The 2024 Hugo Awards for sci-fi fiction were awarded at WorldCon Glasgow, UK, on Sunday, and two Dungeons and Dragons adaptations took first prize in their category. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was the winner for ‘Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form’, while Baldur’s Gate 3 came out on top of ‘Best Game or Interactive Work’.
The Hugo is organised by the World Science Fiction Convention, with members and attendees at the annual WorldCon able to nominate and vote for the awards. A Dungeons and Dragons book adaptation has never even been nominated for the prestigious Best Novel award.
The DnD movie Honor Among Thieves was up against the ‘Barbie’ movie, the animated adaptation of graphic novel ‘Nimona’, chaotic love-letter to early sci-fi ‘Poor Things’, superhero spectacular ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’, and disaster blockbuster ‘The Wandering Earth II’.
Baldur’s Gate 3 contended against post-modern horror game ‘Alan Wake 2’, language-based puzzle game ‘Chants of Sennaar’, Lovecraftian fishing simulator ‘DREDGE’, open-world epic ‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’, and sci-fi Soulslike ‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’.
We’re not surprised that Baldur’s Gate 3 won its category: it was our videogame of the year for 2023, and we capped our Baldur’s Gate 3 review with a rare 10/10 rating. Honor Among Thieves is a little more surprising – consensus in the Wargamer writing team is that it’s an enjoyable fantasy romp, further enlivened if you’re well versed in the different DnD classes, monsters, DnD races, and spells that pop up throughout it, but not ground-breaking.
With the new DnD 2024 Player’s Handbook hitting the DnD release schedule well before the next World Con, the game itself may be in contention for next year’s awards. Although the Hugo has been running since 1953, and we’ve no doubt that Hugo voters throughout the years have loved DnD, 2024 is only the second time that its has given an award to a game, after a one-off videogame category in 2021. Best Game or Interactive Work is a permanent new category.
If you’re a fan of DnD books, good news – veteran collaborators Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are working on a new DnD Dragonlance trilogy, starting with War Wizard in 2026.
Source: Wargamer
