Kobold Press Celebrates 20 Years With Free Online Convention and Reveals

Kobold Press rang in its 20th anniversary by staging the most accessible version of Kobold Con yet: three days of free online programming streamed across YouTube and Twitch from March 27-29, combining designer AMAs, product reveals, design panels, and organized-play sessions into a celebration that required exactly zero dollars to attend.

The weekend's most anticipated slot was the Pirates & Plunder AMA, which came bundled with early access to preview PDFs tied to an upcoming Campaign Builder Kickstarter. For anyone tracking the independent 5E publishing space, that combination of live designer access and preview-before-the-campaign-launches is a familiar Kobold move, and the pairing signals the Kickstarter is likely close.

The full Con schedule packed in design panels "Building a Dread Villain" and "Heroes in the Making," alongside Tales of the Valiant organized-play streams, "Loot the Box" product unboxings, live art battles, and trivia spanning two decades of releases. Kobold Press archived Day 1's live YouTube stream after broadcast, making the content available on demand for anyone who missed the weekend.

Two days before the Con opened, Kobold Press published a retrospective blog post on March 25, authored and curated by Celeste Conowitch, tracing the company's arc from early PDF experimentation through its current catalogue of hardcovers and monster books. The post doesn't shy away from the friction points along the way, including the 2023 OGL controversy, which it frames as a turning point that forced independent publishers to reconsider how they build IP and manage their relationship with Wizards of the Coast.

That frankness is consistent with what's made Kobold Press a go-to supplemental publisher for two decades. The company's monster compendia have become staples at tables that outgrew the official Monster Manual years ago, and its community-first development model means players and DMs have historically had a hand in shaping what ends up in print. Free, open, and already previewing a Kickstarter, Kobold Con 2026 functioned less as a birthday party and more as a blueprint for what the next twenty years might look like.