Æresotto - Fastaval

Since 1992, awards have been given each year to the best premiere role-playing games at Fastaval, and since 2012, also to the best designer board games. The award is called the Otto and takes the shape of a golden penguin, which is also Fastaval’s logo. The Otto Award competition is an integral part of Fastaval and has played a crucial role in developing the quality and creativity of the event. The Otto Awards are presented every year on Sunday evening at Fastaval during a show where we also celebrate the year's organizers, players, and Fastaval as a whole.

Here you can read about the different prizes, how they are awarded, who awards them and how they are defined.

These persons/groups have received an Honorary Otto

1992: Mads Lunau

1993: Paul Hartvigson

1994: Troels Chr. Jakobsen

1995: Cool Fish Delivery

1996: Søren Parbæk

1997: Rollespilsmagasinet Fønix

1998: Kristoffer Apollo og Mette Finderup

1999: Not awarded

2000: Peter Bengtsen

2001: Sara Hald

2002: Morten Juul

2003: Natural Born Holmers

2004: Peter Brodersen

2005: Merlin P. Mann

2006: Malik Hyltoft

2007: Landsforeningen for Levende Rollespil (The Danish Roleplaying Organization)

2008: Brian Rasmussen

2009: Jesper Wøldiche

2010: Vi Åker Jeep

2011: Lars Andreasen

2012: Klaus Meier Olsen & Kristoffer Rudkjær

2013: Jesper Heebøll Arbjørn

2014: DirtBusters

2015: Claus Raasted

2016: Simon James Pettit

2017: René Bokær Pedersen

2018: Peter Lind

2019: Joan Zenia Juhl Hansen

2020: Not awarded

2021: Andreas Ravn Skovse

2022: Alex K. Uth

2023: Maya Krone & Mette Finderup

2024: Otto's Coffee Inn

About the Honorary Otto
The Honorary Otto is a pat on the back and a gift to a person, group or organisation that has made an extraordinary contribution to making Fastaval and the gaming community what it is today.

Alea - the association behind Fastaval - awards the Honorary Otto, and it is a tradition that Alea asks the previous year's winner to present the award. It is also traditional for this person to assemble a jury and listen to what the Fastaval community thinks. However, there are no set criteria for how to earn a nomination or award. The Honorary Otto is a dynamic entity that is adapted by the jury of the year.

Who do YOU think?
This year's jury chooses to follow tradition. To get a broader overview of the Fastaval community than we have, we want to hear from all of you who also love Fastaval: Who do YOU think deserves an extraordinary pat on the back?

Send us your suggestion for a nomination through the online form, which will be published here on the website and on Fastaval's social media in the months leading up to Fastaval. The nominations are used as inspiration and guidelines. Ultimately, it is the Honorary Otto jury that decides who is officially nominated for and receives the Honorary Otto, but we appreciate each and every one of your nominations.

How the Honorary Otto is awarded
The Honorary Otto is given on Saturday during Fastaval at an open for all reception. Here you can have a glass of bubbles and congratulate the nominees. The Honorary Otto will also be awarded from the stage during the Otto Party, where the winner will be allowed to give a speech.

The Honorary Otto Jury 2025

Head of the jury

Bo Thomasen

Bo rolled his first D20 at Fastaval ‘93 and has been here ever since (with the exception of a year or two around the turn of the millennium when he mistakenly thought life outside Fastaval was more interesting). Since 2004, Bo has enjoyed being part of the Fastaval organising team in a number of different areas - everything from Bunker, Info, Set-up/Down, Safety Host, Coffee Shop and Board Games.

When Bo is not at Fastaval, he runs three board game cafés in Copenhagen (Bastard Café) and generally tries to get people together over games, geekiness and cosiness.

Sebastian Nemeth

Sebastian has been a regular at Fastaval since he was persuaded to go in 2017. And since then he hasn't looked back. Together with Kathrine Abel, he has been the director of Orkerne Kommer Sommerskolen, where a number of Fastaval scenarios have come out of the egg. He has also drawn penguins for Fastaval for a number of years.

Sebastian is always around, eagerly writing his next scenario idea, doodling for other people's projects and scenarios and otherwise he can easily be challenged to a board game if it involves Terraforming something, preferably on Mars.

Selina Foli-Andersen

Although Selina has been role-playing since 3rd grade, she only attended Fastaval for the first time last year. Here she stood in the coffee shop and got all kinds of inspiring stories from volunteers and authors, and then started working as a Youth and After School Officer. In her daily life, she attends high school, and spends all the time not slaving away there volunteering elsewhere, such as in Spillaboratoriet and its committee, Bifrost's Prize Committee, and in the after-school student organisation Epos Epoke.

At this Fastaval, she hopes to see a lot of cool young people getting involved in the congress, some seasoned organisers continuing their awesome work, and some mystical-cody scenarios.

Torbjørn Erik Japp (He/him, hen/hens)

Torbjørn has been a regular regular since 2019, and has since then tried to have a hand in as many areas as possible - Otto's Coffee Inn, The Oasis, The Kiosk, Set-up/Downpile and this year now also the Honorary Lotto and Debut Author.

Outside of Fastaval, Torbjørn is a volunteer at many of Østerskov's different facets, and can now probably also be found as a technician at the nearest black box event. However, table-top role-playing is still his favourite activity, preferably something involving neon lights and laser guns.

Nynne Søs Rasmussen

Nynne Søs Rasmussen took her first role-playing steps in the live role-playing environment, where she has been one of the driving forces behind the role-playing conventions Forum and Knudepunkt, organised children's role-playing games and participated in everything from Nordic Larp to Krigslive. 15 years ago, she fell in love with Fastaval's unique scenario tradition, and since then she has been both scenario judge and author. This year, she is trying her hand at the role of scenario manager.
With a broad taste in role-playing games, Nynne enjoys both rolling dice in her Warhammer campaign and getting carried away with social realism Fastaval scenarios.

Nynne works as a teacher at an independent school where her students are regularly introduced to role-playing games, board games and other forms of playful learning - an approach she also cultivated as a teacher at the role-playing school Epos.

Be considered as a jury member at Fastaval

Every year, the Head of Jury set their team of co-jury members for this year's juries. It's entirely up to the current Head of Jury to set their team, but they are always open to suggestions and input. Maybe it's you they're looking for?
Send an email with your name and whether you are interested in being in the board game jury, scenario jury or a member of the Honorary Otto committee, and Alea will compile a list that we will share with the Head of Jury´s as soon as they are appointed.

You can't expect to hear anything from the Head of Juries, but they may reach out to find out more or invite you to join. Alea updates the list regularly, so you only need to send an email with your name once, or write to us if you want to be taken off the list again.

Write to alea@fastaval.dk with your name and your desire for a jury position and possibly a few keywords about what you can offer as a jury member.

We look forward to hear from you!
- Alea's board (the association behind Fastaval)