The shortlist for the coolest of all gaming awards, the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, has been released, and it’s got me, at least, very excited. For one thing, I’m actually familiar with more than one item on the shortlist. Indeed, I have reviewed two of them on this blog.
I am not familiar with Burning Wheel Gold and I am cynically suspicious of the mechanics in Risk Legacy that require you to destroy parts of the game, but the other three on the list are strong contenders. Crowdfunding services like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are nothing short of revolutionary, especially for an industry like ours.
However, it’s the last two books on the list that have me all excited. First, there’s Vornheim, written by Zak S. and published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It’s a remarkable work that delivers in its compact form as complete a city product as the classic boxed sets of the 1990s. Though the book acknowledges its position within the genre of D&D fantasy, it refuses to be shackled by its tropes and gives them its own weird fantasy spin. Vornheim is full of clever ideas in both content and presentation, and an Award delivered to Zak would not be a misplaced one.
My personal favourite for the award is Nordic Larp, edited by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros, published by Fëa Livia. Frankly, I must confess to being quite surprised it made the shortlist—not because it were not deserving, but because it is a niche product detailing the exploits of a relatively small group of gamers quite far away from Gen Con. It is heartening to see that mere geography is not an obstacle to such deserved recognition. Nordic Larp shines a light on a gaming culture very different from the one that engages in heated debate over the new edition of D&D on RPG.net or EN World. It’s an exceptional, challenging culture, often provocative, sometimes strange, sometimes frightening, but always fascinating.
And it’s a damn beautiful book.
Worlds in a Handful of Dice 