Thanks to the wonderful folks at Heart of the Deernicorn and the amazing art from Jabari Weathers, we have some beautiful apparel available for 2019. You want these threads!
Pre orders are now closed but we’ll print a few extra to bring to the con, so swing by the reg desk and see if we’ve got one in your size!
Thank to the success of our Kickstarter and the support of all of you, we’re bringing the following designers, writers, and community leaders to Big Bad Con:
Whitney M. Delaglio (she/her) is a lawful evil game designer, artist, and creator of the brand Little Wish Productions (LWP). She recently finished her first game, Prism, which is an aquatic RPG about sensuality, relationships, and conflict resolution. As a support class in the gaming community, she is an advocator of providing a safe space for intimacy and emotional vulnerability.
Whitney will be running Prism and a panel on aquatic game content.
Jeeyon Shim (she/her) is a game designer who lives and works in Oakland, California. Her portfolio focuses on teaching players land skills through LARPing, and she designs the breadth of her work to guide players into (re)connecting with the natural world. This August, Jeeyon will be featured as Artist In Residence at Heart of the Deernicorn to host Forest Play: a weekend convention focused on teaching land skills through LARPing. This year at Big Bad Con she will be our keynote speaker and bring a land skills event to the con. In addition to writing games, she works for Trackers Bay (Berkeley, CA) as an outdoor educator, where she coordinates and designs the company’s LARP programming. You can learn more about Jeeyon through her Patreon, Twitter feed, and itch.io pages.
Hannah Shaffer (they/she) is a game designer and podcaster who makes games about people searching for meaning and connection. As a relative newcomer to the hobby, Hannah likes finding ways to make gaming more approachable and accessible to new people. Hannah is the co-designer of Questlandia and 14 Days, and the designer of Damn the Man, Save the Music. Hannah’s currently working on Questlandia 2 and co-hosts the Design Doc podcast, an experimental journey in designing a roleplaying game (almost) live.
Han will be running Questlandia 2, Damn the Man, Save the Music, and a panel about designing unfinished games out in the open, for everyone to see and play!
Brandon Leon-Gambetta (he/him) is a Latinx game designer and media creator most well known for his telenovela-inspired game Pasión de las Pasiones. He is additionally one of the creators of the Stop, Hack, & Roll podcast network and host of #LatinXplosion an All-New, All-Different, All-Latinx Masks stream. Brandon aims to create games that mechanically reinforce genre emulation in both theme and feel. Find out more at brandonleongambetta.com.
Brandon will be running Pasión de las Pasiones, Masks: A New Generation, and a Latinx Community and Mentorship panel.
Clio Yun-su Davis (they/she) is a Korean American game designer and writer whose work explores grief, artificial intelligence, existential dread, and Asian and Asian American experiences. They design larps, tabletop roleplaying games, interactive fiction games, and card games, and are the co-founder of Janitor Interactive. Their freeform game The Long Drive Back from Busan won a Golden Cobra Challenge award, and their game about the future of ancestor worship, The Truth About Eternity, is being presented at Fastaval 2019 in Denmark.
Clio will be running But Not Tonight (larp), No Such Place as Koreatown, her adventure module for Kids on Bikes (ttrpg), and Battle of the Boy Bands (card game).
Albert Kong (he/him) is a carpenter in Corvallis, Oregon, who makes games unprofessionally. He is exploring how players relate to their physical spaces, and how they can use a literacy of games to find liberation in their lives. He wrote The We-ness (Golden Cobra Judges’ Choice 2018) as well as many live games for and with the Come Out and Playcommunity.
Albert will be running Children of the Stone, a game about personal healing, and The We-ness, a game about collective consciousness.
April Walsh (she/her) is a spooky witch who writes queer games about feelings and caring for one another. Her debut game, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, celebrates the power and love of badass queers who will fight if they must, but just as often realize that their rivals aren’t all bad… and are kind of hot, now that you mention it. April used to be a swordfighting ballerina, but claims those days are behind her; she has absolutely no idea who that masked heroine with the sword and the tutu might be.
April will be running her games Thirsty Sword Lesbians and End of the Line.
Avery Alder (she/her) is a queer designer hailing from Sinixt territory. She’s the designer of Monsterhearts, The Quiet Year, Dream Askew, Ribbon Drive, and a host of smaller, scrappier projects. In her design and play, she gravitates toward the moody, the personal, and the transformative.
Avery will be running Monsterhearts, Dream Askew, and Ribbon Drive.
Jerry D. Grayson (he/him) has designed and published games since 2002. A pioneer in Afrocentric sword and soul fantasy and Afrofuturism in roleplaying games, Jerry works tirelessly to bring diversity and new voices to the hobby. Flattered that others find his small efforts amusing, his proudest industry works are GODSEND Agenda, HELLAS: Worlds of Sun and Stone, and ATLANTIS: The Second Age. When not creating games that have all uppercase letters in the title, Jerry works on becoming a better human being through acts of civility and kindness to others.
Jerry will be running HELLAS: Worlds of Sun and Stone RPG and ATLANTIS: The Second Age.
Alex Rowland (she/they) is an American freeform designer and larp theorist. Her designs feature a reflexive perspective of the medium which focuses on player/character phenomenology and safety. Her scholarship on event safety has been published in both the International Journal of Role-Playing and Nordiclarp.org, as well as featured at the Living Games Conference and Knutpunkt. Notable games include Hlasko, A Lion in Mississauga, and Canned.
Alex will be running A lion in Mississauga, Canned, and Hlasko.
Kat Jones (she/they) is a queer, Latina game designer, organizer, and scholar of Sociology; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Game Design. Whether it’s a game about sex toy parties at a feminist bookstore (Cady Stanton’s Candyland), or discussing the marginalization experienced by zombies in Revived, Kat loves to combine her academic interests with her game design.
Kat will be running Slayercake, #TheRealColdtown, a game about vampires, gentrification, and social media, co-authored with Julia B. Ellingboe, was part of the Black Box Copenhagen festival for 2019, and Potluck, a storytelling game about food, community, and resistance.
Andrew Gillis (they/them) is a game designer, a cyborg, and a queer human living in Vancouver, Canada. Over the past decade they’ve worked in video games, table-top RPGs, and community activism. Their game Girl by Moonlight should be coming out in late 2020.
Andrew will be running Girl by Moonlight and making appearances on panels.
Born to internationally known game designers Meg (she/her) and Vincent (he/him) Baker, Sebastian (he/him), Elliot (he/him) and Tovey (he/him) 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:
Jahmal ‘Mad Jay’ Brown (he/him) is a freelance TTRPG writer and TTRPG evangelist. His credits include Clockwinders, Cortex Prime Supers and he is currently working on a Burning Wheel/Dungeon World ‘zine about rat-folk, wolfen and bad men called By Aecer’s Light. Mad Jay likes games or stories about outsiders and underdogs up against adversity. Outside of gaming he games with his kids, owns a software company (where they game) and he loves his momma …though she doesn’t game, yet.
Jahmal will be running By Aecer’s Light.
James D’Amato (he/him) is the president of the One Shot Network and host of actual play Shows like “One Shot” and “Campaign.” He’s also the author of The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide and co-designer of Noisy Person Cards. He loves almost every role-playing game and wants specifically you to have a good time playing.
James will be running Oh Captain My Captain, The Skyjacks Storytelling Game, a panel on podcasting, and another panel on work-life balance!
Brittanie Boe (she/her) is a writer, photographer and video producer who founded Be Bold Games in 2018. Her passions include her cat Dax, her daughter Hailey, bouldering, and going on adventures to capture the perfect photos on her camera. She writes about her perspective as a Latinx woman in gaming and is passionate about intersectional feminism as well as queer inclusion and advocacy. When she’s not tweeting she’s off in the mountains playing ukulele and singing at the top of her lungs. Bebo will be running Cat Lady, Modern Art, and Azul!
Ash McAllan (she/her) is a cyberfemme anarchoqueer stream queen and designer from Adelaide, South Australia. She runs streaming ttrpg shows on her own twitch channel and is also part of the Actual Play team. Her game design is hyperactive and tireless, bringing social justice to the adventuring table in games like The Republic and In Which We Live And Breathe. She’s pushing the envelope of what a roleplaying game looks like with games like Oracle and Footprints. Ash also makes video games and gets excited about birds a lot. She’ll be running The Republic, In Which We Live And Breathe, and Oracle!
Maury Brown (she/they) believes in the power of collaborative storytelling to change the world, starting with the hearts and minds of participants. She’s the lead creative and co-founder of New World Magischola, the designer of Immerton, Beat Generation, Inside Avernus and co-designer of A Wolf By Any Other Name.
Maury will be running her edu-larp Public Memory, Magimundi, and a workshop on adding bespoke safety and calibration techniques to your TTRPG or larp.
K. Tempest Bradford (she/her) is a science fiction and fantasy writer, writing instructor, media critic, reviewer, and podcaster. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple works including Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Sunspot Jungle, In the Shadow of the Towers, and many more. She’s the host of ORIGINality, a podcast about the roots of creative genius, and contributes to several more. When not writing, she teaches classes on writing inclusive fiction through LitReactor and Writing the Other. Tempest will be running her Writing as Other workshop and appear on other panels.
Tim Hutchings (he/him) is a game designer, gallery artist, and professor of analog game design at Bradley University. Hutchings is most interested in using games and play to explore communication and power. He’s the designer of A Crow Funeral, Dear Leader, and the horrible A Tiny Person which he has never played. This summer Hutchings is releasing Thousand Year Old Vampire and the very dark A Guide to Depression Era Soap Carving Competitions.
Tim will be running the unreleased Apollo 47, A Guide to Depression Era Soap Carving Competitions, and organizing a panel on contemporary art and games.
Let’s make games inspired by and about FOLK TALES & FABLES! We can play them at Big Bad Con, a tabletop and live action gaming convention featuring fantastic games and even better company- happening in Oakland, CA October 10th – 13th, 2019!
Join the game jam on itch.io
Submissions Open: April 13th, 2019
Submissions Due: May 31st, 2019
After the jam closes, games creators who have opted to include will be collected into an Anthology and sold, with proceeds going towards our scholarship and sponsorship funds—which will help us bring folks to the convention! Including your game in the Anthology is optional and you can still offer your game for sale on Itch.io and other platforms.
If you want to add your game to the Anthology, once you submit it on Itch, can you also email a pdf to itch@bigbadcon.com? This way I’ll be able to assemble the Anthology once the jam is over.
Mendez is on call to help jam participants portray diverse identities and sensitive topics in their games. Got questions about research, respect, or representation? Not sure where to start with a historical, cultural, or religious topic you’re interested in, but don’t know well? Want someone to look over your game? Contact Mendez via email at lula.vampiro at gmail dot com, Mastodon at @lula@scream.supply, or Twitter at @LulaVampiro; or post in the Big Bad Con Discord server’s #bigbadjam channel!
The Big Bad Game jam organized by DC, Jenn & Nathan- if you have any questions, feel free to email Itch@BigBadCon.com or @ us on Twitter @DungeonCommandr @JennMartin80 and @NathanBlack.
From DC, the BOEP Director:
The Babble On Equity Project exists to provide marginalized people equity.
We’re starting with the tabletop roleplaying game community where the Babble On discord community was born. And we’re taking on one of the biggest challenges in the TTRPG industry: bringing out people of color to conventions, where we are often in small number. Conventions have a reputation for being unsafe for not only people of color, but also women, femmes, non-men, queer folx, neurodivergent individuals, and people with disabilities. However, one convention has earned a reputation that challenges these issues head-on.
Big Bad Con, in Walnut Creek, California.
Our goal is to raise $20,000 to bring out as many people of color as possible. Many of these people are designers, but many are also community leaders, fantastic players, game masters, and artists. All of whom deserve the opportunity to experience a convention that treats people well both in general, and in consideration of their background.
In light of the recent revelations about Zak S by Mandy Morbid, Big Bad Con staff wish to publicly reinforce our commitment as a convention and community to creating safer, more inclusive space.
We regularly revisit our community standards to ensure our community is a place where all can come and enjoy themselves, and we have clear public statements of those standards. Abuse and harassment are never welcome at Big Bad Con.
We support Mandy. We believe her and the others who have made statements of their experiences. We have decided to formally state that Zak S is not allowed to attend our convention in any capacity, nor are any of his games to be part of our formal schedule. While we take no issue with people deciding to play his games as a personal choice, we feel it is vital to our community commitment not to promote a known abuser, and we will not give his games a platform at our convention.
This statement made in solidarity with Mandy’s original statement (CN: abuse, DV, SA)
Any questions or comments about how we can continue to evolve and improve community standards can be directed to info@bigbadcon.com
