The 2022 Nebula Award for Best Game Writing was awarded to Thirsty Sword Lesbians, a roleplaying game written by April Kit Walsh, Whitney Delagio, Dominique Dickey, Jonaya Kemper, Alexis Sara, and Rae Nedjadi. The game was published by Evil Hat Productions.
This is the first time a tabletop role-playing game has won the award.
The game writing award was added to the Nebula award slate in 2019 and is intended to highlight interactive or playable story-driven work which conveys narrative, character, or story background.
Four of the five nominees this year were tabletop role-playing games; Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Coyote & Crow, Granma’s Hand and Wanderhome. Windermyth, a role-playing video game, was also nominated.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced the winners of the 57th Annual Nebula Awards during a live virtual presentation hosted by Connie Willis and Neil Gaiman. The awards are voted on by members of association.
April Kit Walsh accepted the award during the presentation.
“I believe that culture is the conversation. And that’s a deep part of the tradition of tabletop role-playing games,” Walsh said.
“The designer helps set forth the storytelling tropes and archetypes and dynamics and invites players to explore those ideas, bring life to characters within that narrative framework so I would like to thank all of the community members who are streaming games, sharing fan art and using the open license to author their own archetypes and adventures,” she added.
