• The White Wolf party apparently exceeded expectations.
• Again with the Iron Tyrants!
• The 5-2-1 rule, expert mode for the 3-2-1 rule.
• True Dungeon finally gets a mention. It doesn’t seem to be on everyone’s lips as in past years.
• Skulduggery sounds hot.
• Hamlet’s Hit Points
• Mars Colony
• ICONS
• Blood Bowl Team Manager, and acknowledgement that FFG’s announcing things before they have a release date is irritating as all hell.

And that’s Gen Con. Hope you had fun!

• @geeksdreamgirl ran multiple dating events at the show, while Adam and Eclipse Phase managed to snatch away a few silver and the gold for Best Writing at the Paizo Awards ENnies last night. (See the winner list here.)
• The costume parade forces Ryan to make a hard choice. Everything from stormtroopers in kilts to walking tetris blocks was represented.
• In case you forgot, Eclipse Phase is under the Creative Commons license. Rules remix, people!
• More about geek dating events, including speed dating at Gen Con Indy. On the other hand, some guys just need to be slapped silly for honking what isn’t theirs.
• The fit4gencon movement.
• A little social pressure is applied to… um, us at OgreCave.com. Don’t worry, Ryan, we’re working on the podcast. Expect the OgreCave Audio Report 2.0 soon!
• Hosts and guests all want an adult-sized LEGO bounce house.
• DC Adventures: “freakin’ gorgeous”.
• Praise for Twitter, and the gaming community therein.
• Stupid Ranger and the Roleplaying Therapy for the Severely Disturbed event.
• Ryan manages the most spectacular segue ever – with urine.
• A parting shout-out to Campaign Coins.

One show left, midday Sunday – pardon me, “Day 4”. Check back tomorrow!

SUPER GENIUS GAMES PARTNERS WITH MONTE COOK AND DUNGEONADAY.COM!

Super Genius Games to manage and run subscription based website Dungeonaday.com

August 06, 2010 (SAN DIEGO, CA and MILWAUKEE, WI) – Super Genius Games announced today that it has signed an agreement with Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition designer, Monte Cook, to manage and further develop the ground breaking web portal Dungeonaday.com. Starting September 1, 2010, Super Genius Games will handle the day to day design and management of the content on the site, using plans developed by Monte Cook, and updating the content to be compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game published by Paizo Publishing.

“When Monte approached us with the offer it was initially daunting, but after talking to the other Geniuses, we knew this was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” said Stan!, Creative Director for Super Genius Games.

Monte Cook said “When it time came to step back from Dungeonaday.com I knew I needed the right partner to step in and take over. After giving it a lot of thought the Geniuses were at the top of my list.”

“Dungeonaday.com is a unique and exciting gaming product.” said Super Genius Pathfinder Development Manager Owen K.C. Stephens. “It combines outstanding traditional game content with the richness of the Web, creating an entirely new way to use a product as big and complex as the Dragon’s Delve mega-dungeon.”

Released in spring 2009, the ENnie nominated Dungeonaday.com offers a new dungeon encounter for members every weekday, building a whole dungeon campaign one day at a time. The dungeon encounters are usable in any campaign setting, and GMs can pick and choose encounters from the daily updates to use in their own dungeons or use them together with all the other information available on the site to create a massive dungeon-based campaign called Dragon’s Delve. Although it may appear to start out like a fairly conventional dungeon, as you get deeper the full scope of the adventure and the unique challenges become more and more apparent. Discover the Aberrant Laboratory, the Sprawl of the Demon Liege, the Prison of the Red Saint, the Secret City, and the Court of the Dragon Prince!

For more information and a free sneak peak at Dungeonaday.com, please visit www.dungeonaday.com

About Super Genius Games
Founded in fall 2007 by game industry veterans Hyrum Savage and Stan!, Super Genius Games is the premier publisher of 3rd Party Pathfinder Roleplaying Game products and is dedicated to publishing quality PDF and print products for a wide range of games and game systems.

About Monte Cook
Monte has been involved in rpg design for more than 20 years. Although he started gaming with D&D, he got his start professionally working on ICE’s game, Rolemaster, and then Champions. Years later, he worked for TSR and then Wizards of the Coast as a senior game designer. He co-designed 3rd edition D&D, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Book of Vile Darkness, Dead Gods, Planewalker’s Handbook, Labyrinth of Madness, and a number of other official D&D products.

In 2001, Monte started Malhavoc Press with editor and co-owner Sue Cook. Together, they published products like Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved, the Books of Eldritch Might, and the ultra-deluxe Ptolus.

• Sandstorm, the new publishers-facilitators-whateverers of Eclipse Phase as well as… Poo.
• Apocalypse World
• Steal Away Jordan
• The D&D “Never Split The Party” contest
• GlowFly Games, who I think are set to publish Globalization?
• DC Adventures from Green Ronin. Also Dragon Age and Song of Ice and Fire.
• Artists Echo Chernik, Matthew Stewart and Christopher Shy
• No idea what this sales-skills game is. It certainly sounds like a subject amenable to a teaching game, though. Hell, some people say that’s basically what business school is.
• The Game Crafter, printing board games on demand
• There is a LEGO Games booth??!!?? I DEMAND PICTURES. [EDIT: Done. -A]
• Happy Birthday, Robot!
• Blowback
• Infrno online tools for tabletop play.
• Iron Tyrants! There are a couple of great making-of articles at the site.

2010 ENnie Award results:

Best Cover Art
Silver: Eclipse Phase
Gold: Pathfinder Bestiary

Best Interior Art
Silver: Shadowrun 20th
Gold: Pathfinder Core Rulebook

Best Cartography
Silver: Aces & Eights: Judas Crossing
Gold: Pathfinder City Map Folio

Best Writing
Silver: Victoriana
Gold: Eclipse Phase

Best Production Values
Silver: Shadowrun
Gold: Pathfinder

Best Rules
Silver: Hero 6th Edition
Gold: Diaspora

Best Adventure
Silver: Trail of Cthulhu: Armitage Files
Gold: Pathfinder #31: Stolen Land

Best Monster or Adversary
Silver: Pathfinder: Classic Horrors Revisited
Gold: Pathfinder Bestiary

Best Setting
Silver: Rome: Life and Death of the Republic
Gold: Day After Ragnarok

Best Supplement
Silver: Players Handbook 3
Gold: Mysteries of the Hollow Earth

Best Aid or Accessory
Silver: Gaming Paper
Gold: Pathfinder GM Screen

Best Miniatures Product
Silver: Gaming Paper
Gold: D&D Minis

Best Regalia
Silver: Battletech
Gold: Cthulhu 101

Best Electronic Book
Silver: The Devil We Know
Gold: The Great City Player’s Guide

Best Free Product
Silver: Lady Blackbird
Gold: Advanced Players Guide Playtest

Best Website
Silver: d20PFSRD.com
Gold: Obsidian Portal

Best Podcast
Silver: All Games Considered
Gold: Atomic Array

Best Blog
Silver: Gnome Stew
Gold: Kobold Quarterly

Best Game
Silver: Shadowrun
Gold: Pathfinder

Product of the Year
Silver: Eclipse Phase
Gold: Pathfinder

Fan Award for Best Publisher
Silver: Fantasy Flight Games
Gold: Paizo Publishing

Judges’ Spotlight Awards
Fiasco
Trailblazer
Chronica Feudalis
Ancient Odyssey: Treasure Awaits
Mindjammer

A hearty congratulations to all of this year’s nominees and winners!

• Dresden Files is on demand, but the show is short on magic savvy GMs.
• Massage kiosks are praised.
• White Wolf is experimenting with its booth and bar – more the latter than the former. This is to promote White Wolf’s Grand Masquerade event, happening in New Orleans on September 23-26. The lack of White Wolf book sales at Gen Con is… an interesting choice.
• Indie RPG Awards were announced. 2009 Indie Game of the Year: Kagematsu (which was shortlisted for the Diana Jones Award this year as well); Best Indie Supplement: Ken Hite’s The Day After Ragnarok; Best Free Product & Best Production: Lady Blackbird; Most Innovative Game: Paul Tevis’ A Penny For My Thoughts; Best Support for a Game: Fiasco.
• Steve hears about games and construction of characters more than he hears about characters themselves. ICONS and DC Adventures both make their convention debut at the show.
• Ken pimps the con debut of Targets of Opportunity, and mentions his chapter of The Dresden Files RPG, which is still on track to sell out at this year’s show.
• Cosplayers have emerged from their synthetic cocoons to prowl the exhibit hall.
• The Smallville RPG “looks delightful”.
• Rogue Games’ Shadow, Sword & Spell.
• The Savage Worlds book Space 1899: Red Sands.
• The informed are not terribly surprised by releases this year, but there are still plenty of less informed folks out there.

The crew ends the show thinking forward to the evening’s ENnie Awards ceremony, which has happened by now – click here to see the 2010 winners list.

• Ryan swears! Crap!
• Fat Patrol and Felicia Day. No relation whatsoever.
• Jennifer, Ed Greenwood, and others read a really bad book… out loud.
• Ryan ran some Mythender. Darren recounts the tale of when Luchadore masks got him thrown out of a bar a few Gen Cons ago.
• The Authors’ Alley has yet to provide @jenniferbrozek with a Twitter contest winner.
• Darren’s splitting his time between Hero Games, the GPA, and IPR.
• Geeky Pinups, and the Weregeek webcomic.
• Ryan predicts the Dresden Files RPG will sell out at the show.
• DC Adventures: Hero’s Handbook. Awesome layout guys are mentioned: Hal Mangold, Fred Hicks, and Adam Jury.
• Wizards is doling out Dark Sun at the rate of 100 books/day.
• Free Market again.
• The Evil Hat PDF Guarantee: people like it.
• Grants Pass didn’t make the show, which happened to Gameplaywright’s The Bones at Origins.

I’ll have the next batch of notes up in a bit.

• Again, the Adventure Burner and the Parsely Pack.
• gameplaywright.net
• Things We Think About Games, The Bones, and Robin Laws’ Hamlet’s Hit Points.
• Happy Birthday, Robot! (Note to others who want to see what games will come out of Kickstarter: remember Perfect? The new edition text is pretty stellar.)
• Malifaux by Wyrd Miniatures
• Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, and Thunderstone (OgreCave review here)
• IPR and Dresden.
• Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker.
• Apparently there’s WiFi on the show floor, because people are doing things like paying via PayPal on their iPhones and carrying zero cash.
• Steal Away Jordan
• A Taste For Murder
• Trail of Cthulhu (OgreCave review here)
• Skulduggery
• The ENnies
• Iron Tyrants – color me intrigued!
• People still love those BattleTech pods.
• The Smallville team charges the mic.

Can I just say how great it is to not hear Ryan Macklin again after so long? Nah, I’m just kidding. See you tomorrow!

Diana Jones Award committee press release follows:

Diana Jones Award 2010 winner announced

The 2010 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming has been given to Boardgamegeek, a website edited by Scott Alden and Derk Solko.

The winner was announced by author and game designer Matt Forbeck at a ceremony packed with games industry professionals, from designers to publishers and distributors. The award, part of the annual Diana Jones Award and Freelancer Party, was held at Jillian’s in Indianapolis at 9pm on Wednesday 4th August, the unofficial first event of the games convention Gen Con Indy.

The Diana Jones committee described its choice as follows:

“BoardGameGeek is a resource without peer for board and card gamers, the recognized authority of this online community.

“If BoardGameGeek did nothing more than provide an exhaustive database of board and card game editions, designers, publishers, and translators it would be a heroic and valuable undertaking, but this is simply where it begins. Past being a first and best reference, the site hosts reviews, photos, strategy guides, variant rules, and session reports all created by the site’s members.

“BoardGameGeek’s internal economy of thumbs and GeekGold effectively rewards those who make the site broader, deeper, and better, and as a result its community is smart, enthusiastic, and steadfast. The site and membership are together a seamless whole that exemplifies the best in modern Internet-based collaboration. Even better than some Wikipedia writ small, BoardGameGeek’s size is just exactly right, allowing its users’ passion for the hobby to shine into its every corner.

“BoardGameGeek provides its data and resources free of charge, but like many of the best online resources, offers paid memberships that eliminate advertisements. This direct relationship between the site’s users and owners effectively aligns the motivations of all concerned with producing the best site, rather than satisfying the whims of transient sponsors to the annoyance of all.

“In 2010, BoardGameGeek celebrates its tenth anniversary, adding longevity to the roll of its merits. Recently, BoardGameGeek’s creators have spun off additional sites devoted to other types of games, most notably roleplaying games. Time will tell whether the broadening of the ‘GeekD?’ umbrella will breed such fantastic communities in these other areas, but the initiative is more than welcome.

“In one small corner of human endeavor, BoardGameGeek’s exhaustive knowledge base, devoted community, and collaborative bedrock exemplify the absolute best that the Internet has to offer society.”

Also shortlisted for the Diana Jones Award this year were the small-press RPGs Kagematsu and Montsegur 1244, and the boardgame Chaos in the Old World.

The Diana Jones Award is given annually to whatever in the opinion of its mostly-anonymous committee shows or exemplifies gaming at its best. Anyone and anything within the games industry and hobby is eligible to win the Diana Jones Award, including individuals, products, publications, publishers, distributors, retailers, clubs, organisations, conventions, events, trends, innovations and concepts. Previous winners include Peter Adkison and Jordan Weisman, the RPGs Nobilis, Sorcerer and My Life with Master, the boardgame Ticket to Ride, and the card game Dominion

For more information please contact James Wallis: james@spaaace.com
Contact the Diana Jones Award committee: committee@dianajonesaward.org
More information on the award: http://www.dianajonesaward.org

• Dresden Files RPG. (Our thoughts on same.)
• The Adventure Burner, completing the Burning Wheel core books.
• The Parsely Pack, comprising ACTION CASTLE, Jungle Adventure, Spooky Manor, and Space Station.
• FreeMarket
• The Diana Jones Award has gone to BoardGameGeek. And I don’t mean to look up that Agricola expansion. Congrats to Aldie and crew.
• The Smallville RPG, which does indeed look pretty righteous.
• Reactor 88 is doing an inSpectres movie as well as the Brave New World film announced last year. BNW author Matt Forbeck plays a zombie.
• Wisconsin is very cold.
• The Women in Gaming panel – I believe it’s the second year that Gen Con has done this? Can’t find a link, but it has just ended as I type these words anyway. (Somebody write it up!)

Subscribe to our feed if you haven’t, because we’ll be on top of the TJI notes for the whole show, plus any other tidbits we turn up.