Adepticon And Trans Rights Bundle Top 2024 Diana Jones Award Finalists
The Diana Jones Award committee has announced the 2024 finalists, including a trans rights tabletop bundle and Adepticon.
The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming is a prestigious award given out every year to a pool of candidates chosen for “excellence in gaming”, and it serves as the unofficial kick-off of GenCon. Now, “excellence” is a pretty broad category, especially when you consider that the Diana Jones Award is a scrap of the Indiana Jones RPG book preserved in resin.
Past winners of the award have been everything from RPGs to designers to podcasts and liveplays. The list is an eclectic one. But here’s a quick taste of the recipients of the last 23 awards:
- Coyote & Crow – 2023
- The concept of “Actual Play – 2018
- Eric M. Lang – 2016
- Fiasco – 2011
- Dominion – 2009
- Irish Game Convention Charity Auctions – 2006
As you can see, it’s an eclectic collection of nominees. They even state that on the website:
From a long and eclectic collection of nominees, the committee of the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming selected five finalists that it believes best exemplified “excellence” in the field of gaming for its 2024 award.
The 2024 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming Finalists
This year’s finalists are surprisingly organization-forward. Starting with a convention that BoLS readers will doubtlessly be familiar with – Adepticon. Adepticon’s reputation as the “largest and most energized” wargaming convention, as well as its support of other conventions, earned the longtime wargaming convention a nomination this year.
Next up is Ami Baio, the lone game designer in this year’s finalists. Ami is the owner of Pink Tiger Games, and her work was selected by the committee for bringing players together in new, vulnerable ways:
Players, even when they are strangers, are often brought to tears of joy or nostalgia through her carefully crafted card games. In our current world, Ami’s games are more important and necessary than ever.
Next up is Fastaval, a roleplaying and board game convention in Denmark with a “delightfully eccentric culture and pervasively joyful culture of play.”
Joining them is one of the largest, most successful itch.io bundles: TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida. This bundle raised more than $280,000 to support trans rights and inclusivity in Florida, showcasing the industry’s “passion and love for the trans community.”
Finally, there’s the United Paizo Workers Union. You might recall the story from late last year, when the UPW reached its first collective bargaining agreement. This is a monumental step forward for organized labor in gaming, as well as a voice for Paizo’s workers to communicate their needs.
You can read more about each finalist on the Diana Jones Award page. As for who will win, well, GenCon will have all the answers.
Who would you pick for 2024’s Diana Jones Award recipient?
