KapCon 2027 is on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th of January. Monday 25th is a statutory holiday for Wellington workers and can be used for recovery.
The pandemic is still with us. Please check our Covid-19 policy before attending.
KapCon is a not-for-profit role-playing game convention run annually in Wellington, New Zealand, every January. Over a hundred people get together for a weekend of role-playing, in a diverse range of styles and systems. Over the weekend, more than 30 individual games are run, with volunteer GMs (or storytellers, narrators or facilitators) running games between one and six times over the course of the convention.
An intense game of redemption.
With Alice as your leader your party did great things. You stole lightning from the Temple of Night, you defeated the Moon King's horde, you sailed the Sea of Stars to the World's End.
Then it all went wrong. You screwed up. You failed. Alice died. With bitter recriminations and accusations, your group split up.
Ten years later you are brought unwillingly back together. Despite the distrust, the bitterness, and the blame, you need to work together for one last mission.
World creation:
The game has an improv world-building phase, which is done entirely in character. If your character says "...and we came back from the arctic on dragon-back" then the world has dragons. If your character says "we caught a rocket to the L5 station where the android was waiting" then there's a space stations in orbit with androids.
That phase ends and the rest of the game then happens in that world, as you live with the consequences of what you've done.
Trigger warning: The game begins with scenes of bitter interpersonal conflict.
A rip-roaring steampunk adventure with dinosaurs and mad science.
Train from Casablanca to Marrakesh in the exotic Sultanate of Morrocco, and then cross the High Atlas mountains by Camel and Pachycephalosaurus to Ait Ben Haddou to recover the stolen map to the City of Dinosaurs from the perfidious French.
Bring your ingenuity, because failed rolls can be recovered by inventing mad science devices in this steampunk world!
The year is 50 B.C. and Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely… One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders....
But can Asterix, Obelix and friends guard the magic potion against a foe that says:
“An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, if'n people are going to leave drink like that ly'in aroound! Where an innocent soul could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!”
[This game ran at Kapcon in 2019. Previous players are welcome to return for another bout, but it is the same game.]
You're Quaestors, space police, on the trail of the notorious telepathic criminal "Shatter".
He was last seen on Caryatid, heading for an ancient alien remnant.
Whatever he has planned there, it's bound to be bad.
This is a playtest scenario for the in-development space horror supplement for Monster of the Week.
1811. HMS Scorpion has been sent to update charts in the region of the Spice Islands.
The captain's sealed orders reveal that a French squadron is active in the area. They are to be taken, burned, or destroyed.
You also expect complications from the Dutch and locals. Not to mention Mr Charpentier, the natural philosopher on board, and his strange apparatus for "observing the bottom of the sea".
Glorious is still in development, so this is technically a playtest (but the rules are pretty settled now).
"Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child
Is loving and giving,
Saturday's child
Works hard for a living,
And the child that is born on the sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe,
And good and gay"
It is the 19th century and Scandinavia is changing. In the cities machines churn, technology rushes, a world of new ideas and endless revolutions.
But on the outskirts, in the country and the forests, the dirt roads and the shadows, the old ways remain. And they will not let themselves fade silently into the night.
So if your down to run around in a mystery sandbox that's a bit Robert Eggers, a bit Wicker Man, a bit Call of Cthulhu and a bit Brothers Grimm, then this is the game for you!
Content warning notes: violence, horror, and themes of domestic abuse. Safety tools will be in play.
GHOSTS IN THE FOG: OPERATION DEAD DROP
Berlin, 2026.
An SIS asset inside Russian intelligence is dead. Before he died, he sent one final message:
ALEXANDERPLATZ. LOCKER 317. 21:00. COME ALONE. THEY KNOW.
Whatever he left behind was important enough to kill for.
You are the nearest SIS team. Get to the locker. Recover the intelligence. Find out who else is hunting it. And, above all, don't let it fall into Russian hands.
What begins as a simple dead drop quickly becomes a race across Berlin involving surveillance, deception, pursuit and violence, where one mistake could turn a covert operation into an international incident.
Ghosts in the Fog is a fast-paced espionage RPG inspired by classic spy thrillers. Expect tradecraft, investigation, chases, difficult choices and cinematic action.
3 hours • 5-6 players • Pregenerated characters provided • No experience required
It was supposed to be the greatest day of your life, the pinnacle, you doubted it could ever be cooler than this; you were invited to a birthday party. But now you're here you're not so sure: someone's widdled in their shoe, the little kid next door is hyped on sugar, the birthday boy is crying, and now you all have to play Pass the Parcel. Just pray they don't get round to Charades or Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
Join the horror of a 5 year old's birthday party: the laughs, the tantrums, the food stains. But it's OK - nobody loses an eye!
The corporate world is well known for its efficiency. That's why the Higher Ups Analytical International Corporation have hired you! As the competent consultants you are tasked with... R&D? Retrieval? it would be easy to know if you had your contract when they said they'd send it. Surely, you'll just get it at the work briefing today.