KapCon 2025 is on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th of January. Monday 20th 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.
The Tomb of the Serpent Kings. Everyone knows the lands around here were ruled by a snake-man empire in ancient times, but a goat-herd came back saying that she'd found one of their tombs. For most people, that was a warning.
For you? Riches and glory glittered in your eyes.
It'll be dangerous, which is why you've brought along allies. And a few of the local folk to watch your horses and maybe carry things. Before you lies a tunnel leading into the hillside, the long grass that obscured it pulled away.
The date: December 18th, 1952. The place: East Berlin.
It’s the night before the start of a nuclear weapons control treaty conference. All the movers and shakers are here. Dinner has been had, and now it’s time to ‘mingle’ and do the real power broking before the tedium of the formal negotiations. Of course, the topic on everyone’s lips will be the nuclear weapons treaty, but with westerners in attendance, opportunities for defection, assassination, and score settling are rife.
Of course, making sure you’re dealing with who you think you are will be very important.
In attendance:
Stalin,
Stalin. Stalin. Stalin. Stalin.
Stalin. Stalin.
Stalin. Stalin. Stalin. Stalin.
Stalin.
Well, they can’t all be Stalin, but they all look like Stalin, at least a bit. All characters are written to be played as any gender.
KapCon regular Dale Elvy is also a game designer and publisher, as Imaginary Empire games. He's willing to offer GM support, including posters, prizes, and printed materials for that session to anyone who wants to run an Imaginary Empire product at KapCon. In particular, games that are likely to work well in the KapCon format include:
Many of these games are KapCon favourites. If interested, contact imaginaryempiregames@gmail.com.
The War's been going on forever. Not quite forever, it just feels that way. There was that time the Reds were doing 'exercises' next to the border and 'accidentally' killed civilians, and the time the Blues blew up a hospital ship, and the firestorming of great cities - to pay each back, of course. Then there was... yeah, you forget exactly what next, just something awful and everyone to blame.
All you know now is that you have your squad, and the cold, and by the grace of whatever is out there, a place to shelter from the storm...
Hell-bent on reigning over the Gotham City underworld, the Ghost Dragons triad has discreetly taken control of a number of smaller gangs. They are now waiting for the right moment to launch a full-scale attack against the leading crimefamilies. However, this conquest of Gotham City requires the elimination of Batman, both as an adversary and as a symbol.
Batman. The guardian who watches over Gotham City - a city whose name has become synonymous with crime and corruption. A symbol of hope, tirelessly challenging all threats to its safety. In this scenario, you will play as Tim Drake, Alfred and Julia Pennyworth, Renee Montoya, and Harvey Bullock as they try to thwart the Ghost Dragons and their move against Gotham and the Batman.
Batman: Gotham City Chronicles is a traditional style RPG, using a tailored D20 system. This scenario heavily features both miniatures and maps to play out its cinematic set pieces.
As you approach, you see the house rising out of the mists, almost like it's waiting for you. The sun has nearly set, bathing the house in a perfect, golden light, the kind that makes everything look beautiful. Usually.
This house is an exception, its ugly outside warped unnaturally by the years of neglect. Still, you feel pulled toward it, like a center of gravity or a siren's call. As you take it all in you feel somehow strange. You feel Home.
Home is a GMless RPG in which the players all contribute to create and map a haunted house. In Home, you’ll be taking on the role of someone exploring a house. On your turn, you’ll draw a card, answer a question on the card without revealing the card to your fellow players, and shape the story of your night in the house. As you go, you’ll work to meet your needs, but you’ll also sustain wounds. At the end of the night, you’ll find out if you make it out of the house alive.
Violence. Money. Betrayal.
Welcome to the City — a lawless district and also your home. Some here are fools who can only dream of striking it rich. Others are as smart as they are cowardly, hiding where the law has no say. But whatever delusion draws us here, whatever sin we wallow in that can only be indulged here, whatever it is that makes us take that step across the threshold, we are the wicked, and the City is our sanctuary.
You are a rogue trying to suck the marrow out of the big fish in this pond - the VIP. But you, you’re one of the picares, a rogue among rogues. You outwit all the rest, you take what’s yours, and then you laugh in everyone’s faces. But even you have to watch out, because someone close to you may not be what they appear - a Traitor. So once again, welcome to the City—we’ve been waiting. Join us in our song, a requiem for us rogues.
Picaresque Roman is a competitive RPG in which the PCs compete to be rogue among rogues as they steal influence and resource from a powerful individual, and each other. Only one PC can come out on top, but one PC has secretly been hired by the VIP to work against the other rogues. If you’re the traitor, lie in wait for the moment when you can take back all that influence the PCs have gained for themselves. If you’re not the traitor, then find out who is, or you’ll meet your demise quickly.
On cold misten hills, beast witsome and fell
In holdings and havens the vassals adwell
Seers know the all, the start and the end
Myths hushed aloud to which truth must abend
You are Knights united by a common Oath:
You may have dreams of glory, but every Knight must accept the risk of death. The Seers who knighted you have deemed that you travel as a Company. While some of you may rest, roam, or die, your collective journey will be as one.
This is an old school hexcrawl scenario in which a group of Knights travel to a far-off island realm under the guidance of the Seers to seek the truth of the Myth that resides there. The scenario will be randomly filled out based on a few key choices by the players at the start of the session.
It’s the worst week ever at school. Not only do you think you flunked your everyday occult exams and your familiar has wandered off, but you scored detention and missed the weekly fire elemental volleyball tournament. Professor Rhumarim fell asleep at detention, didn’t release you and now you’ll be late back to the dorms. At least nothing else could go wrong tonight….
One shot adventure using the Kids on Brooms system.
Emberlight Academy for young magic users is a magic school full of mystery, danger, and thrilling adventure. Strict professors, mythical beasts, brewing potions, it’s all in a days study at Emberlight Academy.
No extensions will be given for overdue homework assignments.