In light of the Annual Origins Award dustup (now co-starring every yahoo on the internet), I’ve decided it’s time to launch new awards based on the gaming of our ancestors. Press Release follows:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ANNOUCING THE JESUS AWARDS
New Award to Revive Ancient Tradition
July 16, 2004—Seattle, WA: In 1980 a young Chris Pramas dug up two ancient lead tablets in a construction site near his Peabody, MA home. After some study, he realized they were not just in an unknown language but also in code. Armed only with an Aramaic-English dictionary, a 1st edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, and 3 12-sided dice, Pramas translated and decoded the mysterious tablets. The results were astounding. According to the tablets, Jesus of Nazareth was a gamemaster and the creator of the first roleplaying game, Harlots and Heresies. The Last Supper was, in fact, the Last Session of his long running campaign, which broke up due to the blatant rules-lawyering of Judas.
Miraculously, Jesus traveled to America in search of a new gaming group, while his remaining disciples spread across the Middle East and Europe to spread the word. Later, new player Paul would inadvertently invent Live Action Roleplaying when he took the game too far. His variant of the original Harlots and Heresies would achieve worldwide fame as “Christianity.”
Back in America, Jesus had little luck finding new players. He thus decided to institute a set of gaming awards to make his hobby appear more prestigious. The Native Americans didn’t understand his in-jokes, such as the ill-fated “Sure, Mom, Of Course You’re a Virgin” Award for Best Roleplayer. At this point, Jesus did the only thing that he could: he created instructions for handing out the awards and buried them so that future generations could revive them when the time was right.
“I’ve been preparing for this day since 1980,” commented Pramas. “The only thing that remained unclear was the final instruction: ‘give these awards to my people in the year of the lying weasel’. When the new board took over GAMA at Origins, I new the time was upon us!”
When asked to produce the lead tablets, Pramas insisted he no longer had them. “Hey, I melted those thing down years ago to cast my own miniatures, but you can trust the word of Jesus. You wouldn’t call Jesus a liar, would you?”
Categories and nominees for the Jesus Awards will be announced soon. Jesus and Pramas comprise the entirety of the jury. “I think having Jesus on the jury adds a level of transparency that no corporeal beings can match,” adds Pramas.