Feng Shui 2, KARTAS and More at the ENnies Voting Booth

The electronic voting booth for the 2016 is now open for business. If you were planning to support Feng Shui 2, gather your chi for its nominations in five categories: Best Game, Best Setting, Best Rules, Best Aid/Accessory, and Product of the Year.

The sagacious voter will also note a Best Podcast nomination for Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, and Page XX for Best Webzine.

Or if your tastes run toward the literary and vampiric, you might spot a nomination or five for my boon compadres at Pelgrane Press and their Dracula Dossier.

Hillfolk Nominated for 2014 Diana Jones Award

It is with surprise and gratitude that I pass along the text of this press release, in which it is announced that Hillfolk has made the longlist for the 2014 Diana Jones Award. I very much want to see DramaSystem make its way into the bloodstream of tabletop roleplaying, and greatly appreciate the opportunity to spread the word this most prestigious nomination brings.

Congratulations to my collaborators, including Pelgrane Press’s Simon Rogers and Cat Tobin, erstwhile Pelgrane Beth K. Lewis, and the exceptionally long roster of distinguished series pitch writers and evocative illustrators. Special picture-making kudos go to lead illustrator Jan Pospisil.

I also owe mountain-sized thanks to the game’s 2185 Kickstarter backers, whose essential support allowed us to expand the project’s scope beyond my wildest expectations.

To be nominated such stellar games and entities as ROFL, Terra Mystica, Evil Hat and Paizo adds further luster to this true honor.

---

11th  June 2014    

For immediate release

SHORTLIST FOR 2014 DIANA JONES AWARD ANNOUNCED

Two publishers, a hobby game, a family game and an RPG
vie for hobby-gaming's most exclusive trophy.

From a long and extremely diverse long-list of nominees, the secretive committee of the Diana
Jones Award has distilled a shortlist of five items that it believes best exemplified ‘excellence’
in the field of gaming in 2013.

The Diana Jones committee is proud to announce that the shortlist for its 2014 award
for Excellence in Gaming is:

EVIL HAT, a publishing company run by Robert Donoghue and Fred Hicks
Ever since the release of FATE as a free RPG in 2003, Evil Hat Productions has aimed at two
usually difficult goals: skill and elegance in game design, and professionalism and transparency in publishing. Honesty and openness about business realities, and excitement and perfectionism about game possibilities, built the Evil Hat audience from a corner of the
Internet to a loyal horde numbering in the tens of thousands. From Don't Rest Your Head
through Happy Birthday Robot, Penny For Your Thoughts, Diaspora, and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, Evil Hat has combined the key features of a design house and a best-of-breed imprint while nurturing its core FATE system through three major editions without forking its player base. By co-creating Bits and Mortar, Evil Hat pioneered PDF-retailer cooperation; using the Open Game License and Creative Commons, Evil Hat built on a tradition of trusting players and designers to build better games. In 2013 Evil Hat hit both its design goals and its
deadlines with FATE Core: five books Kickstarted, printed, and delivered, and over 60,000
copies sold. And FATE Core is still a free RPG.

HILLFOLK, a role-playing game designed by Robin D. Laws (Pelgrane Press)
The Hillfolk Kickstarter asked for $3000 and offered a 96-page softcover; it raised $93,000
and delivered two full-colour hardbacks filled by some of the brightest names in story-game
design. But it only happened because of the game-engine at the heart of Hillfolk: Robin D.
Laws’s DramaSystem, an elegant and clever take on group storytelling that puts gameplay and
competition on an equal footing with structured narrative and individual creativity. Hillfolk
and its sister-volume Blood on the Snow showcase a leading ludonarrative designer at the
height of his powers, and inviting his friends to come and play.

PAIZO PUBLISHING, a publishing company run by Lisa Stevens
One of the hardest things in business is to unseat a market-leader, particularly when that
market-leader created the entire field, but 2013 was the year when word spread that Paizo's
Pathfinder RPG was outselling Dungeons & Dragons. It’s official: Paizo has used the OGL
and a single-minded commitment to talent and quality to create a better D&D than D&D. Its
achievement only seems extraordinary to those who don't know CEO Lisa Stevens’
extraordinary track record in the games industry, from Lion Rampant through White Wolf
and Wizards of the Coast. Paizo's ability to raise $1m to crowd-fund a Pathfinder-based
MMO in January 2013 was simply the apple at the top of the industry's new tallest tree.

ROFL!, a family card game designed by John Kovalic (Cryptozoic Entertainment)
In game design nothing is harder than simplicity, and in no category is that quality more
required than in the family/party game space. With the brilliant, elegant and delightful
dynamic animating ROFL!, designer John Kovalic provides a masterstroke of the KISS
principle. Just as amazingly, he does it by finding an original take on the word game sub-genre. ROFL!’s phrase compression conceit rewards both clue-making and guessing, supplying an essential skill-levelling element many party games lack. And if that weren’t enough, he somehow inveigles tabletop’s most beloved cartoonist to lend it the light, joyous visual look that its play style demands. Though created by someone steeped in the adventure game tradition, it could and should appear on shelves at mass-market retailers wherever they are found. GRTGMJK!

TERRA MYSTICA, a strategy board-game designed by Helge Ostertag and Jens
Drögemüller (Feuerland Spiele/Z-Man Games)
In the land of Terra Mystica dwell 14 different races in seven landscapes, each bound to its
home environment. Each race must terraform neighboring landscapes into their home
environments in competition with the others. It's a brilliant piece of state-of-the-art design:
there are no stunning new mechanics here but the game takes a number of clever, intriguing
systems and combines them in a bravura piece of game-creation to build a sublimely engaging
experience.The game emphasizes strategy over luck, rewards planning, and provides a huge
amount of delightful replayability.

PRESENTATION
The winner of this year’s award will be announced and the Diana Jones trophy will be
presented at the annual Diana Jones Party, which will be held at the Cadillac Ranch, 39 West
Jackson Place, Indianapolis, at 9pm on 13th  August – the night before the Gen Con games
convention opens to the public. All games-industry professionals are invited to attend.

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 committee, 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 Diana Jones Committee is a mostly anonymous group of games-industry alumni
and illuminati, that includes designers, publishers, cartoonists, consultants, and some 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 Fiasco, the board-games Dominion and Ticket to
Ride, and the website BoardGameGeek. Last year's winner was Wil Wheaton's webseries
Tabletop. This is the fourteenth year of the Award. More information is available at www.dianajonesaward.org.

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

Time to Hit That Gen Con Floor

It was a delight to behold the obvious joy that Diana Jones award winner Wil Wheaton exuded as he accepted his mysterious Perspex pyramid for Tabletop. In his speech, after lofting the trophy above his head in happy triumph, he talked about gaming as the refuge that got him through his early, lonely awkward stage. In other words, he told the same gaming origin story many of the thousands of people gathered here at Gen Con this weekend could easily echo.

It may be the unexpectedly moderate weather, it may be that I have some new posse members to introduce to their colleagues, but whatever it was I can’t say I’ve enjoyed a Diana Jones party more. The sense of reunion that comes from seeing the gang together in one place washes away months of self-imposed stress and nonsense.

But that was last night and at least one shot of tequila ago. Now I steel myself for the glories of the exhibit hall. I have been told that Hillfolk and Blood on the Snow have in fact manifested in physical form but have yet to run my paternal fingers across their hardcover surfaces. After a year heavily dominated by the process of making these, I could not be more stoked to finally see them reaching you, the gaming  public. If you’re a backer picking up the show I will feel an extra frisson of satisfaction to see them move from the booth table to your capacious bags o’ loot. I will be haunting the Pelgrane booth (101) pretty much through the day today.We have one of our two mega signings this afternoon at 3 PM so if you can swing by for that we have Sharpies ready and waiting to personalize those pages.

Hillfolk and Blood on the Snow are but a fraction of the bounty that you can grab at the Pelgrane booth. The Esoterrorists second edition is here. 13th Age is here. Eternal Lies is here, which I didn't even know to expect! And I have it on good authority that there might be other game products at other booths.

Now if you'll excuse me I have a date with some piles of books…

RPGGeek Nominations

I’m absolutely gobsmacked—in a good way, naturally—to learn that the brand spanking new Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast is already up for a prestigious award. Thanks to the gang at RPGGeek for the Golden Geek Award nomination.

Thanks are also in order for their nods to Kenneth Hite’s Night’s Black Agents, with rules by yours truly, in the Best RPG Category. And for their recognition of my game Ashen Stars for Best Artwork and Presentation. Congratulations to Jerome Huguenin, Chris Huth and art director Beth Lewis for this spotlight on their fine efforts.

My Pelgrane pals can also be proud of nominations for 13th Age for Best RPG, a signal accomplishment given that it’s only available in an electronic sneak peek form, and for Ken’s Bookhounds of London for Best Supplement.

As it would be crass to lobby those of you who vote for the awards to cast ballots for these nominees, I will merely sit here, casting significant glances in no particular direction.

In Which My Humility is Variously Assaulted

Anglo/Canadian diffidence took a thundering body blow last night as Pelgrane saw four of its eleven ENnie nominations turn into silver and gold. I’d like to again thank ENnie judges and voters for their silver nods to Lorefinder for best rules and Ashen Stars for best setting. The first constitutes greatly satisfying recognition to a book that seemed to fly under the radar when first released. In raiding GUMSHOE’s stuff and turning it into Pathfinder treasure, Gareth Hanrahan performed feats of mighty battle, and it was lovely to see him hit the awards podium at his first Gen Con in years. The setting nod for Ashen Stars was an unexpected jolt of approbation and gave me the chance to thank the art team (Jerome Huguenin and Chris Huth) as well as cupcake magnate Beth Lewis and gentleman adventurer Simon Rogers for their indispensable contributions.

For pure delight it was impossible to beat Paula Dempsey’s reaction to her gold award for Best Writing the Occult Investigator’s Guide to London, which is her first book. Contributor Steve Dempsey once again uncorked his freestyle chops to deliver his portion of the acceptance speech in rap form. I was proud to be namechecked in this profound expression of the hip-hop arts. In accepting the gold award for best electronic product for Cthulhu Apocalypse, Simon praised the fecund womb of author Graham Walmsley, veering towards and then away from an invocation of the dread buzzword.

Earlier in the day I was happy to appear alongside Paizo fiction majordomo James Sutter and fellow scribes Richard Lee Byers and Dave Gross for a panel on the Pathfinder Tales novels. Ed Greenwood popped in for a cameo appearance to announce his upcoming book for the line. To what must surely be his eternal chagrin, he missed the later discussion of the supposed chasteness of the series, which turned into a list of all the naughty passages in past or forthcoming books. I think James might have been blushing. Along the way we mulled the inextricable relationship between plot and character and maybe even found a few fresh ways to talk about the balance between respecting and obscuring game rules when writing RPG-inspired fiction.

I also had a fine time doing the guest thing on the Tome Show podcast. You can listen to it when it drops, so I needn’t recap. The D&D focus of the ‘cast provided me with a welcome topic shift. Thanks to Tracy and Jeff for inviting me and for their incisive questions and smooth direction of the Q&A segment.

Today I’m at the IPR booth at noon for a Don’t Read This Book group signing, and doing a GUMSHOE seminar with Ken and Simon at 3. Other than that I’ll be chatting and signing at Pelgrane temporary global HQ, booth 1427.

Shortlist For 2012 Diana Jones Award Announced

RPGs, LARPs, a board-game and crowdsourced funding vie for hobby-gaming’s most eclectic and exclusive trophy.

The committee of the Diana Jones Award has announced the shortlist for its 2012 award. The list contains five candidates that in the opinion of the committee exemplify the very best that hobby-gaming produced in 2011. In alphabetical order, they are:

BURNING WHEEL GOLD, an RPG system by Luke Crane, published by Burning Wheel.

CROWDFUNDING, with particular acknowledgment to Kickstarter.

NORDIC LARP, a book by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, published by Fëa Livia.

RISK LEGACY, a board game by Rob Daviau, published by Hasbro Inc.

VORNHEIM, an RPG supplement by Zak S, published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

The winner of the 2012 Award will be announced on Wednesday 15^th 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, the website BoardGameGeek; and the charity fundraising work of Irish games conventions. Last year’s winner was Fiasco by Jason Morningstar. This is the twelfth 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 or an invitation to the announcement of the 2012 Diana Jones Award you can contact a representative of the DJA committee: committee@dianajonesaward.org

Link Round-Up: Golden Geeks, Hero Researcher, Horror King, Wendig World

Thanks to Golden Geek Award nominators, who gave nods to The Armitage Files (best supplement) and Ashen Stars (best art). Bookhounds of London is up against Armitage, prompting me to wonder what the word is for a mixture of pride (that Ken got a nom as well) and vexation (that the two books will split the Trail of Cthulhu vote.) Irrichuffment?

Cancer-stricken researcher devises treatment, extends own life, dies, days later gets Nobel nod.

Laurent Bouzereau documentary covering Stephen King’s take on horror movies, first airing tonight on TCM, looks pretty promising.

As I prepare to lay down my group world-building stick, Chuck Wendig is picking his up.

The Final Status

The judges have received their applications, the juridical process has gone down in all of its behind-the-scenes violence and splendor, and a winner may now be announced in the 2011 Gen Con buzzword competition.

As you'll recall, the object of the exercise was to use status in a verb, as if this is a thing sane men and women actually do. Extra points were awarded for context, audacity, and fake sincerity.

Touts had chosen as their early frontrunner Kevin Kulp, who, in a swashbuckling disregard for the public trust, snuck it into his opening speech at the ENnie awards.

Yet after much debate and soul-searching, the judges have given this year’s prize to a scrappy up-and-comer, that ranker from R’lyeh, Cthulhu himself. While guesting on the This Just In From Gen Con podcast, the purulent incarnation of cosmic indifference mentioned that he’d been statusing Nyarlathotep. In so doing, he scored points for all three of the bonus categories, plus a special prize for wrapping it in a joke that worked outside of the contest.

Accepting on behalf of the winged, octopoid deity will be his public relations handler, Graham Walmsley.

Don’t despair, Kevin. When you’re up against an elder god, it’s always safest to come in second.

London oddsmakers still have Mr. Kulp down as the man to beat in ‘12. I have seen next year's word, and can attest that it is positively bone-chilling in its douchery. The competition will be fierce and without quarter.