[Boone Gorges]

It sounds like you didn’t run the bbPress setup installer, or that something went wrong during that setup process.

Go to Dashboard > BuddyPress > Forum Setup, and click Setup a new bbPress installation. Re-install if it asks you to.

If it still doesn’t work, check to make sure there’s a bb-config.php file in the root of your WordPress installation, and that the credentials in that file are correct.