Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming Shortlist Released

The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming’s shortlist was announced this afternoon. The nominees are:

• College of Wizardy, a live-action roleplaying game by Liveform and Rollespilsfabrikken
• Designers & Dragons, second edition, a book series about the history of roleplaying games by Shannon Appelcline
• Guide to Glorantha, a RPG sourcebook
• Mysterium, a card game published by IGAMES
• Torchbearer, a roleplaying game by Thor Olavsrud and Luke Crane

The award ceremony is considered the unofficial kickoff to Gen Con Indy, with the lucite pyramid trophy handed out during a gaming industry-only event the Wednesday night before Gen Con Indy officially begins. Past winners include Geek & Sundry’s Tabletop web series, Jason Morningstar’s Fiasco roleplaying game, and Donald X. Vaccarino’s Dominion deckbuilding card game

The award, named for the still-readable part of the burnt Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game logo encased in the pyramid, was originally awarded to Peter Adkinson in 2001. The Diana Jones Award trophy is returned each year to the DJA Committee for the next award ceremony. This is the fifteenth year for the award ceremony.

The trophy itself is a lucite pyramid mounted on a wooden base, created to “commemorate the expiration of [TSR UK’s] licence to publish the Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game and the subsequent destruction of all unsold copies of the game.” Within the pyramid are burnt pieces of the last copy of TSR UK’s Indiana Jones RPG logo and game elements, including the infamous Nazi™ cardboard tokens. The DJA site claims the award was liberated from the TSR Hobbies office by “forces unnamed” before winding up in the hands of the Diana Jones Award Committee.

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