The Diana Jones Award is an annual award for "excellence in gaming". The original award was made from a burned book encased in lucite. The award is unusual in two ways: first, it is not an award for a specific class of thing, but can be awarded to a person, product, publication, company, organization, event or trend – anything related to gaming; second, it does not count popularity or commercial success as a sign of "excellence". The award was first presented in 2001.
EN World, also known as Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG News, is a British-owned tabletop role-playing game news and reviews website. The website is run and owned by Russ Morrissey ("Morrus"). It reports current news and provides insight into major product releases before they are officially unveiled. EN World was the original host of the ENNIE Awards.
A tabletop role-playing game, also known as a pen-and-paper role-playing game, is a classification for a role-playing game (RPG) in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech and sometimes movements. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a set formal system of rules and guidelines, usually involving randomization. Within the rules, players have the freedom to improvise, and their choices shape the direction and outcome of the game.
TableTop is a web series about games, directed by Jennifer Arnold. It was created by Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day and was hosted by Wheaton. TableTop was published on Felicia Day's YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry. In each episode, following a brief explanation of one or more tabletop games, Wheaton plays the games with one or more guests—usually web or TV personalities.
Geek & Sundry is a commercial YouTube and Twitch channel and multimedia production company. It was launched on April 2, 2012, by actress Felicia Day with Kim Evey and Sheri Bryant as part of YouTube's 100 million dollar original channel initiative. In June 2012, Forbes suggested that "if successful, it could help blaze a trail for the future of network television." In 2014, Geek & Sundry was acquired by Legendary Entertainment. The company is primarily known for their launch of the D&D show Critical Role, which aired on their channels from 2015–19.
Gamer Network Limited is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and other video game businesses. Its flagship website, Eurogamer, was launched alongside the company. It began hosting the video game trade show EGX in 2008. ReedPop acquired Gamer Network in 2018 and sold it to IGN Entertainment in 2024.
Achievement Hunter was an American video gaming division of Rooster Teeth Productions. Founded by Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo on July 6, 2008, the website was originally based on the achievement mechanic in video games but grew to become a core component of Rooster Teeth, hosting a wide variety of videos related to video games. Achievement Hunter dissolved after publishing its final video on October 1, 2023, with all members having moved elsewhere within Rooster Teeth, which itself closed in May 2024.
Leigh Alexander is an American author, journalist, and video game writer. She is the former editor-at-large and news editor for Game Developer, and former editor-in-chief for the revived Boing Boing website Offworld. She has writing credits on the games Reigns: Her Majesty and Reigns: Game of Thrones.
A megagame is a type of large-scale simulation which can contain elements of role-playing games, tabletop games, LARPs and wargames. Megagames are typically played by 30-100 players over the course of a full day. Participants are often arranged into hierarchies of teams cooperating or competing towards various objectives.
Tabletop Simulator is an independent video game that allows players to play and create tabletop games in a multiplayer physics sandbox. Developed by Berserk Games as their first title after a successful crowdfunding campaign in February 2014, the game was released in June of the following year.
Critical Role is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after 115 episodes, and campaign two started in January 2018 and ended in June 2021 after 141 episodes. A number of one-shots were aired in the hiatus between the two campaigns. After campaign two was completed, the spin-off limited series Exandria Unlimited aired from June 2021 to August 2021. The third campaign premiered on October 21, 2021.
Kinda Funny is an online entertainment company that produces videos and podcasts on video game culture, film, television, and comics.
Jesse Louis Cox is an American YouTube gaming personality, comedian, voice actor, media commentator and video game producer. He is the owner of the YouTube channel previously named OMFGcata, a gaming channel on which Cox posts most of his content. As of February 2024, the channel has over 1,000,000 subscribers.
Space Hulk: Tactics is a turn-based tactics video game developed by Cyanide and published by Focus Home Interactive. The game is set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and is based upon the turn-based strategy tabletop miniatures board game Space Hulk. The game was released on 9 October 2018.
OutsideXbox, or Oxbox, is a British YouTube channel and group consisting of Jane Douglas, Andy Farrant and Mike Channell. The group also has a sister channel, Outside Xtra, or Oxtra, consisting of Ellen Rose. The group is best known for video games commentary, journalism, and gameplay. The channel also hosts the Oxventure, a real-play tabletop role-playing game series primarily encompassing Dungeons & Dragons but occasionally others such as Blades in the Dark and Deadlands, featuring fellow YouTubers Johnny Chiodini and Luke Westaway, and which was later launched as its own channel. The group has a combined 3.74 million subscribers and 1.81 billion views across all three channels as of November 2023.
Tellstones: King's Gambit is a 2020 tabletop game created by Riot Games under their Riot Tabletop division. Two or four players take turns placing, swapping, and guessing tokens; the goal of the game is to either guess three tokens correctly or "boast" successfully by correctly guessing all hidden tokens. Developed as part of Riot's expansion into games outside League of Legends, the game is the company's second tabletop product following their 2016 release Mechs vs. Minions. Tellstones was released in September 2020; reviewers praised the game for its presentation and build quality, but criticized its gameplay as short and uninteresting.
Actual play, also called live play, is a genre of podcast or web show in which people play tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) for an audience. Actual play often encompasses in-character interactions between players, storytelling from the gamemaster, and out-of-character engagements such as dice rolls and discussion of game mechanics. The genre emerged in the early 2000s and became more popular throughout the decade, particularly with the 2015 debut of Critical Role, an actual play webseries featuring professional voice actors.
L.A. by Night is an American actual play web series where the cast plays as vampires using the fifth edition Vampire: The Masquerade ruleset. It is set canonically in the World of Darkness series after the events of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and focuses on Kindred society in Los Angeles. It premiered in September 2018; the show's current storyline concluded with its fifth season in 2021. A sequel series, titled NY by Night, started in July 2022.
Trisha Lyn Hershberger is an American YouTuber, vlogger, and television host.
