Cheers of joy were certainly mixed with groans of “brains!” when the Judge’s Choice Ennie awards were given out at Gen Con 2011. A Judge’s Choice award is given when the judges can’t agree on a top product, forcing each judge to give an individual award to his personal favorite among the hundreds of submissions. In this case Judge Wil Upchurch (of influential Star Wars: The Role Playing Game fame) gave his award to Outbreak: Undead, the very first product by start up company Hunters Books and Apparel.

On August 9, 2011, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) announced the official winners of the Neverwinter Mass Adventure at Gen Con 2011 to be the drow (dark elf, right side of the photo) mercenaries of the Bregan D’aerthe faction.

The competition was held between three factions: The warrior (center) faction of New Neverwinter was a close second place, while the evil wizards of Thay were a distant last place. I’m glad to hear only a small minority of people want to be power-hungry wizards willing to sacrifice any number of innocents for personal gain, although 18% is still a bit high for my taste.

Perhaps the most glaring omission from 4e Dungeons and Dragons (4e D&D) was a popular game location. Third edition D&D had Eberron, and older editions had the City of Greyhawk and Skullport, but nothing published so far has really resonated with the fans of 4e D&D, to set it apart from being just a generic fantasy game.

In the memory of beloved Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax who passed away earlier this year, patrons of the 2008 GenCon, held on August 15, 2008, raised donations of $17,380 according to Live Game Auctions. That’s an astounding amount to say the least. In fact, the previous 2007 GenCon raised $9802, which is still nothing to sneeze at.

Each year the convention donates the money to a charity with last year’s being Christel House International. This year, the charity chosen to receive the donation was Gary Gygax’s own personal favorite, the Christian Children’s Foundation. Sadly, the foundation decided to refuse the donation from the convention which instead…