One of the most prestigious awards in board games has disappeared

The Diana Jones Prize Trophy, one of the most prized objects in board games, has disappeared and there are fears that it will be lost.

After changing hands for more than 20 years, the trophy, named after the adventurous archaeologist Indiana Jones, has disappeared for a rather mundane reason: it was lost in the mail.

A member of the Diana Jones Award committee announced the disappearance of the trophy at the official website. “It is unlikely that he will ever recover,” they said. “Perhaps now it is in a box inside a warehouse somewhere, as forgotten and despised as the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The Diana Jones Award was the brainchild of game designer and publisher James Wallis. It has been offered every year at Gen Con, the largest board game convention in the United States, since 2001. The audience is often people, but also games and even concepts. Designer Eric M. Lang received the award in 2016 to celebrate his contributions to the arts and crafts of board games. In 2018, the award was given to the actual gaming movement – that is, the collection of podcasts and live streams that have contributed to the resurgence in popularity of tabletop role-playing games over the past decade. It’s effectively the hobby game industry’s version of an Academy Award or Tony Award, and its origins date back to the 1980s.

The object itself, a piece of clear plastic mounted on a rough wooden pedestal, dates from 1985 and is the British subsidiary of TSR, the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons.

At the time, TSR’s UK arm imported content from D&D, sometimes reinterpreting it for a European audience. But it also produced content, including a well-regarded adventure called The sinister secret of the salt marsh and the first audio dungeon, a two-disc vinyl LP called First mission. The remnants of that audacious group of designers would become the basis for Games Workshop and help bring the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes to life.

In the early 1980s, TSR had a licensing agreement with Lucasfilm. When that deal ended in 1985, he no longer had the rights to continue selling. The Adventures of Indiana Jones RPG. The TRPG was widely regarded as one of the worst of all time. Why was it so bad? Well, there was no character creation system for one. Instead, players took on the role of movie characters as Raiders of the lost ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and he simply recreated the events of those movies. Also, Indiana Jones couldn’t die.

The Adventures of Indiana Jones It is also home to an infamous paper miniature labeled “Nazi TM”. When the game was released, many thought that Lucasfilm was trying to brand the concept of Nazism. In reality, TSR was just playing by the rules and allowing Lucasfilm to score a rendering of a costumed character from their own movie. Suffice it to say that few regretted the demise of the game.

When the call came to destroy all remaining unsold copies, TSR UK decided to get creative. Instead of burying copies of the game in a landfill, Atari’s ET game cartridges had a bonfire. A huge pile of The Adventures of Indiana Jones they were set alight, while a single copy was reserved for special attention. It was artistically scorched along its edges and then captured, like a gnat in amber, within a transparent Lucite pyramid. Clearly visible from two sides was a new name: Diana Jones.

“It’s very clear that they had no idea what to do with it,” Wallis told Polygon. Finally, the plastic pyramid was given away in Fair games, a multi-day convention organized by TSR at the University of Reading in the UK. “He went to a group of small press editors and fanzines and game writers that I was in. But the leader of the team was a guy named Ian Marsh, who would become the editor of White Dwarf. “

White Dwarf continues to this day as Games Workshop’s premier print publication, and remains one of the longest-running hobby game magazines in the world. When Marsh got married a few years later, it was time to give up the childish things. He handed the Diana Jones to Wallis, and it sat on a shelf in his home for the better part of a decade. When he was dreaming of a new award for the hobby game industry, he could not come up with a better name, or a better trophy, than the Diana Jones Award.

“I recruited a group of friends within the games industry at various levels,” Wallis said, “a mix of designers, editors, and influencers, some of whom had retired. I think there were about 15 of us to start. “That committee was, and still is, anonymous, an effort Wallis says works against favoritism, undue influence and personal bias.

Since 2001, the Diana Jones Award trophy has been passed from hand to hand, winner to winner, like a knockoff of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup. But, unlike that silver goblet, there is no white glove treatment to speak of. The trophy itself turned yellowish, with massive bumps and scrapes clouding its surface. It is that tradition of carelessness that ultimately led to his loss.

The last person to hold the Diana Jones trophy was Alex Roberts, designer of the relationship-based role-playing game. Crossed star, which won the award in 2019. In September 2020, he mailed it from Canada to Indianapolis, where it was expected to arrive with another recipient, author Maurice Broaddus. But it never appeared. Without a tracking number to speak of, neither Canada Post nor the United States Postal Service has been able to help.

The loss of the object itself is a tragedy, but Wallis also sees it as an opportunity.

“I am deeply saddened that this has disappeared from my life,” Wallis said, “although, if it now passes into the realms of myth, this trophy that no one in video games will now have again is an appropriate destination.

“Some people come up to me and say that even being nominated for the Diana Jones Award has changed their professional life for the better,” Wallis continued. “It’s an extraordinary thing to be able to do that for someone’s career. But perhaps this 35-year-old block of Lucite is no longer an adequate representation of what the Diana Jones prize has become. “

The Diana Jones Committee is expanding its scope of action in the future. In addition to highlighting an individual, game or concept with the Diana Jones Award, it also recognizes the shining stars that it hopes will help shape the future of the industry. This year she launched the Diana Jones Emerging Designers Program. The first recipient is Jeeyon Shim, a second-generation Korean-American game designer, multimedia artist and outdoor educator based in California. Wallis said the organization will continue to support artists like Shim in the future, and part of that support will mean finding more appropriate physical prizes.

“Are the scorched remains of the Indiana Jones RPG really what we want it to symbolize us in the future?” Wallis said. “I would never have suggested getting rid of the existing trophy and getting something else, but now that the previous trophy is gone, maybe it’s the right time to look for something else.”

Still, the Diana Jones Award committee said, in their announcement of the loss of the trophy, “If anyone discovers the trophy, please contact the Diana Jones Award committee immediately. We would be grateful for his return ”.

Polygon reached out to Alex Roberts to share Wallis’s perspective on losing the award. Ultimately, he feels responsible, but is glad that the incident is helping chart a new course for the committee in the future.

“It’s a shame it had to happen this way,” Roberts told Polygon. “But I really feel like whatever they replace it will be a better representation of the award, the tabletop RPG industry and the gaming scene in general.”