This was a local Bay Area convention that was around for 12 years, but (like many) had shut down during pandemic. It came back in 2022, but this was my first time back since 2019, and it was newly on the peninsula at a much bigger venue. It seems to be thriving, and it is the most role-playing-specific convention of the area. My official events for the con were:
I had a great time at Big Bad Con. In general, it was reconnecting with more of the story game scene I'd been with years ago. In past years (especially since the pandemic) I've been less active in gaming, and had limited online outlets. One of the nice things at BBC was just chatting with people in between games, and Breakfast with the Bakers as I got to chat about game design with Vincent and Maguey Baker along with their family.
Date/Time: Friday, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Format: RPG
GM: Hanju Kim
System: Savage Worlds
Safety Tools: Open Door policy
Players: 5
Game Length: 4 hours
Characters: Pregenerated
Description:
From across the free lands of Middle Earth, you have gathered to Lothlórien. There, it is said, a fellowship is being formed to resist the Dark Lord whose forces threaten the land. Lady Galadriel needs those with pure heart and gallant spirit for the task.
This game is an alternate history of Middle Earth - one where the fellowship formed at Rivendell was broken as it left the Mines of Moria. After Merry was struck by an orcish arrow while leaving, they struggled vainly to save his life and were overtaken by orcs at night. Those who survived came through wounded and grief-stricken. In sympathy, Galadriel steps up and gathers heroes from across the land.
This is an action-filled and dramatic game about a new set of characters trying to bring the One Ring into Mordor, distinct from the originals. It mixes cinematic action and soulful drama.
This was my experimental run using Savage Worlds to re-imagine Tolkien. I only had three players out of five originally signed up. All three were more the classical Tolkien fan - older guys - and out of a dozen PC options that included many more paradigm-shifting options, they chose the ones that were closest to the books. I wanted to give players a lot of choices, so I had included more classical options, but in retrospect, the result was much more parallel to the story than I had pictured. The players and their characters were:
I thought it went well as an experiment. The rules and the characters and the scenario all went according to how well I expected. I deliberately had a lot more PC options than players - with twelve pregenerated characters. I had a lot of PC options that differed majorly from how the original story went. However, in this case, the players went with the options that are closest to the original.
As a result, their interactions with Smeagol/Gollum were crucial, and they ended up taking the same Stairs of Cirith Ungol as in the original story.
The crucial twist came as their reached the top of the stairs. I had Pippin make a Spirit roll has he heard a Ringwraith fly up from the cursed city below. Despite a high score, he rolled two ones (a 1 in 60 chance). So he put on the Ring and the rider saw him there by the stairs.
Date/Time: Friday, 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
GM: Meguey Baker
System: The King Is Dead
Safety Tools: Cut/Brake, Open Door policy
Characters: Provided
Description:
This was a run of the no-prep medieval drama game, run by one of the authors (Meguey Baker).
I ended up playing kingmaker (in a gaming sense). I couldn't win, but I wanted to make sure Meguey's character didn't win because of our stark religious conflict - me being the old pagan and her being the foreign power, converting locals to her bloodless got. Story-wise, I became a conflict-driver. Where other characters were flirty with each other, I was more open in my distain for the foreigner. Meguey went along with this, and we had a dramatic chase late in the game on horses as I tried to ambush her and had the tables turned on me.
The game deliberately has an ambiguity between the card mechanics and storytelling. In this case, Meguey was set up from the start as my enemy by story choices. I was pagan and had picked "devout" as a quality, and our random events included mass conversion to the new foreign religion. She had two face cards face-up from the early game that couldn't be shifted, which made her the major threat for the end. For me, that made a tension - but I think some other players mostly ignored the cards.
Date/Time: Fri, 8:00 PM - 12:00 AM
GM: Melanie Stark and Jarys Maragopoulos
System: My Jam
Safety Tools: Cut/Brake,Open Door Policy
Characters: Created at the table
Description:
My Jam is a Larp in which players embody high-school musarchs-magicians whose powers are focused through music-at the biggest dance of the year. During the dance you'll be able to hang with your friends, pick arguments with your frenemies, and moon over your crush, just like any other high school dance. But when your music is playing, you become the most powerful being on the dance floor-and maybe the entire gymnasium!
At the end of the night, one of you will be elected Dance Monarch and enact a powerful ritual that can permanently change the world.
This was a larp that incorporated a lot of dance. The characters were:
This was a fun larp about high-school magicians at a prom. The core mechanic is that each player submits one song, and while that song is playing, their character has ultimate magical power over what is happening in the room.
This makes it quite chaotic, but also subject to a lot of drama. In this game,
Date/Time: Saturday, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
GM: Meguey Baker
System: Under Hollow Hills
Safety Tools: Script Change
Characters: Provided
Description:
Brother Bulltholomew has taken up residence under the bridge near the palace of Amethyst Magnificence, blocking all traffic, and the Circus Astounding has been called in to do something - anything! - to help coax him to leave!
This was a fun play of a new system about faerie circus folk.
The chief fun of this was in my character. I took the playbook of the Troll, which has some tough-guy features - and I decided on my character as "Ma Nutkin", a crotchety old mother troll who is constantly grumpy at looking after her kids on her own, who spoke in a deep gravelly voice. Meguey handed me a die to decide on how many kids I had, and I grabbed another to roll 2d6, getting 4 total. I later decided on their names as Grendel, Skarnar, Dunker, and Daisy.(Those first three being canonical Norse troll names.)
...
Date/Time: Saturday, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
GM: Bridgett Jeffries
System: Call of Cthulhu (7th Ed.)
Safety Tools: X-card,Lines/Veils
Characters: Created at the table
Description:
Experience Heinrich's Guide to Character Creation, Gold bestseller on the Miskatonic Repository. This is a role-playing product for creating character backstories through emergent storytelling. Experience your investigator grow up from strange going-ons accompanying their birth, to them finding love (and then rescuing said loved one from cultists), to skipping class to spend more time studying esoteric pursuits, to being recruited by a "Secret Government Agency," to traveling to other dimensions! FREE SOFTCOVER COPY TO EACH PARTICIPANT donated by Heinrich Moore himself!
This was a free trial of the new book "Heinrich's Guide to Character Creation", and a copy was given to all the participating players. The result was a lot of random results about character background, and the players trying to come up with explanations that wove these together into a workable party.
I had fun, but I thought the book gave a little too many random results that needed stretching to pull together.
An interesting discussion with panelists V.J. Harris, Logan W, Paul Marchant, Mark J, Steve Huynh.
There were some generic answers about doing one's research, and having a reason behind including racism in a setting. Short form: "Why do you need it?" and "Do the homework." I felt like too much time was on complaining about the racism in works, and less on the positive of what they liked in games. That did come up in questions, though, and there were some recommendations: "The Islands of Sina Una" , "Gubat Banwa" (described as "4E Philippines"), the Beacon RPG, and Eberron.
A nice presentation and Q&A from John Bultena and Dr. Emily Friedman. They are both educators focused on approaching RPG study from other fields.
Bultena had a quick plug for his actual play, "Abraxas' Precipice". He had students do a study on the book "Dangerous Games" by Joseph Laycock. There was talk especially about about how to distinguish and focus on the less-popular RPGs like independent press. I asked about what should be done in awards for indie RPGs, and was recommended to the work of Prof Shelly Jones. The rule of thumb was that if the creator can choose to print a second edition, it is indie. There was also a plug for "Generation Analog" conference, and Adrian Hermann from University of Bonn.
Date/Time: Saturday, 8:00 PM - midnight
Format: RPG
GM: Alex Teplitz
System: Confluence RPG
Safety Tools: X-card,Open Door Policy,Lines/Veils
Description: In this new TTRPG, you will explore a sprawling living world and connect with peoples from across space and time. Explore a diegetic Atlas to uncover the history and culture of these colorful lands, and learn about the confluences of energy that have woven them together. Giant skywhales roam the skies above the Motley Coast while Fallen Gods seek refuge from those who would steal their divinity. Join the pirates of the Mystic Maelstrom or the rainbow botanical researchers of this chromatic country- come and play!
This was a playtest of an upcoming system, which I liked a few ideas from, but thought it was executed poorly - with the exception of the beautiful in-character setting book.
First of all, the playtest papers were not numbered or bound. Not being bound is good for sharing between players, but if so, then each race or background should have its own sheet, instead of being a continuous document where options were split across pages. And there should be a one-page cheat sheet, instead of sifting through many pages of rules.
That unfortunately set the tenor of the playtest. The rules and character options weren't very clear. Especially, action seemed unreliable. One player had a power that was core to their background, but it was completely unreliable to use in practice. Other characters also didn't seem to have clear or reliable options. I feel this might work better from a framework like FATE or PbtA might be better.
Date/Time: Sunday, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Format: Larp
GM: Sam
System: Custom
Safety Tools: Cut/Brake, Open Door policy
Description: It's been seven years since John Pratt, The Patrioteer, was thrown into a collapsar by his nemesis, "The Empress of Crime", King Moltke. He has finally been declared dead. Now his children and friends have the unenviable task of dividing up his considerable estate according to his wishes.
He wants you to sort it all out yourselves. He was that kind of guy.
A short and simple larp.
This was a run of Jason Morningstar's simple larp, which is a parody of superheroes, done as the family squabble to divide up the estate of their superhero father.
I had picked one of the adopted siblings, who were the youngest of the group. I defined myself the identical twin sister of Karen's PC, where she was the jet-setting business executive with ice powers, and I was the frumpy college professor with fire powers.
The play itself was divided into six rounds, each timed at a maximum of 20 minutes. I thought everyone did a good job of conveying their character, riffing off the basic themes. Some of my highlights were Marlo creepily taking out the "army in a box" to prove he could defend the mansion. Also, Sylvie interrogating her sister Barbara about what the Haunted Skull had told her about the throne of Mateszalka. (I said that the skull said that our mom was the usurper, and we were descended from the true royal line of Mateszalka.)
Date/Time: Sunday, 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Format: RPG
GM: Hanju Kim
System: D&D 5th ed
Safety Tools: Open Door policy
Description:
You have traced a cult leader to a ruined castle by the sea, but all clues suggest that he is an immortal and charismatic vampire. As loyal agents in the Empire of the Sun, it is your duty to crush the Order of the Black Sun, but this leader's lair is on a sacred site, and his reach may go farther than you know. It may imperil your very souls to confront him.
This is a gothic fantasy adventure with a twist - it is set in a high fantasy world based on Incan culture and mythology. The Land of New Horizons reinterprets D&D elements in a parallel to the Andes. The setting is not historical, but instead adapts popular fantasy tropes as Tolkien did to Europe.
This adventure is a gothic-toned confrontation of ancient myth and religious belief, based in Moche and Incan archeology and visual culture. It is teen-friendly, with at most PG-13 horror elements - mixing serious spiritual issues with the fantasy action that D&D is known for.
This was a run of D&D5 in an Incan-based setting I've co-created with my son Milo. It went well, but I was a bit disappointed I only had three players out of six slots, despite more signing up.
Still, it was great fun, and it showed the concept working well - merging the D&D mechanics with the Incan-based background into something that felt engaging. I particularly liked when the sorcerer transformed the ranger into a giant shark in the middle of their battle with the vampire. Everyone got into it, and the mechanics worked well in keeping everything exciting.
Big Bad Con seems to have revived well after shutting down for covid. It was a big deal to wear masks at all times during the convention, particularly for the dance larp, but the game content was all good.