Want to know how Kapcon has been doing over the years? We've stuck our stats online via Google Drive.

Here's the design for this years Kapcon t-shirt.

Price will be $25, available in 6 colours and both men's and women's cuts. Last day for orders will be 5th of January.

You can order here.

Once again we have a heavy presence of EPOCH at KapCon. For those who haven't tried it, EPOCH is a cinematic survival horror rpg, strongly influenced by the indie-gaming paradigm, by long-time KapCon GM Dale Elvy. It has quick character generation, and a game structure which pushes the story in the arc of classic survival horror movies such as Alien and The Thing. Last year the EPOCH GM's racked up an impressive bodycount - over 60 characters as I recall (and yes, they kept score). This year... well, it's really up to you.

EPOCH games at KapCon 23 include:

EPOCH is a cinematic horror rpg by local game designer Dale Elvy. Last KapCon Dale and his crew of sadists thrilled us with seven different EPOCH scenarios, and racked up a body count of over 50. Now, his game has been nominated for four ENnie awards!

The ENnies are a democratic award, so you can vote for EPOCH here. If you'd like to know what all the fuss is about, then EPOCH will be back at KapCon next year. If you can't wait that long, then it will be appearing at Fright Night in October.

Here's what this years t-shirt will look like, subject to very minor typographic tweaking. Price will be $25.

We'll be offering it in both Men's and Women's styles, in a selection of colours. If you really really want one in black you can get it but people are saying Charcoal is the new black, and works much better with this logo :-)

Note that white is a possibility, but the colours would be inverted. Also, we need at least 4 orders in white (or light colours) in order to make it work, because there is extra cost in swapping inks over. If you want white, please choose your style, size and an alternate colour from the drop down. And make a note in the comments field that you want white. If we get enough orders, we will do a run in white. Otherwise, your alternate colour will be used.

And here's the order form. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGdteTREZHhxRTR0NlR...

With the con fast approaching, time for a word about deadlines. In the last week we're busy printing everything out so the con will run efficiently on the day. This means we need to lock stuff down and cannot make any changes until Saturday morning.

The deadline for registration is Wednesday 15 January. The form will be closed on that date.

The deadline for online payment is Wednesday 15 January. If you pay after this date, we will not notice and you will have to pay at the door.

The deadline for schedule changes, GM picks and switching games is Wednesday 15 January. After this, its set in ink and changes will have to be managed on Saturday morning.

There is no deadline for submitting games, but see above; if you offer something in the last week, it may not make the printed timetable or the blurb print-run, and will have to be added by hand - which means a high risk that people won't find out about your cool game and will not sign up for it.

If you email me requesting something done in the last week, it may not happen. The best I can do is add it to a list for the admin staff to handle on Saturday morning.

So, if you want to register, sign up for a larp, or offer a game, do it now.

Or, in English, "KapCon needs more games". We've worked up the preliminary timetable, and as you can see, there are some big gaps. Last year we ran 19 games a round, with a half-size round 6, so that leaves us needing two more in round one, one in round two, and 22 across the rest of the convention. Plus we need another three or so games for the non-larpers in round 3.5. In addition, we need "surge protection" games, in case we have more people than expected - one or two each round.

So, if you GM, or want to start, now is the time to fill out the form and offer to run a game.

No, it doesn't have to be original. I'm running a game out of a book, others are too, and there's nothing wrong with that. Others are running repeats of games they have run at other cons or in previous years. If you're stuck for ideas, there's a request list here (NOTE: we still have no-one running "The One Ring". In Hobbit season, we can surely do better than that), and there are old SDC scenarios here.

As for why: GM picks. If you run a game, you get priority entry in another session. GMs can jump the queue and pre-book their entire con if they run enough games. So if there's something you're really desperate to play, the answer is to run something else to get into it.

Things are coming together. We now have at least 11 excellent games - plus GoD - in each round. The larp has a blurb. The forms have been setup. So, we're ready to go. To give everyone a fair shot, registration will open at 8pm on Monday 15 October. Hopefully the server won't fall over beneath a mob of desperate gamers.

The KapCon dragon has awoken, and is searching for games for KapCon next year. If you're a regular GM, you should have already received an email. If not, we're after three-hour tabletops, ideally with pre-generated characters (we're also after ~10 - 20 player larps, but that seems well in-hand). Your game must run to time, otherwise you're cutting into people's eating, socialising, and personal comfort time.

As for what to run, the answer is "anything". Seriously, we don't care. If you want to run Macho Women With Guns, or a tense Call of Cthulhu scenario, or a classic D&D dungeon bash, or even (shudder) Spawn of Fashan (look it up), go ahead. The market will decide. All we ask is that you tell people up-front what they're in for (so, adult content, trigger warnings etc) so they can make an informed choice on whether to play. If you're looking for inspiration, there's a thread on NZRaG called "What games do you want to see at KapCon 22?" which lists some stuff that people want to see.

No, you don't need to write the scenario yourself (but many do). Its quite OK to run something prewritten (hell, I do that every year).

Once you've decided to run a game, fill out the form here (that's right, the one in the sidebar marked "Run a Game!")

"What's in it for me", you ask? Fame, fortune, the esteem of your peers and players. Yes, yes, OK, we also have discounted entry for anyone running a game. And more importantly, GM picks, so you can gain guaranteed entry into another game (KapCon only pre-registers the first two rounds, so this lets you sign up for that hot game in round 5 before anyone else).

With six (now 6.5) sessions of gaming to fill, and about 6 people per group, on average everyone needs to run a session. So please step up and do your bit to make KapCon a success.

KapCon XXI is done and dusted! A lot of games, a fantastic flagship larp, and a lot of happy gamers. I haven't got final stats yet, but I'll be posting them there once I've crunched the numbers.

If you have any feedback, or want to share your stories of KapCon, there's an NZRaG forum. We'll be paying close attention to work out how to improve your con experience, and we've had a number of good suggestions emerge already.

And of course we'll be back, same time, same place next year. Hopefully I'll see you all then.