The Viniferan Academy Awards

Here's the latest installment of the gaming Academy Awards, a tradition that started back in school and has continued on and off for several years. Sometimes there are more than others, sometimes they're drawn from a variety of genres, but this year they are almost exclusively from my campaign set in my homebrew world of Vinifera.

Best Episode of 'Unarmed' Combat

• Kalista
• Sorcerer chick leaps over table clutching a wooden mug in one hand. Skips off the table, spins in midair, and punches an assassin in the middle of the forehead with the mug on her way to the floor, knocking him cold. The Matrix has you...

Best Overall Character

• Zelos
• Half-Elf Ranger. This race and class combination just gets better as the years go by. There's noone I'd rather have covering me with a longbow than this guy.

Most Innovative Use of Whale Blubber

• Jacyn Hawkmoon
• Don't think you really want to know the details of this one...

• Beaver Cleaver
• I'm sorry man, I didn't want to be the one to break it to you but hey...

• (With a look of pure disdain) "Well where did you read you have to be a dumbshit?"
• Harsh and purely mean. I'll pay in the afterlife for laughing my ass off when this came out of someone's mouth at the game table.

• The rope stretched across the doorway at shin height.
• Truly one of the great classics in traps. It's used so often, but never gets old. Read on...

• Kalista and Beaver Cleaver
• Ok, let's go over this one more time. We can hear the giant coming so let's make it quick. The two of us will stretch this rope across the cave entrance. When the giant runs into it he'll trip and fall, totally knocking him down. Then we'll jump on him and kill him while he's down! Ok, hold onto the rope. GET READY! (Giant charges into room without falling and stops in his tracks at the sight of Kalista and the Beave hanging onto a rope like grim death, eyes shut and grimacing from the expected shock.) The fact that they were both holding onto the same end of the rope and were both on the same side of the door was not lost on the rest of the party, who also stared dumfounded for a few seconds.

• Juvenile White Dragon
• While certainly not the deadliest foe ever faced by the party, you have to admit this. Any creature that Icewalks silently to the ceiling of the chamber in the ice cave and waits for your rogue (who happens to be moving ahead of the party to check for ambushes and traps) to stop directly under him, slowly move his gaze along the boulder and the chain linked to it, and look up directly into the dragon's eyes as it drops silently on him, is kickass. Yeah...Kick Ass...

• Baby Gold Dragons
• This wasn't in the Viniferan campaign so I can't comment. Sounds like it was cool tho...

• Hank
• This one was a surprise. To me, there are much cooler NPC's than Hank, like Kat or Gioshoki or...well, you get the picture.

• "No, Beaver, don't..."
• Fill in your own blank after 'don't'. This one is so common I've heard it come from up to 5 players' mouths at the SAME TIME...more than once too.