The Diana Jones Award committee is pleased to announce the winner of its 2022 award is Ajit George.
Ajit has been a tireless activist in games, who draws on his extensive nonprofit experience in poverty alleviation to advocate for a more representative and equitable industry. For over a decade, he has worked with individuals and organizations to change the trajectory of the community. In 2016, he helped lead a groundbreaking year for Gen Con, which achieved gender parity and greater representation for both POCs and LGBTQ+ for its Industry Insider Speaker slate for the first time in its history. In 2019, he created and continues to lead a POC training and mentoring program which matches industry veterans from Bioware, Evil Hat, Riot, Wizards of the Coast, and other companies with up-and-coming POC professionals looking to break into the industry. He also conceived and led the first POC games industry mixer at Big Bad Con in 2019, which led to 75+ job opportunities at a wide variety of companies including Critical Role, Darrington Press, Evil Hat, Paradox, and Wizards of the Coast.
As a game writer, Ajit was the first writer of Indian origin to write Indian-inspired material for a number of games, including Dungeons & Dragons: Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. He most recently conceived, project-led, and wrote for the first book written entirely by POCs in Dungeons & Dragons’ 48-year history, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.
Visit his website at ajitageorge.com.
From a long and eclectic collection of nominees, the committee of the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming selected four finalists that it believes best exemplified “excellence” in the field of gaming for its 2022 award. They are:
ACROSS RPGSEA
A website and newsletter promoting Southeast Asian games
Created by momatoes
In 2019, the social media hashtag #rpgsea made waves as a means of spreading awareness and visibility for Southeast Asian (SEA) creators of tabletop roleplaying games. Springing from that, momatoes — also known as Bianca Canoza, the winner of this year’s Emerging Designer Program — created a gorgeous and stunningly useful website solely devoted to promoting Southeast Asian games. She also runs an accompanying newsletter that focuses on spreading important news about what Southeast Asian creators are up to, adding to the good work spurred by 2019 DJA finalist Session Zero Online.
To learn more, visit across-rpgsea.com
AJIT GEORGE
An activist advocating for a more representative hobby games industry
Ajit has been a tireless activist in games, who draws on his extensive nonprofit experience in poverty alleviation to advocate for a more representative and equitable industry. For over a decade, he has worked with individuals and organizations to change the trajectory of the community. In 2016, he helped lead a groundbreaking year for Gen Con, which achieved gender parity and greater representation for both POCs and LGBTQ+ for its Industry Insider Speaker slate for the first time in its history. In 2019, he created and continues to lead a POC training and mentoring program which matches industry veterans from Bioware, Evil Hat, Riot, Wizards of the Coast, and other companies with up-and-coming POC professionals looking to break into the industry. He also conceived and led the first POC games industry mixer at Big Bad Con in 2019, which led to 75+ job opportunities at a wide variety of companies including Critical Role, Darrington Press, Evil Hat, Paradox, and Wizards of the Coast.
As a game writer, Ajit was the first writer of Indian origin to write Indian-inspired material for a number of games, including Dungeons & Dragons: Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. He most recently conceived, project-led, and wrote for the first book written entirely by POCs in Dungeons & Dragons’ 48-year history, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.
Visit his website at ajitageorge.com
HAUNTED WEST
An epic weird west RPG with a focus on marginalized people
Published by Darker Hue Studios
Haunted West is a revolutionary take on the way gaming sees the Old West. Rather than focusing on the history many learned in school that often erases the stories of marginalized communities, it tells a fuller, more truthful one—with a weird west spin. From Darker Hue Studios, the creators of the multi-award winning TTRPG sourcebook Harlem Unbound (a 2018 DJA finalist), this tome clocks in at over 800 pages. In addition to a detailed account of the true history of the Old West focusing on the mostly untold stories of the marginalized people who lived through it, it provides two settings (historical and alternate history) and two systems (the main Ouroboros System and a Powered by the Apocalypse hack). Chris Spivey, founder and CEO of Darker Hue Studios, believes games have the power to educate and engage in a community setting, and creates historically honest games like Haunted West to build understanding and encourage inclusion and diversity. Haunted West has been accepted into the collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Learn more about it at www.darkerhuestudios.com
MOTHERSHIP
A stunning space horror RPG fueled by its community of contributors
Published by Tuesday Knight Games
Mothership is a sci-fi horror roleplaying game that uses next-generation design and layout — infused with an “old school” ethos of risk and reward — to tell stories of desperate crews on the edge of space salvaging wrecked ships, exploring alien worlds, and (sometimes) making it out alive. But Mothership is more than just a tightly constructed space horror engine; it’s also the bedrock of a community of players and creators who are building amazing adventures, settings, and tools for the game. Fueled by the excitement of that community, the Mothership Kickstarter alone stands as a stunning accomplishment, raising more than $1.4 million for a completely original, non-licensed RPG built by independent creators alongside their fans.
Find out more at www.mothershiprpg.com
The 2022 Diana Jones Award ceremony was held in Indianapolis on Wednesday, August 3rd, at our annual gathering of tabletop games industry professionals, the unofficial kick-off of Gen Con, the world’s largest tabletop games convention.
During the ceremony, Matt Forbeck presented the brand-new Diana Jones Award trophy, created by the folks at the Game Crafter. This replaced the original trophy, which was lost in shipping from Canada last year. He also asked for a moment of silence and read the names of tabletop games industry creators who were lost since the last ceremony in 2021.
Emerging Designer Program coordinator Camdon Wright then took the stage to talk about the finalists for this year’s program, including Nick Butler, who joined Camdon on stage. Program winner momatoes also joined them on stage to a rousing round of applause.
Afterward, Matt announced the winner of this year’s award: Ajit George. Ajit was unable to attend the ceremony, as he was in India, working with the school he and his family set up to help impoverished children, Shanti Bhavan. Indrani Ganguly gave a warm acceptance speech on his behalf.
Many thanks to the key sponsors of this year’s event for their support. They are:
On top of that, we’d like to thank our other sponsors for their support:
- Actoroke
- Alexandria RPG Library
- Anthony Gallela
- Beach House Games
- Carolina Game Tables
- Chaldea
- Dana Lombardy
- The Game Crafter
- Gamehole Con
- Gaming Paper
- Gen Con
- Heroic Signatures
- Jim Kitchen
- Matt Forbeck
- Nick Morawitz
- Noble Knight Games
- OneBookShelf
- Pelgrane Press
- Peter Adkison
- ProFantasy Software
- Renegade Games