Big Bad Con is a tabletop and live action gaming convention featuring fantastic games and even better company! We're a volunteer-run non-profit origination that wouldn’t exist without our passionate volunteers, players, talented game-masters and game designers.
Big Bad Con is happening this October 11-14 in Walnut Creek, CA. It's easily accessible from either SFO or OAK airports, and it's hosted by the Walnut Creek Marriott, who offer us over 20,000 square feet of wonderful gaming spaces!
- Thursday: Pre-con gathering and fun 6PM-Midnight
- Friday: Gaming 9AM-Midnight
- Saturday: Gaming 9AM-Midnight
- Sunday: Gaming 9AM-8PM
We would love to see you there!
To create a welcoming space for people to come together, play games, connect with friends, and build community. Through our scholarship fund, our featured GMs, our outreach program, and playtest track we seek to uplift and spotlight the voices of new game designers and individuals from marginalized groups. We strive to bring the best games and the best people together in one place for a weekend of love, laughter and games!
Big Bad Con is made possible by your support. Put simply, the revenue from badge sales only covers for about half of the expense for the convention, which includes great things like our scholarship program, outreach events, private games rooms, stretch goal guests, as well as operational costs.
This year, the hotel is requiring that we pay rental fees for Thursday, so they have enough time to prepare the private game rooms by Friday morning. An upside to that is we will have full access to the ballroom and conference room spaces on Thursday evening, and people can pick up their badge before scheduled games start on Friday. We’re planning some fun events for early arrivals to socialize and jump into pick-up games.
However, these extra fees add about $6,000 to our total costs from last year. There are lots of ways to bridge that gap. We could reduce the number of private game rooms, or cancel one of our programs like teen outreach, stretch goal guests, or the scholarship fund. We could raise the badge prices to $120, or we could stop providing free badges to our GMs and volunteers. All of those options, however, would compromise our goals for the con, provide an inferior experience, and in particular hurt our attendees who struggle with the finances of just attending a con at all.
We’ve chosen to raise the badge prices by $10, and are here, looking for your support, to make up the rest. In doing so, we’ve gotten a lot of rad folks involved to offer you some fantastic rewards. Our Baba Yaga’s gift box contributors, Big Bad Online GMs, Grandma’s printing house, and Little Red’s Basket chefs have all donated their time, energy, and expertise to offer you some very, very cool items!
We’d love it if you could help out!
Big Bad Scholarship ($20 and up)
All funds collected from this pledge will go towards providing free or discounted badges, transportation, and rooms for attendees who would otherwise not be able to attend.
Additionally your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters.
Adding a Scholarship to another pledge: You can add a scholarship to any other pledge level by increasing your pledge by $20 (or more). When the campaign closes and the BackerKit emails go out, you can assign the extra amount to the scholarship fund!
Wolf Rider ($60)
Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters. You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program.
Additionally you'll receive a special Kickstarter-exclusive pin, a 4-day badge to attend the con.
Big Bad Online ($65)
Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters. You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program.
Additionally, these awesome game designers and streamers DC, Distracted Elf, Jason Cordova, Banana Chan, or Andrew Gillis will run a game for you online sometime before the con. The game system is up to your host. It will be a surprise!
- DC (David Collins) is a game designer with a narrative focus. You can find their work in development, including Mutants in the Night, on Patreon. DC will be running Dungeon World.
- Distracted Elf is a partnered Twitch.tv variety streamer. You can find her live streams on twitch.tv/distractedelf!
- Jason Cordova is the founder of The Gauntlet gaming community and podcast network that focuses on indie RPGs, story games, and the OSR.
- Banana Chan is the owner and co-founder of Game and a Curry, an indie promotional materials and board game publishing company. She also writes larps and roleplaying games. Her latest projects include contributing for 7th Sea: Khitai, a larp for The Tragedies of Middle School, and a module for Kids on Bikes called Dads on Mowers.
- Andrew Gillis is a twitch streamer, GM, and game designer, currently working on Girl by Moonlight, a Forged in the Dark game that borrows from magical girl fiction to tell stories of relationships and personal growth in the face of oppression.
This pledge level does not include a badge, but one can be added for $60 (see add-ons below).
Little Red's Baskets ($90)
Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters. You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program.
Additionally you'll receive a special Kickstarter-exclusive pin, a 4-day badge to attend the con, and we'll bring a special treat to your table during one of your games!
In previous years the treats included savory items (homemade bread and hummus, crackers and cheese, seasoned nuts, and samosas) as well as sweet treats (chocolate chip cookies, personal apples pies, toffee, and almond biscotti).
Immortal Hero ($100)
Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters. You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program.
We'll also name one of the private gaming rooms after you or a cause you support. Everyone who plays a game in that room will have you to thank!
This pledge level does not include a badge, but one can be added for $60 (see add-ons below).
Wolf Rider Plus One ($120)
Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters. You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program.
Additionally you'll receive a special Kickstarter-exclusive pin, a 4-day badge to attend the con, and add a full badge's worth of support ($60) to the scholarship fund.
Baba Yaga's Mystery Box ($150)
Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters.
You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program. We will also ship you a curated mystery box full of hand-picked or hand-crafted items from some of these amazing contributors: Alex McConnaughey, Amber and Rick Dean, Ed Turner, John Muste, Tyler Crumrine, Shannon Riddle, Tor Erickson, Evlyn Moreau, Alex Miller, Adi Elkin, and Sophie Lagacé, Christoff Visscher, owner of Cantrip Candles, Sandy Jacobs-Tolle, and Vanessa Brannon.
This pledge level does not include a badge, but one can be added for $60 (see add-ons below).
Power to the Teens ($300)
Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters. You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program.
We'll also name one of the Big Bad Teen event rooms after you or a cause you support. Everyone who enjoys a larp, workshop, or special event in that room will have you to thank!
This pledge level does not include a badge, but one can be added for $60 (see add-ons below).
Grandma's Cottage and Vacation Home ($500)
This is amazing! Your name, organization, or cause will appear on the Big Bad Con Hall of Heroes as one of our supporters. You'll also be commemorated on the website and in our program.
Additionally you'll receive:
- A special Kickstarter-exclusive pin.
- A 4-day badge to attend the con.
- Little Red's Basket of treats delivered during one of your games.
- A very special Baba Yaga Mystery Box including items from our contributors as well as the convention staff!
- Your name, organization, or cause will be an official sponsor of the con and be featured at the registration desk!
- Grandma's Cottage Backers will also receive a Big Bad Online game with game designer Ashton McAllan, creator of The Republic, Between Dreams, and Goblin Heart.
- Grandma's Vacation Home Backers will also receive a Big Bad Online game with game designer and RPG streamer Eric Vulgaris.
Ashton McAllan is a gamemaster, game designer, and streamer who focuses on diversity, community, systematic story games, small and independent games, and supporting marginalised voices. You can find her at acegiak.net, twitch.tv/acegiak, and on twitter @acegiak.
Eric Vulgaris its a TTRPG designer, graphic artist, and streamer. He is the producer of the Misscliks twitch channel. You can find him at ericvulgaris.com, twitch.tv/ericvulgaris, and on twitter @EricVulgaris.
The Wolf and Little Red ($500)
Become one of our our official convention sponsors. Your name, logo of an company or cause will featured at the registration desk, in the program, on our site as, and on table tents at each table as official sponsors.
Every attendee at the con will know they have you to thank for making Big Bad Con happen!
After the Kickstarter concludes, we’ll be doing our fulfillment through BackerKit, a separate website that gives you (and us!) greater control over your rewards.
Add-on Instructions
- Press the "Manage Your Pledge" button above. If you have not pledged yet, it will say "Back This Project."
- Click on “Change Your Pledge.”
- Increase your pledge level in the "Pledge Amount" box by the total number of add-ons you want to add.
- After the end of the Kickstarter campaign, you will receive a BackerKit survey that will allow you to assign the additional amount pledged to other rewards.
Items Anyone can Add via BackerKit:
- Extra Wolf Rider badges.
- Scholarship funds to help others attend can be added in any ammount.
- Baba Yaga’s Mystery Box (while supplies last).
Items Badge Holders can Add via BackerKit:
- Big Bad Con T-shirts and hoodies.
Additional Add-on will appear as we hit our stretch goals. See below!
Once the con is funded, we're very excited to make it EVEN better by bringing out some amazing special guests, turning Eden Parkinson’s new art into amazing t-shirts, and even getting our Tell Me About Your Character Booth defending champion to dye his hair the color of your choice for the con. Check out this fancy pic and all the details below!
$6500 - We’ll bring out Julia B. Ellingboe (FUNDED)
Julia B. Ellingboe is a freelance writer of fiction, RPGs, and larps. Some of her recent work includes supplemental material for Lovecraftesque and M.A.S.K.S., a short larp in the games anthology #Feminism, Cady Stanton's Candyland, a game about a sex toy party in a 1970s-era feminist bookstore (co-written with Kat Jones), and short stories in several anthologies from Stone Skin Press and Broken Eye Books. Her current big project is rewriting and finally publishing Tales of the Fisherman's Wife.
By day, Julia is a Human Resources Manager & Communications Specialist for a social justice organization, where she's introduced her coworkers to games such as Fall of Magic and A Crow Funeral.
Julia will be running these awesome events:
- Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, a a low prep, highly scripted parlor larp version of Fisherman's Wife.
- An intimate/romantic themed session of the Fisherman's Wife.
- A horror-themed session of the Fisherman's Wife--fun horror or scary horror for all ages!
$8,000 - We’ll bring out Jenn Martin (FUNDED)
Jenn Martin is mostly harmless. A member of the Chicago-based gaming podcast The Jank Cast, she plays play-by-post, larp, video and tabletop RPG games. She designs games to make you feel things, like the 2017 Golden Cobra award winner for Game That Gives Us the Most Hope. By day, a cog in the capitalist machine. By night a game designer, writer, editor, geek parent, and part fae (allegedly). Jenn will be running these awesome events:
- Autumn of the Ancients
- Stitch n Bitch (a Thursday evening event)
$9,500 - We’ll bring out Eloy Lasanta (FUNDED)
Eloy Lasanta is an ENnie Award winning game designer, having created many of his own worlds, like Part-Time Gods, The Ninja Crusade , and AMP: Year One, along with several custom systems to power each game, like the newly released Pip System Corebook. Along the way, he has also helped to contribute to other games, such as The Firefly RPG, Urban Shadows, and Atlantis: The Second Age.
He has a philosophy of using games to bring people and families together, and provides a combination of family-style and traditional games through his company, Third Eye Games. In 2018, he became one of the founders of New Agenda Publishing, hoping to deliver even more impressive worlds (like the forthcoming Orun) with a focus on bringing more diversity to our industry/hobby.
Eloy will be running these awesome events:
- Part-Time Gods Second Edition
- Orun
- Sins of the Father
$10,000 - T-shirts with art from Eden Parkinson (FUNDED)
If we hit $10,000, the amazing art work of Eden Parkinson will come alive on t-shirts and hoodies you can pre-order and pick up at the con. Here are some pics of the her work from last year:
11,500 - We’ll bring out Jason Cordova (FUNDED)
Jason Cordova is the principal organizer of the Gauntlet gaming community. He is a co-host of The Gauntlet Podcast, Discern Realities, and Fear of a Black Dragon, and a frequent GM on the actual play podcasts Pocket-Sized Play and We Hunt the Keepers! He is the also the Editor in Chief of Codex, a monthly gaming zine.
Jason will be running these awesome events:
- Cthulhu Dark
- World of Dungeons
- A panel about examining the OSR through a narrativist lens.
$13,000 - We’ll bring out Brodie Atwater (FUNDED)
Brodie (they/them) is larp scholar, designer, and safety practitioner based in Massachusetts. Their work on larp safety has been published in both the International Journal of Role-Playing and Nordiclarp.org, has been presented at both the Knutpunkt and Living Games conferences, is practically focused on bringing emotional labor roles to blockbuster and weekend boffer larps. Big Bad Con will come fresh off the heels of their work adapting freeform larps to community building tools for teenagers at the Wayfinder Experience, a play-centered summer camp in New York state.
Brodie will be running these awesome events:
- A debut freeform larp with larp designer and wilderness educator Jeeyon Shim about what happens to terraformers once they lose their funding.
- The publisher's version of Here Is My Power Button.
15,000 - Ryan Ossum will die his hair the color of your choice. (FUNDED)
Coloring your hair may not seem like a big stretch, but for Ryan it is a point of pride. Year after year he has been the reigning champion of collecting donations for Doctors Without Borders at the Tell Me About Your Character booth and this year, he has a serious contender to take his title (and his championship belt, which he definitely did not buy for $30 off eBay).
If we hit $15,000, Ryan will open a poll available only to Kickstarter backers to determine the hair color he’ll have when facing this new challenger. Who is this mysterious challenger? Hint: she’s an upcoming stretch goal guest!
16,500 - We’ll bring out Darcy Ross (FUNDED)
Squick, streams, and storytelling. A snailologist by training, Darcy is the Community Relations Coordinator for Monte Cook Games. She works to welcome new people into the hobby, and braves the byzantine world of Twitch streaming to see what this strange new platform can bring our hobby. She writes for Gnome Stew, contributed to the transhuman dating show RPG Singularity, and is playtesting her first larp, An Empty Page.
Darcy will be running these awesome events:
- Numenera (aquatic version of course!)
- Playtest of the larp An Empty Page.
- A panel on live streaming your games.
18,000 - We’ll bring out DC (FUNDED)
David (DC) Collins is a game designer with a focus on urban fantasy. Exploring how fiction and reality can learn from one another is his main goal. His current project, Mutants in the Night, dares to venture through that territory by granting the marginalized the power to fight back with the very mutations that society deems inhuman. DC lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area, and focuses his energies on online community growth.
DC will be running these awesome events:
Mutants in the Night, his Forged in the Dark game about mutants in 2044, an allegory in many ways.
19,500 - We’ll bring out Betty Bong (FUNDED)
As a larp organizer and designer, some topics that Betty deals with on a regular basis are larp cultural translation/adaptation and the creation/maintenance of larp communities. She is interested in the potential of larp as a language education tool, larp as a way to interrogate our our own histories and identities and using larp to find empowerment in our daily lives.
Betty is one third of the power trio behind B Studio, which is dedicated to bringing to larping to China in a big way! They are regularly run larps in Shanghai and Hong kong and are currently working on three projects and a Chinese language vlog.
Betty will be running these awesome events:
- an abridged version of the larp Empresses in the Palace co-written with Susan Linshan Bin
- A Long Ride to Busan by Clio Yun-Su Davis
- ...and much more!
20,000 - Art prints (FUNDED)
We’ve had some beautiful art made for us over the years by Adi Elkin, Eden Parkinson, Atomic Pixies, and more. If we hit 20,000 we’ll turn some of those beautiful pieces into full size prints, available for pickup at the con.
22,500 - We’ll bring out Alex Roberts (FUNDED)
Alex Roberts, @muscularpikachu on Twitter, is a writer, designer, and journalist in the wonderful world of tabletop and live-action roleplaying. When not hosting her acclaimed interview show Backstory on the ONE SHOT Network, she freelances for companies like Bully Pulpit Games, Burning Wheel HQ, and Thorny Games. You may have read her nonfiction on VICE: Waypoint and ZEAL. Keep up with her if you can at helloalexroberts.com.
Alex will be running these awesome events:
- Star Crossed, her two-player tabletop RPG of forbidden love.
- For the Queen, her card-based storytelling game about duty and devotion.
24,000 - We’ll bring out Jonaya Kemper (FUNDED)
Jonaya Kemper is an Elizabeth, New Jersey-born badass activist, artist, educator, designer, writer, and games scholar who looks at larp as a means of liberation for people of marginalized identities. Her work often involves the themes of intersectionality, storytelling, and autoethnography as a means to create more inclusive futures and explore a more diverse past.
Her game design and world building work can be seen in #Feminism, Undying, as well as in the pages of John Wick’s Presents: 7th Sea. As an experienced early childhood educator, Jonaya has facilitated workshops focusing on larp with young children, constructivism, and their ability to transform lives through empowerment and create resilience.
Jonaya will be running these awesome events:
- The Slumber Party, Jonaya’s larp contribution to #Feminism larp
- But Not Tonight, a larp by Clio Yun-su Davis
- A panel on Creating Inclusive Worlds for RPG and Larps.
25,500 - We’ll bring out Anna Kreider (FUNDED)
Anna Kreider is an illustrator, writer, and game designer of games like Thou Art But A Warrior, Autonomy, and The Watch. She has also freelanced for a number of companies like Wizards of the Coast, Pelgrane Press, Green Ronin, and is the former author of the popular feminist gaming blog Go Make Me a Sandwich.
Anna will be running these awesome events:
- The Watch
- Factory Reset, a LARP about artificial intelligence, memory, and sentience
- A panel on on designing games that don't revolve around interpersonal violence
28,500 - We’ll bring out Meguey, Vincent, Elliot, and Tovey Baker (FUNDED)
That’s right we’re bringing out the Bakers! Born to internationally known game designers Meg and Vincent Baker, Elliot and Tovey (along with their older brother Sebastian) were doomed to a life full of polyhedral dice underfoot, spontaneous playtests over meals, and shelves and shelves of games of all kinds. It's a rough life, but they make the best of it. At least one of them has been enchanted by the game design fairy; there might still be some chance for the others.
The Bakers will be running these awesome events:
- Meg and Vincent will run audience-participation Murderous Ghosts.
- Vincent will run Apocalypse World.
- Meg will run 1001 Nights.
- Meg and Vincent will give their Sex On The Table panel on ways to talk about sex, romance, and consent in game design and game play.
- Meg will do a workshop on BakerHouseBrand larp.
- Meg will offer and AMA (ask me anything) in-person panel.
- Elliot will run his road war minis game Tiny&Chrome.
30,000 - We’ll bring out Wes Schneider (FUNDED)
F. Wesley Schneider is co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, co-writer of the video game State of Decay 2, former editor of Dungeons & Dragons's Dragon magazine, and architect of hundreds of RPG products. He regularly writes creepy fiction and speaks about horror, world-building, and LGBTQ topics in gaming. You can find Wes at wesschneider.com and on Twitter at @FWesSchneider.
Wes will be running these awesome events:
- Bluebeard’s Bride
- Dread
- A panel on horror and consent in tabletop RPGs
31,500 - We'll bring out Brie Sheldon (FUNDED)
Brie is a designer and editor of roleplaying games, a games journalist, and creator of the Script Change RPG toolbox. They have worked on live action and tabletop games including Let Me Take a Selfie, Of the Woods, Firefly Smuggler's Guide to the Rim, Masks Halcyon City Herald, and Bubblegumshoe. Their Thoughty site hosts their numerous interviews with game designers, artists, and creators, as well as articles on game theory and design. Their current projects are Turn, a tabletop game about shapeshifters in small towns, and a web series called Leading with Class, teaching leadership using concepts from games. Their work focuses on community, identity, being better - and asking questions.
Brie will the running these awesome events:
- Turn (RPG Playtest)
- Leadership in Games: Not Just for GMs (workshop)
- Beyond the Binary: Nonbinary and Genderfluid Characters & Players (panel)
Thank you all for your support. This is going to be the best Big Bad Con yet!
Join the Wolf Pack
Do you like people? Are you alert, active, and approachable? Are you interested in being the first to find out what’s on the BBC schedule? Head over here to Join the Wolf Pack! We’re looking for team members to help us do setup and breakdown, work at the reg desk, greet new attendees, and host our Games on Demand, Teen, and Board Game rooms. If those sound fun and a challenge you’d like to take on, join us!
Colorful Enamel Pronoun Pins
Maury Brown, founder of Learn Larp and all-around wonderful person, has a Kickstarter running until June 4th for beautiful enamel pins to display your pronouns, spread awareness, and help folks who might forget.
Check out her Kickstarter and consider getting a pin for yourself or donating one to a non-binary or trans teen.
Risks and challenges
This is the eighth year we have hosted Big Bad Con and every year I walk away from it exhausted from the work and elated from the success.
Obstacles we've encountered in the past include the room blocks filling up, unexpected charges from the hotel rooms, t-shirts trapped in FedEx facilities, fires blocking access to the con, lack of food options, hotel rooms becoming unsuitable for use, and last-minute GM cancellations.
While each of these has been a challenge, we've always pulled through. We’ve incorporated as a nonprofit 501c3, expanded our room blocks, navigated through tough hotel negotiations, and called on an array of excellent GMs to run games in a pinch!
I'm confident we can tackle any obstacles that come our way in 2018. We want to deliver the best roleplaying convention experience with you and for you!
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Funding period
- (32 days)