At Origins, Apocalypse World inducted into Hall of Fame, Land of Eem wins RPG of the Year

At GAMA’s recently concluded Origins Trade Fair, the seminal Apocalypse World by Vincent and Meguey Baker was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design’s Hall of Fame. This is a rare accolade for a roleplaying game, as most of the previous inductees are board games. Apocalypse World will only be the eighth RPG to be included, joining Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, GURPS, Champions, Amber Diceless, and Cyberpunk. This also makes it the only RPG to be inducted that was released in the last 30 years — previously, the newest game was Amber Diceless which came out in 1991. 

But individual games aren’t the main focus of the Hall of Fame, which mainly honors people whose contributions have influential or vital to the tabletop industry. This year, three people were inducted — two board game designers, Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders, Hanabi) and Richard Borg (Memoir '44) — alongside fantasy artist Wayne Reynolds. Reynolds has worked across the industry, having contributed to Pathfinder, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer. But is probably best known for his work on D&D and was commissioned by the UK Royal Mail to illustrate stamps for the game’s 50th anniversary. He joins Elizabeth Danforth and Larry Elmore among others in the short list of artists.

The Origins Trade Fair also announced winners of its 49th annual awards. Once again, the awards  are primarily focused on board games, to the extent that all the board game categories are broadly referred to as a “game”, such as Gateway Game of the Year. In their coverage of the awards, ICV2 commented, “There were also no categories specifically for TCGs, gaming accessories, and collectible games (segments of the games industry which represent a large dollar amount of sales within the overall games market).” The conspicuous lack of TCGs may be due to the fact that it’s the dominant category that, at least to some extent, crowds out board games in hobby shops; as such, they don’t really require any support from GAMA in its role as the trade body for the tabletop industry. 

For the two RPG awards: Land of Eem took home the title of Roleplaying Game of the Year (beating out heavy-hitters like Daggerheart, the Cosmere RPG, and Starfinder) and The Sutra of Pale Leaves - Twin Suns Rising, won Supplement of the Year. Land of Eem, designed by Ben Costa and James Parks and published by Exalted Funeral, is a colorful all-ages fantasy adventure game pitched as “The Muppets meets Lord of the Rings”. The Sutra of Pale Leaves is a Call of Cthulhu campaign featuring the King in Yellow set in 1980s Japan. It stands out as a departure from how publisher Chaosium usually operates; the supplement was primarily developed by an external studio called Sons of the Singularity.