn’t know the new place at all and because I fretted about people being able to find it.

All that said, it went wonderfully. The place was packed, and everyone seemed to have a great time. I even rode a mechanical bull for the first time in my life and set the time record for the night at 41 long seconds. If you hunt for it on YouTube, you can bear witness to me clinging to it in a way that would have caused a real bull tremendous pain.

My secret? Tip the bull operator well.

The award went to the creators of the book Nordic Larp – by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, published by Fëa Livia – which chronicles the vibrant live-action roleplaying scene in the Nordic countries. It’s an inspiring book, and its win cements the fact that the Diana Jones Award committee is filled with an eclectic bunch of professionals interested in calling out excellence wherever they find it.

Emily Care Boss stood up and read a prepared acceptance speech from the authors, which I loved because it’s always better to actually hand the award to someone, even in proxy. Best of all, she offered to make sure the trophy got into their hands.

I want to thank all the sponsors of the party, but especially Lone Wolf – makers of the excellent Army Builder and Hero Lab, as well as the upcoming Realm Works. I was an idiot and left them off the list of sponsors at the party, and they were truly kind and understanding about it.

Later in the week, I joined Ben McFarland at the cocktail reception for the ENnies Awards. Ben bid on me as his Dream Date, with all proceeds going toward the awards. I often chat and drink with him throughout the show, so his bid is a real show of support for the awards, and I thank him for that.

I had to leave before the awards started so I could make it to the Reactor 88 Studios afterparty, but I found out later that the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, on which I worked as part of the concept team, grabbed three awards. It picked up silvers for Best Game and Best Product, plus a gold for Best Rules. The lion’s share of the kudos for that goes to Cam Banks, who did most of the heavy lifting on the development and especially with wrangling all the creatives on the project.

Congratulations to all the other ENnies winners, and to Nordic Larp. They’re all fantastic representatives of excellence in games.

13th June 2011                                                                          For immediate release

SHORTLIST FOR 2011 DIANA JONES AWARD ANNOUNCED

Three RPGs and two board-games vie
for hobby-gaming’s most exclusive trophy

The committee of the Diana Jones Award has announced the shortlist for its 2011 award. Boiled down from a longlist of 22 nominees, this year the list contains five candidates that in the opinion of the committee exemplify the very best that hobby-gaming has produced in the last twelve months. In alphabetical order, they are:

• Catacombs, a board game from Sands of Time Games, by Ryan Amos, Marc Kelsy, and Aron West
• The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game from Evil Hat Productions, by Leonard Balsera, Jim Butcher, Genevieve Cogman, Rob Donaghue, Fred Hicks, Kenneth Hite, Ryan Macklin, Chad Underkoffler, and Clark Valentine
• Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space, a board game from Santa Ragione and Cranio Creations, by Mario Porpora, Pietro Righi Riva, Luca Francesco Rossi, and Nicolò Tedeschi
• Fiasco, a roleplaying game from Bully Pulpit Games, by Jason Morningstar
• Freemarket, a roleplaying game from Sorencrane MCRZ, by Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen

The winner of the 2011 Award will be announced on Wednesday 3rd August, at the annual Diana Jones Award and Freelancer Party in Indianapolis, the unofficial start of the Gen Con Indy convention.

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming was founded and first awarded in 2001. It is presented annually to the person, product, company, event or any other thing that has, in the opinion of its mostly anonymous committee of games industry luminaries, best demonstrated the quality of ’excellence’ in the world of hobby-gaming in the previous year. The winner of the Award receives the Diana Jones trophy.

The short-list and eventual winner are chosen by the Diana Jones Committee, a mostly anonymous group of games-industry alumni and illuminati, known to include designers, publishers, cartoonists, and those content to rest on their laurels.

Past winners include industry figures such as Peter Adkison and Jordan Weisman, the role-playing games Nobilis, Sorcerer, and My Life with Master, the board-games Dominion and Ticket to Ride, and the website BoardGameGeek.com. This is the eleventh year of the Award.

More information is available at www.dianajonesaward.org or at the Award’s Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Jones_Award.

CONTACT

For more information you can contact a representative of the DJA committee directly: committee@dianajonesaward.org

Congratulations to Derk Solko, Scott Alden, and all the other people who make BoardGameGeek.com such a fantastic oasis on the Internet!

7th August 2009                                                                                    For immediate release

2009 DIANA JONES AWARD:

UPDATE

The Diana Jones Award committee has issued a second press release to clarify and explain its reasons for choosing the five nominees shortlisted for this year’s Award. This is that press release.

The winner of the 2009 Award will be announced on Wednesday 12^th August, at the annual Diana Jones Award and Freelancer Party, the unofficial start of the Gen Con Indy convention, at Jillian’s on South Meridian Street in Indianapolis. Only industry professionals may attend this event, which is generously sponsored by: CCP/White Wolf; Gen Con; Ed Healy; Hidden City Games; Mind Storm Labs; Profantasy; Janice Sellers; Stonehouse Miniatures; Super Genius Games; Paul Tevis; and West End Games.

The short-list for the 2009 Diana Jones Award is:

Dominion by Donald X. Vaccarinio, published by Rio Grande Games

Dominion, designed by Donald X. Vaccarinio, infuses the deck-customizing meta-play of collectible card games directly into the game-table experience, elegantly eliminating the highest hurdle to an otherwise compelling genre, making it convenient and accessible to a

broader audience. A wide variety of strategies bear fruit, and a wide variety of components bring replayability rarely found in a stand-alone title. As with any strong design, its rules are easy but not simple, but Dominion exceeds even other strong games in the subtle brilliance

with which it encourages speedy play and engages all players for its entire length.

4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons by Rob Heinsoo, James Wyatt, Andy Collins, Mike Mearls and Stephen Schubert, published by Wizards of the Coast

4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons advances the art of roleplaying game design while boldly reinventing an industry flagship. Its central innovation, importing the exceptions-based principles first seen in the collectible card game, speeds and clarifies play. Creature statistics achieve a compactness and ease of use rarely seen in crunch-heavy games. The new logic allows for the dispatch of long-standing rules bugaboos in the briefest of paragraphs. Recalibrated math keeps the game stable over disparate levels of play. All said, though, the conceptual repercussions of its technical achievement would mean nothing if the game wasn’t so lovingly attuned to the primal joys of kicking down doors, walloping orcs, and taking their stuff.

Vi Ã¥ker jeep/’Jeepform’

Vi Ã¥ker jeep (’We go by jeep’) is a Nordic collective that has developed an innovative and increasingly influential style of roleplaying. Taking the best from multiple styles and infusing the result with a clear-eyed and mature sensibility, Jeepform games are often deeply moving, occasionally hilarious, and always compelling. Exploring concepts like character monogamy, transparency, and even what constitutes appropriate subject matter for roleplaying, Jeepform

takes the hobby in an exciting and often challenging direction. You can learn more about Vi åker jeep at http://jeepen.org/

Mouse Guard by Luke Crane, published by Archaia Studios Press

Mouse Guard is a beautiful game. From the thought that has gone into its graphic design to the intelligence with which David Petersen’s world of medieval mice is coupled to Luke Crane’s ’Burning Wheel’ game system, Mouse Guard is a delight to handle, read and play. Moving away from the trend of seeing the games designer as artist or auteur, it draws attention to the importance of craftsmanship and expertise at every level of the game-design process. Licensed properties bolted to existing game-engines are often a recipe for mediocrity, but Mouse Guard is a giant in its field.

Sweet Agatha by Kevin Allen, Jr. (self-published)

Kevin Allen, Jr.’s Sweet Agatha is a brilliant sandbox game disguised as a quest. For two players, it utilizes narrative elements selected by the GM and explained by the player to uncover the fate of the eponymous Agatha–whose life and environs the rulebook documents in evocative photography and elliptical notes. Evading the trap of ’designer as GM’ so common to narrativist play, it embraces and liberates cooperative storytelling, providing mystery and beauty instead of constraints and programmed story. A first game of Sweet Agatha is a literally unrepeatable experience; a second game is as close as tabletop gaming has come to packaging a dream recalled.

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Diana Jones Award has been described as ’the Nobel Prize of gaming’. For more information, see the website www.dianajonesaward.org or contact the committee directly: committee@dianajonesaward.org

If you qualify to attend this industry-only party and haven’t yet seen an invitation, e-mail me, and I’ll get you set up. I hope to see you there.

28th July 2009 For immediate release

SHORTLIST FOR 2009 DIANA JONES AWARD ANNOUNCED

Two RPGs, a card-game, a mystery and a Scandinavian collective vie for hobby-gaming’s most exclusive trophy

The committee of the Diana Jones Award has released the shortlist for its 2009 award. This year the shortlist contains five nominees that in the opinion of the committee exemplify the very best that hobby-gaming has produced in the last twelve months. In alphabetical order, they are:

• Dominion, a card game by Donald X. Vaccarino (published by Rio Grande Games)
• Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, a role-playing game by Andy Collins, Rob Heinsoo, Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt (published by Wizards of the Coast)
• Jeepform, a game-style from Scandinavia (fostered by the Vi Ã¥ker jeep collective)
• Mouse Guard, a role-playing game by Luke Crane (published by Archaia Studios Press)
• Sweet Agatha, a mystery game by Kevin Allen Jr (self-published)

The winner of the 2009 Award will be announced on Wednesday 12th August, at the annual Diana Jones Award and Freelancer Party in Indianapolis, the unofficial start of the Gen Con Indy convention.

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming was founded and first awarded in 2001. It is presented annually to the person, product, company, event or any other thing that has, in the opinion of its mostly anonymous committee of games industry luminaries, best demonstrated the quality of “excellence” in the world of hobby-gaming in the previous year. The winner of the Award receives the Diana Jones trophy.

The short-list and eventual winner are chosen by the Diana Jones Committee, a mostly anonymous group of games-industry alumni and illuminati.

Past winners include Peter Adkison, Jordan Weisman, the role-playing games Nobilis, Sorcerer, and My Life with Master, and the board-game Ticket to Ride. This is the ninth year of the Award.

CONTACT

For more information, see the website www.dianajonesaward.org or contact the committee directly at committee@dianajonesaward.org.

Grey Ranks by Jason Morningstar, published by Bully Pulpit Games!

And…

Open Design and Wolfgang Baur!

That’s right, it was a tie. The committee doesn’t particularly like ties, of course. No one does. But in this case we had a clear and solid split between two equally and well-deserving items. So the tie stands!

Congratulations to both Wolf and Jason! Their work truly is excellent.

PRESS RELEASE TO ALL MEDIA

2008 DIANA JONES AWARD GOES TO “GREY RANKS” AND WOLFGANG BAUR

Annual Award “For Excellence in Gaming” Locked in Second-Ever Tie

Indianapolis, 14th August–The 2008 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming has been given to two winners: Grey Ranks (a roleplaying game by Jason Morningstar, published by Bully Pulpit Games) and Wolfgang Baur and his Open Design business model. This is the second time the awards committee has locked into a tie over the winners in its eight years. The winners were announced at a ceremony packed with games industry professionals, from designers to publishers and distributors, held at Jillian’s in Indianapolis at 9 PM on Wednesday 13th August, the day before the opening of the games convention Gen Con Indianapolis.

Jason Morningstar’s roleplaying game of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, Grey Ranks, commands attention for many reasons, but it deserves highest marks for two factors. First, it is a game of inexorable tragedy, sacrifice, coming-of-age, mortality, and self-destruction. These truly mature literary themes are almost unexplored in gaming of any sort, and virtually unseen in roleplaying. If gaming is to approach the other arts in depth and richness, it will be games like Grey Ranks that make such an approach possible. Second, its emotional grid mechanic anchors a solid, powerful rules design that drives such themes home in play. Jason Morningstar has not created a game that lazily appropriates the historical horror at its heart, he has created rules that reveal that horror, rules that re-create that horror in its players’ hearts and minds. Aristotle said that all true tragedy must end in terror and pity. It’s hard to believe that Aristotle never played Grey Ranks.

Open Design began as an experiment in funding the development of roleplaying game supplements. Wolfgang Baur–a highly respected, long-time Dungeons & Dragons editor and designer for TSR and then Wizards of the Coast–went back hundreds of years to dig up the concept of patronage, add a few modern twists to it, and apply it to the problem. He posts a project and publicizes it along with a monetary threshold. When the funding his patrons chip in reaches that threshold, he starts on the project in earnest. Baur supplements his exemplary work by letting his patrons suggest various directions for each project and then allowing them to look over this shoulder as he works. Each project becomes a master-level class on adventure design for those privileged to be a part of it.

Also shortlisted for the Diana Jones Award this year were the Canon Puncture podcast, the Child’s Play charity, the Come Out and Play festival, and Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin by (MIT Press).

Previous winners of the Diana Jones Award include Peter Adkison, former CEO of Wizards of the Coast; Jordan Weisman, former CEO of FASA and Wizkids; the games Sorcerer, Nobilis, My Life with Master and Ticket to Ride; the game supplement The Great Pendragon Campaign; and the generosity of the charity auctions at Irish games conventions.

A fuller description of the history of the Diana Jones Award and its extraordinary trophy, plus details of all the previous winners and shortlists, can be found at the award’s website: www.dianajonesaward.org

More information

For more information on the award, please contact the designated public representatives of the Diana Jones Committee:

Matt Forbeck: matt@forbeck.com

James Wallis: james@erstwhile.demon.co.uk