This Year's Diana Jones Award Nominees Include a Journalist, 2 TTRPGS, a D&D Adventure, and a Game Designer!

The finalists for this year's Diana Jones Award have been announced, and include a journalist, a D&D adventure, two TTRPGs, and a game designer. The winner will be announced at Gen Con on August 2nd.

The Diana Jones Award (named after the burned remains of the last copy of the Indiana Jones RPG),

• Linda Codega, a journalist, critic, and game designer focusing on tabletop gaming, for io9 and Gizmodo.
• Coyote & Crow, a roleplaying game by Connor Alexander,, published by Coyote & Crow.
• Journeys Through The Radiant Citadel, a Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook, written by Justice Ramin Arman, Dominique Dickey, Ajit A. George, Basheer Ghouse, Alastor Guzman, D. Fox Harrell, T.K. Johnson, Felice Tzehuei Kuan, Surena Marie, Mimi Mondal, Mario Ortegón, Miyuki Jane Pinckard, Pam Punzalan, Erin Roberts, Terry H. Romero, and Stephanie Yoon.
• Rosenstrasse, a roleplaying game by Moyra Turkington & Jessica Hammer, published by Unruly Designs.
• Cole Wehrle, a game designer, creative director at Leder Games, and co-founder of Wehrlegig Games.

 

[Voadam]

(named after the burned remains of the last copy of the Indiana Jones RPG),

I had no idea.

 

[Pedantic]

i know about the first three but not the last two. What should I know about Rosenstrasse and Cole Wehrle?

Wehrle is very well known in board games, mostly for war games and area control games. His most common design motifs include wildly asymmetrical factions, closed economies and lately sort of mixed "campaign" and legacy style games, that inherit board position/setup from earlier games. His most well known design is probably Root, with other notables including Oath and Pax Pamir.

I think I'm underselling him here, to be honest. Root is insanely popular; on the back of it, Cole Wehrle is likely among the top 5 designers a random hobbyist boardgamer can name and has opinions about.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Linda had a very good year and I'm not sure traditional journalism awards will be paying attention to their coverage of the story. (Heck, I suspect a lot of traditional journalism contests wouldn't even understand the story.) So it's good that they're a seeming shoo-in for this one.

 

[Autumnal]

Thanks, @Pedantic - I know about Root and follow the thread from there.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Linda has also done good work investigating the Wormwood debacle!