Congratulations to Wolfgang Baur

Wolfgang Baur is this year’s co-recipient of the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, tied with Jason Morningstar for the game Grey Ranks. The Diana Jones Award is decided on merit, not popularity or commercial success, by a panel of people working in all areas and at all levels of the hobby-games business, who have all distinguished themselves in their field.

Wolfgang receives this award for his Open Design project:

Open Design began as an experiment in funding the development of roleplaying game supplements. Wolfgang Baur—a highly respected, long-time Dungeons & Dragons editor and designer for TSR and then Wizards of the Coast—went back hundreds of years to dig up the concept of patronage, add a few modern twists to it, and apply it to the problem. He posts a project and publicizes it along with a monetary threshold. When the funding his patrons chip in reaches that threshold, he starts on the project in earnest. Baur supplements his exemplary work by letting his patrons suggest various directions for each project and then allowing them to look over this shoulder as he works. Each project becomes a master-level class on adventure design for those privileged to be a part of it.

Wolfgang Baur was one of our prestige GM guests at the 2007 edition of Emerald City Gamefest. Congratulations, Wolfgang!