Goodman Games Revives Relationship With Anti-Semitic Publisher For New City State Kickstarter [UPDATED]

City State of the Invincible Overlord was a 1976 game setting from Judges Guild--indeed, it was the first game setting for D&D, albeit from a third party. It features a dwarven stronghold called Thunderhold, which operates as a base of operations for D&D campaigns.

• UPDATE--Scroll down to the end of this post to see the statement posted by Goodman Games.

Judges Guild, founded by Bob Bledsaw and Bill Owen, sold City State until it was licensed to Mayfair Games in the 1980s, before returning to Judges Guild with a new printing in 1999, and collectors editions via a partnership with Necromancer Games in the early 2000s. All in all there have been over a half-dozen editions of the setting, ranging from small booklets to boxed sets to 300-page hardcovers.

Fast forward to 2020, when Judges Guild owner Bob Bledsaw II (the son of the co-founder, Bob Bledsaw) posted a variety of racist and anti-semitic statement online. The statements referenced topics such as 'Jewish media', disappointment at the outcome of the American civil war, and holocaust denial, as well as lengthy posts where he describes himself as 'pro-life, anti-gay, and against self-mutilation' and speaks proudly of his family's history in the Crusades, which he 'considers a calling'. Additionally, he made references to 9/11 'truth', his family's history of slavery, and defends his 'racial humor'.

It should be noted that these statements were all made by Bob Bledsaw II, not by Bob Bledsaw Snr, who co-founded Judges Guild and passed away in 2008.

As EN World reported at the time, various game publishers, including Bat in the Attic, and Frog God Games, cut ties with Judges Guild, and DriveThruRPG stopped selling the company's products, saying "The Judges Guild publisher account has been closed and they are no longer available on DriveThruRPG."

Rob Conley of Bat in the Attic stated at the time that the company would no longer do business with Judges Guild, or its properties. "Sunday evening, I called Robert Bledsaw II and discussed the issue. I notified him that I will no longer be doing future Judges’ Guild projects and will only continue to sell what I have currently listed. I stated that I will be calling the other Judges Guild licensee and inform them of the situation and of my decision."

Frog God Games, which had been working with Judges Guild for nearly 20 years at the time, followed suit. "Recently the owner of Judges Guild made a series of racist and anti-semitic posts on Facebook. We will not reproduce them here; they are shown on Rob Conley's Bat in the Attic blog, and we are convinced of their authenticity. Rob wrote his post because, as a licensee of Judges Guild property, he felt he needed to state clearly that he would not be doing business with Judges Guild in the future. We have also licensed property from Judges Guild in the past, and we are seconding Rob's example by cutting off all future business with Judges Guild. The posts made on Facebook were completely unacceptable."

Amongst those cutting ties with Judges Guild, notably, was Goodman Games, who made a statement in February 2020:

Following up on our recent video, this statement is to confirm the following points regarding Goodman Games and our former relationship with Judges Guild.

To start with, we are disgusted and disheartened by the antisemitism, bigotry, racism, homophobia, and transphobia exhibited by the current owners of Judges Guild.

Goodman Games has stopped selling our previous Judges Guild products through all distribution channels.

Judges Guild will no longer receive income from Goodman Games products now that sales of their titles have ceased.

We have one remaining product to release, which is a collector’s edition focused on the works of Jennell Jaquays. Jennell’s story is one quite different from the views espoused by Bob Bledsaw Jr. Judges Guild and Bob Bledsaw Jr. have agreed to receive no royalties of any kind from this title. To say it bluntly: Bob Bledsaw Jr. and Judges Guild will not profit from the Judges Guild Deluxe Collector’s Edition Vol. 2 focused on the works of Jennell Jaquays. Goodman Games will match 20% of the proceeds of this title with donations: 10% to the Anti Defamation League and 10% to GLAAD. The funds that would have been used for a Judges Guild licensing fee will be included in this donation, as requested by Bob Bledsaw Jr.

After this final volume, we have no plans to release future Judges Guild titles.

We are deeply saddened and frankly horrified by the views espoused by Bob Bledsaw Jr.

In early 2014, Judges Guild ran a Kickstarter to bring back City State of the Invincible Overlord, with nearly a thousand backers raising $85K. A decade later, the Kickstarter has not yet been fulfilled. The latest update was in May 2020.

Goodman Games this week announced a new version of City State of the Invincible Overlord, coming to crowdfunding this summer, for 5E and its own in-house DCC RPG. It appears that the property is still owned by Judges Guild, and is being licensed from them by Goodman Games, as a comment from Aaron James Bledsaw on Facebook indicates [sic]:

Goodman games does had a license to do this and other Wilderlands products, It has been in the works for a long while and I'm glad it's finally seeing the light of day.

- Aaron James Bledsaw​

The current crowdfunding page also confirms that the project is being undertaken under license from Judges Guild.

Based on the original City State of the Invincible Overlord by Bob Bledsaw, Sr. as published by Judges Guild. This product is produced under license from Judges Guild.

In their announcement video, Goodman Games did not directly reference the situation, but CEO Joseph Goodman commented. It should be noted that the incidents previously referenced are not mentioned specifically, and this was not a response to a question about them.

Yeah I keep coming back to the fact that so many of the things that I do with Goodman Games whether it's content-wise or business practices was really established in the 70s by Bob Bedslaw Snr and Bill Owen, it's kind of amazing but I think it's important to point out that nothing is changing about Goodman Games. We've done things in a certain way for 24 years. A large part of our fan base has grown up to appreciate that. And those of us who have seen behind the curtain as to what we are producing whether it's Mike and Chris on this call or Doug and his announcements at Dungeon Con and his enthusiasm for doing the cover, I think all you know Doug, all you know me, all you know Mike and Chris, and you know what we're about and that's what we'll bring to City State of the Invincible Overlord. We intend to publish this the Goodman Games way, the way we've done it for 24 years and the way we will hopefully do it for many years to come and my personal opinion is I like to build bridges rather than walls. I think there's been a lot of experiences in the last couple years in America of people building walls amongst each other. I'd rather encourage dialogue, encourage conversation, get people talking and have people converge on what I hope is a unified perspective for how we can all go forward together in a collaborative way.

- Joseph Goodman​

Additionally, of note, is that the Judges Guild products on Goodman Games' website had--at least until 2023--a note which said "A portion of the proceeds from sales of this title will be donated to charitable causes." That note is now absent on those products.

​

We have reached out to Goodman Games for comment and will update you if we hear anything further.

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UPDATE (same day) -- Goodman Games Posts Statement

Goodman Games has not responded to our email, but Joseph Goodman has just posted a statement regarding The City State of the Invincible Overlord. 

• The project was an outstanding project dating back to before 2020 when Goodman Games cut ties with Judges Guild.
• Judges Guild has promised Goodman Games that all proceeds from their share of the project's revenue will go towards refunding backers from their older unfulfilled Kickstarter.
• Backers of that older Kickstarter will get a discount on the new one.

Hi everyone,

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’ve just spent part of the morning driving and thinking about the amazing weekend we had with Dungeon Con I at our warehouse in Indiana. It was great to see so many people, staff and customers, come together to celebrate the DCC community we’ve tried so hard to build over the last 15 years. It was exhausting, exhilarating, and more fun than any of us imagined.

One of the things that we announced at Dungeon Con was our next Original Adventure Reincarnated series, The City State of the Invincible Overlord. (Check out our announcement here.) We were originally going to wait to announce it, but in the excitement of Dungeon Con we couldn’t wait to share the news.

Normally with something like this we try to do a series of posts and videos highlighting the project. Because I was so focused on Dungeon Con, we didn’t address everything about the announcement that I should have, and that’s on me.

Since Saturday, we have had several questions concerning the project coming from in and outside of our community. I wanted to address some of those questions and concerns today.

Goodman Games has long been a company taking older roleplaying game products and bringing them forward to new audiences. One of our earliest successes was with Jim Ward’s Metamorphosis Alpha, seeing Goodman Games publish both old and new adventures in what was the very first Science Fiction roleplaying game.

One of the other great successes we had was bringing the work of Judge’s Guild to modern audiences. We published two colossal, archival quality volumes documenting the early work of Bob Bledsaw Sr., Bill Owens and Jennelle Jaquays.

In 2020, we and the entire gaming industry were made aware of comments and postings by the current owners of Judge’s Guild. We addressed this in a video, as well as a statement on our website where we said the following: “we are disgusted and disheartened by the antisemitism, bigotry, racism, homophobia, and transphobia exhibited by the current owners of Judges Guild.”

It’s hard to express how upset I was personally and professionally by the events of 2020. I don’t discuss my family, but the posts and comments that came to light affected all of us, including my children. What I saw was repugnant and vile.

Unfortunately, the 2020 revelations also left several pending projects in limbo. Legally, we can’t discuss specifics, but one of those was our adaptation of the City State of the Invincible Overlord for OAR.

The City State of the Invincible Overlord is an important work in the history of roleplaying games. It’s the first richly developed setting for fantasy roleplaying games. It launched thousands of campaigns. Bob Bledsaw Sr. and Bill Owens, honorable and decent men, created something that was an important milestone and one that projects are still being measured by today.

Our OAR of the City State of the Invincible Overlord faced one of two paths: We could simply choose to shut down our work and let the project end or proceed knowing that the monies going to Judges Guild would be supporting something that all of us at Goodman Games found reprehensible.

In 2010, Judge’s Guild had a Kickstarter campaign to publish an updated version of the City State of the Invincible Overlord that saw it backed by 965 backers who pledged over $85,000. For several years, Judge’s Guild has offered backers the option to receive a refund if they contact Judge’s Guild through their website and request one.

Judge’s Guild has committed to Goodman Games that any funds received by them from our moving forward with the OAR City State of the Invincible Overlord will be used to fund refunds from the 2010 Kickstarter. With that commitment, we agreed to move forward with the project as we felt it was the only way for original backers to receive their funds in a timely manner.

We hope this will be seen as a positive development for backers of the original Kickstarter. We encourage those backers to contact Judge’s Guild via this page and request instructions for receiving a refund. (You should be ready to have screen captures of your backer information available.)

These were the only terms that were acceptable to Goodman Games. We want to see the original backers of the 2010 Kickstarter made whole. We also want to bring an updated version of the City State of the Invincible Overlord forward into the 21st century and give new audiences a chance to explore what made it so compelling almost 50 years ago.

At the same time, we want to announce that when our City State of the Invincible Overlord goes live we will be offering a special discount to verified backers of the original Judge’s Guild Kickstarter. You have waited for over a decade, and we don’t want you to wait any longer.

Thanks,
Joe Goodman

 

[dragoner]

Plus people would have talked, we all kinda knew what was up with various people in the old days.

 

[The Sigil]

I have sufficient knowledge of neither Bob I nor Bob II to comment directly on either's political views or their perceived moral rectitude or turpitude. From what I can gather on this thread, the consensus seems to be that most commenters seem to be less than thrilled with Bob II's views. Assuming they are what is represented in this thread, I would agree that they are not views I would like to espouse or support. Any speculation that Bob I must have shared these views appears to be just that - speculation without any hard evidence in favor of (and in fact, considerable evidence to the contrary).

I don't think the above statements are particularly controversial. But the views of Bob I and Bob II aren't REALLY what is being discussed in this thread, right? We are really having yet another variation on the question of "can the art can be separated from the artist" - except in this case, we're not even doing that, we're going multiple layers down and asking "can the art be separated from the artist's heirs?"

To wit, I believe this the generally-agreed-upon state of affairs is thus:

• City-State of the Invincible Overlord was attributed to Bob I.
• There is no hard evidence Bob I held views attributed to Bob II deemed unpalatable.
• Goodman Games' work is based on the work produced by Bob I.
• Bob I passed away, so remuneration for licensing his work goes to his estate.
• Goodman Games is remunerating the estate of Bob I for license to use Bob I's work.
• Ownership of the estate of Bob I conveyed to Bob II upon Bob I's passing.
• Bob II holds views deemed unpalatable.

As I see it, there was nothing deemed "morally wrong" in CSotIO. There is no evidence Bob I held views currently deemed unpalatable, so there is no argument that the art was tainted by its creator. Goodman Games is doing the "morally right" thing by renumerating those that created the work upon which their derivative works are building. It seems the "morally right" thing to do with a deceased person's estate is to convey it to their heirs (usually children).

But all of these "morally right" moves are overshadowed by the fact that the eventual heir holds views deemed unpalatable and therefore a boycott is in order? So "doing the right thing" and remunerating Bob I's estate was the morally right thing all the way up to his death, but now post mortem, by no direct act of Bob I's, becomes morally wrong? That's an interesting position to take, and I'd be wary of calling it a righteous position since it means any time ownership of a thing changes hands, it might retroactively poison the well.

This is almost the exact same argument we had about one year ago... ownership of D&D, and by extension, the art assets paid for by TSR passed to WotC, then to Hasbro, and under new management, we got a thread about "who is the Warrior on the red box" where very passionate arguments were had by both sides, including dragging the original artist (Larry Elmore) into the fray and condemnation was hurled at Elmore for contradicting Hasbro, Hasbro for contradicting Elmore, those condemning either side as "out of touch" or "gatekeeping" or what have you. Can you separate the art from the artist? Or from the copyright holder's heirs? Do the actions of the heirs (Elmore's copyright was presumably inherited by TSR as part of his work agreement and TSR's copyrights were inherited by WotC when WotC bought TSR and then WotC's copyrights were in turn inherited by Hasbro when they in turn bought WotC) poison the original art retroactively?

Myself, I have no intention of backing this Kickstarter... not because I feel some moral obligation not to do so, not because I think Bob II's views are awful (I do, but that's not why I'm not backing the Kickstarter), not because I think CSotIO is dated and irrelevant to modern RPGs (I think it's dated, I'm not convinced it's irrelevant)... no, it's for a much more practical reason.

Having backed many RPG Kickstarters over the past few years. I'm absolutely done backing them. The rate of massive delays and/or failure to deliver a product at all is too high for me. Once bitten, twice shy, I suppose. I can think of one Kickstarter where I felt the speed and quality of fulfillment was acceptable; every other one (even from some "big names") was simply disappointing. I'll purchase your product, perhaps second-hand, maybe at a markup over Kickstarter prices, when I am 100% certain I can see the product today (or as soon as shipping services can get it to me) because I value actually getting the item I'm paying for more than I value the discount you're giving me to take the risk I'll get nothing. But that's a rant for another thread.

So no, I will not be supporting the Goodman Games Kickstarter. If CSotIO ever hits shelves, I'll at least give it a look and judge it on its own merits rather than dismissing it out of hand simply because I'm handing som money to some guy on Ebay that probably handed money to Goodman for the KS that probably handed money to the Judge's Guild incorporated entity that probably handed money Bob II. Bob II got his money long before I handed the money to the dude on Ebay and I don't consider myself in that chain - money may be fungible but it doesn't travel backwards in time in my head (maybe you think I'm just rationalizing away bad behavior, but at the end of the day, I have to wake up and face myself in the mirror, not you... and you have to face yourself in the mirror, not me).

 

[Staffan]

Plus people would have talked, we all kinda knew what was up with various people in the old days.

Counterexample: M.A.R. Barker.

 

[dragoner]

Counterexample: M.A.R. Barker.

I knew someone would bring them up, for them though it puts two and two together as to why ept was never more popular, and people didn't associate with him. Pretty much the opposite of jg back in the day.

 

[Metroido]

Counterexample: M.A.R. Barker.

That's funny, you're now the second person to bring him up. I would ask you and aramis erak if you seriously, genuinely believe that Joseph Goodman could honestly, seriously be just like M.A.R. Barker. Mr. Erak certainly seemed to think so. Do you?

Somebody should do a poll: How many people have actually met Joseph Goodman in real life and how many think he's like M.A.R. Barker in disguise.

​

 

[mamba]

So "doing the right thing" and remunerating Bob I's estate was the morally right thing all the way up to his death, but now post mortem, by no direct act of Bob I's, becomes morally wrong? That's an interesting position to take, and I'd be wary of calling it a righteous position since it means any time ownership of a thing changes hands, it might retroactively poison the well.

there is nothing retroactive here, this is about a future product and future sales

 

[Autumnal]

The question this points towards is, "where did those problematic views originate in Bledsaw II?"
The default assumption is "At home." I have noted it's as often "from schoolchums" as it is At Home.

People are complex enough the any confident guess on scant info will likely be went, including mine. I’ve known truly horrible people with parents I knew well enough to know they were generally good folks who made the world better for their being there, and astonishingly vile parents whose children would make fine atheist or pagan Bodhisattvas. Good parents often do raise good kids and vice versa, but the curve is too wonky for safe generalization.

I knew someone would bring them up, for them though it puts two and two together as to why ept was never more popular, and people didn't associate with him. Pretty much the opposite of jg back in the day.

Um, this isn’t at all true. Barker was immensely popular in regional wargaming, and in sf convention costuming and pageantry, and in the community of invented language fans. The Blue Room mailing list had hundreds to thousands of participants throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Now it’s true that not a lot of people ever actually played Empire of the Petal Throne in any of its various incarnations. But a lot of people liked to read it and talk about it, and some still do. Throughout the years Barker was helping to run the Institute for Historical Review, he was also socializing widely, in person as well as online, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody who was outside hard-core racist circles felt any reason to suspect his involvement there.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Responding to a post that's since been vanished. Never mind, then.

 

[dragoner]

People are complex enough the any confident guess on scant info will likely be went, including mine. I’ve known truly horrible people with parents I knew well enough to know they were generally good folks who made the world better for their being there, and astonishingly vile parents whose children would make fine atheist or pagan Bodhisattvas. Good parents often do raise good kids and vice versa, but the curve is too wonky for safe generalization.


Um, this isn’t at all true. Barker was immensely popular in regional wargaming, and in sf convention costuming and pageantry, and in the community of invented language fans. The Blue Room mailing list had hundreds to thousands of participants throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Now it’s true that not a lot of people ever actually played Empire of the Petal Throne in any of its various incarnations. But a lot of people liked to read it and talk about it, and some still do. Throughout the years Barker was helping to run the Institute for Historical Review, he was also socializing widely, in person as well as online, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody who was outside hard-core racist circles felt any reason to suspect his involvement there.

Absurdly counterfactual. EPT was relatively crude set of rules that was first self-published (all 50 copies of it), only briefly sold by TSR, and then went 12 years before Different Worlds did a reprint. After that the setting was supported by TOME as Gardasiyal in the 90s, Guardians of Order as Tekumel, and most recently by Jeff Dee/UNIGames as Bethorm, which came out a little before the revelation about Barker's foul beliefs. Every one of those used a different game system, and I'd argue that only the tristat system in Tekumel was very approachable by gamers of the era it came out in. The constant rules resets and hard-to-grasp setting contributed far more to the the world remaining obscure than anything about Barker personally - up until he was finally revealed as a monster.

For someone you claim people wouldn't associate with, he sure didn't have any trouble getting rules written for his setting, with publishers coming to him rather than the other way around in at least two cases. As for everyone knowing something was up and avoiding associating with Barker, industry veteran Jeff Dee sure didn't when he wrote Bethorm around 2014 (and was quick to repudiate Barker when the news broke), nor have I ever heard from his other peers that they suspected Barker of being a racist or supporter of white supremacy. The people who make up the Tekumel Foundation knew at a some point before the news became public and doubtless some folks who gamed with did as well, but outside of that inner circle it sure looks like he lived a split life like some kind of ideological bigamist.

And a quick reminder - Judge's Guild published one of the very few adventures for actual EPT back in the day. If your contention that everyone knew was correct you're trying to say Bob Sr. was both aware and supportive of Barker's proclivities.

I'd choose a better position to fight this fight if I were you. JG outed themselves. Barker was a snake in the industry for decades, and posthumously covered up for for an undetermined period of time by friends with an interest in continuing to sell his games. Both racist monsters, but otherwise very different cases.

No, I can say back in the day there were rumors of barker being weird, not so for jg. As far as the inner circle of ept, they admitted knowing for a long time, so if they did, a lot of others did too. Not to say that Bob sr wasn't a racist, though just that likely someone would have said something.

 

[aramis erak]

People are complex enough the any confident guess on scant info will likely be went, including mine. I’ve known truly horrible people with parents I knew well enough to know they were generally good folks who made the world better for their being there, and astonishingly vile parents whose children would make fine atheist or pagan Bodhisattvas. Good parents often do raise good kids and vice versa, but the curve is too wonky for safe generalization.

I chose m' wording carefully. The ascription of aphorism, "the apple not seldom falls far from the tree" is often wrong, I agree...
I've not checked on statements by the various other family members, and don't know which Bob Bledsaw's wife was also making racist statements... several people have mentioned one of the wives. I'm not glutton for punishment enough to check firsthand. I saw enough of Jr's nastiness in quotes.

I knew someone would bring them up, for them though it puts two and two together as to why ept was never more popular, and people didn't associate with him. Pretty much the opposite of jg back in the day.

Um, this isn’t at all true. Barker was immensely popular in regional wargaming, and in sf convention costuming and pageantry, and in the community of invented language fans. The Blue Room mailing list had hundreds to thousands of participants throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Now it’s true that not a lot of people ever actually played Empire of the Petal Throne in any of its various incarnations. But a lot of people liked to read it and talk about it, and some still do. Throughout the years Barker was helping to run the Institute for Historical Review, he was also socializing widely, in person as well as online, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody who was outside hard-core racist circles felt any reason to suspect his involvement there.

Several of his grad students, persons of color, were absolutely shocked when they found out. And said so in public venues.
Which is why I pointed him out: He quite successfully hid his participation from the world. Including people he was mentoring.

I'll note as well: along with Tunnels and Trolls, EPT's in the earliest non-D&D RPGs, even if (unlike T&T) it's an amendment/alteration of D&D mechanics vs T&T's reject and replace... T&T has more players, but EPT has more setting fans (largely because there was no coherent T&T setting).