Big Bad Con 2015 Report

This was the fifth year of this Bay Area gaming convention, organized by Sean Nittner, located at the Oakland Airport Hilton. All of the scheduled games were RPGs (including larps), but there were a number of of card games and board games being played in the open gaming area - though no miniature games that I saw. There was a dealer's area that consisted only of End Game Oakland with space to play their games. Signups were handled in advance over the web on a modified first-come first-served basis - first signing up for a maximum of two games, then signing up for the remainder a week later.

         Some scheduled RPGs were in conference rooms, while many were in private rooms.


Welcome to GOOCON

Date/Time - Oct 18, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Format: LARP
GM: Janyce Hill and Claire Engan
System: Unseen Stories
Maturity Rating: PG-13
Game Length: 6 hours
Characters: Provided
What’s a Cultist dedicated to the Horrors Beyond Time and Space suppose to do when the need to network arises? How about catching up on the latest advances in bindings and chants? Learning the newest methods for calculating when The Stars Will Be Right?
Why – one goes to GOOCon – what else? Attending the Great Old One Convention of 1934 will give you the opportunity to rub shoulders with fellow cultists, compare techniques and even open doors (no pun intended) to new career opportunities.
And don’t forget . . . it’s a wonderful way to size up just how close those pesky competitors cults are to meeting their annual goals.

This was a parody of Lovecraft - a mechanically tricky larp event where different rival groups were trying to collect resources to achieve their preferred end of the world.


Conclusions

In all, a terrific con and one that I will continue to attend in the future.