Tag Archives: diana jones

Ennies Countdown

Posted on by dconstructions
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I won’t list all the nominees, you can find them here.  Fantastic to see Happy Birthday Robot there, an RPG for little kids that is rather a thing for kids that is also a kind of RPG. It might not win an Ennie but it should win the Scholastic Book Prize or something. As always, Green Ronin dominates the field. Do they ever get tired of being awesome? I doubt it. Lots of noms for Cubicle 7 and Evil Hat but when you’re publishing about fifty games each, that’s no surprise! Which is not to knock it, just a note on how the industry has changed recently.

Lots more noms for Dresden, just like for the Diana Jones. Rechecked it out, it IS damn well written, particularly the Players Guide (the setting I think is pretty uninteresting, so that book suffers, but it also got a best Supplement nom) and its ideas for collaborative city construction are well fleshed out – but they’re all just words, not rules the way they are in Smallville. Again, no Smallville on the list anywhere. Nor Leverage. It’s like a goddamned conspiracy.

Nothing of mine this year. But I hardly worked on anything last year. Because I’m just too damn poor. Maybe I can get a nomination for Best Blog someday.

I hope  Fiasco wins the DJ. I hope Smallville somehow wins a write in for the ENies. Whatever happens though, it’s up to you: don’t forget to vote!

2011 Diana Jones Nominees

Posted on by dconstructions
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It’s not up on the DJ website yet but the nominees are:

* Catacombs, a board-game by Ryan Amos, Marc Kelsey and Aron West, published by Sands of Time Games
* The Dresden Files RPG by the Dresden Files RPG Team, published by Evil Hat Productions
* Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space, a board-game by Mario Porpora, Pietro Righi Riva, Luca Francesco Rossi and Nicolò Tedeschi, published by Cranio Creations
* Fiasco, an RPG by Jason Morningstar, published by Bully Pulpit Games
* Freemarket, an RPG by Luke Crane and Jared A. Sorensen, published by Sorencrane MRCZ

 

Freemarket is no surprise; it’s not just a clever marrying of roleplaying principles and post-scarcity principles (since the two overlap) but it sells as a box full of wacky cards and chips, trying to smash apart what people think of as RPGs, and without drowning in thousands of bits like other games.

Fiasco is also no surprise. It’s a lovely working of the random-plot-generator idea from the 80s (made cool again in games like In A Wicked Age), combined with a theatre-sports like mechanic of offers and acceptances. And by cleverly branding itself as the game of “shit hits the fan” films, it’s carved a totally separate media niche – and so successfully I’ve seen it being advertised in mainstream catalogues. Smallville was the indie game that looked like a regular RPG, but Fiasco is the indie game that looks like a board game.

Dresden Files over Smallville? That one I don’t get. But I’ve never been a fan of FATE, it’s just another generic system with a fun tagging mechanic. And nothing I see in the Dresden RPG makes it feel very noir. Smallville is arguably a show with a much greater and deeper fan base too.

I know nothing of the other two board games. So I’m off to Board Game Geek (winner of last year’s DJ) to find out more.