Goodman Games: Our Efforts Have Been Mischaracterized

Goodman Games' CEO Joseph Goodman made a statement via YouTube over the weekend*. The video itself focused on the content of the controversial upcoming City State of the Invincible Overlord crowdfunding product, but was prefaced by a short introduction by Joseph Goodman, in which he reiterates his company's commitment to inclusivity and diversity and its opposition to bigotry, something which they say they "don't want to be associated with".

Goodman goes on to say that the company's efforts have been "mischaracterized by some folks" but does not go so far as to identify the mischaracterization, so it's not entirely clear what they consider to be untrue other than the "inaccurate" statements made by Bob Bledsaw II of Judges Guild about Goodman Games' plans, which Goodman mentioned last week.

For those who haven't been following this story, it has been covered in the articles Goodman Games Revives Relationship With Anti-Semitic Publisher For New City State Kickstarter, Goodman Games Offers Assurances About Judges Guild Royalties, and Judges Guild Makes Statement About Goodman Controversy. In short, Goodman Games is currently licensing an old property from a company with which it claimed to have cut ties in 2020 after the owner of that company made a number of bigoted comments on social media. Goodman Games has repeatedly said that this move would allow them to provide backers of an old unfulfilled Judges Guild Kickstarter with refunds, but there are many people questioning seeming contradictions in both the timelines involved and in the appropriateness of the whole endeavour.

Despite the backlash, the prospects of the crowdfunding project do not seem to have been harmed. The pre-launch page has over 3,000 followers, and many of the comments under the YouTube videos or on other social media are not only very supportive of the project, but also condemn those who question its appropriateness. In comparison, the original (failed) Judges Guild Kickstarter had only 965 backers.

The video is embedded below, followed by a transcript of the relevant section.

Hi everybody, I'm Joseph Goodman of Goodman Games. We recently announced our City State of the Invincible Overlord crowdfunding project for 5E and DCC RPG.

In the video you're about to see, some of our product development team is going to tell you about what makes the City State so amazing and why we're bringing it back to 5E and DCC audiences nearly 50 years after it was first released. It really is an amazing setting.

But we could have rolled this project out with a lot more clarity. Now, to be clear, Goodman Games absolutely opposes any sort of bigotry, racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, transphobia. We don't want to support it. We don't want to be associated with it.

Our well-intentioned effort to launch this project in a way that refunds backers of a former failed Kickstarter from another publisher kind of backfired in the way we announced it. Rest assured, the funds from this crowdfunding will actually fund refunds to backers of the original City State crowdfunding for the Pathfinder edition from 2014.

Unfortunately, our efforts have been—you know, I didn’t clarify them perfectly when we rolled it out—and they've been mischaracterized by some folks since then. But please rest assured, we stand for inclusivity and diversity.

You can read a lot more detail in the post that's linked below, and there's another video linked below where we talk about this in even more detail. But for now, we hope you will sit back and enjoy as some of the product development team tells you about really what makes the City State of the Invincible Overlord so amazing, and why you might want to check it out when it comes to crowdfunding soon.

Thanks, and I'll turn it over to them now.

The statement refers to a post about this that is supposed to be linked below, but at the time of writing no post is linked below the video, so it's not clear if that refers to a new post or one of Goodman Games' previous statements on the issue.

I reached out to Joseph Goodman last week to offer a non-confrontational (although direct and candid) interview in which he could answer some ongoing questions and talk on his reasoning behind the decision; I have not yet received a response to the offer--I did, however, indicate that I was just leaving for UK Games Expo, and wouldn't be back until this week.

*Normally I would have covered this in a more timely fashion, but I was away at UK Games Expo from Thursday through to Monday.

 

[Mannahnin]

Those are other words you're putting in my mouth. I wasn't speaking specifically about any book, just about RPG books in general.

This is at least the second time today he's put words in your mouth, and at least the third time I've seen him do this in a discussion this week.

 

[LordEntrails]

Actually, RPG books are products, and from a commercial perspective their first and most important function is to sell. It's up to the publisher to decide if their market is more interested in Reading the book or Playing the book.

 

[Mannahnin]

Actually, RPG books are products, and from a commercial perspective their first and most important function is to sell. It's up to the publisher to decide if their market is more interested in Reading the book or Playing the book.

I tend to concur that the nature of it being a GAME product means that usability in a game naturally comes first.

Customers can buy what better fits their preferences and needs, of course. Folks who buy game books primarily to read them will naturally gravitate toward ones written more for reading pleasure than for gaming usability.

Ben Milton argues that they are failing to publish as usable and valuable game books than they would if they adopted some better practices in formatting and layout.

If their primary goal is to sell books, with little regard to how often they get played, and their market research indicates that their buyers primarily buy to read rather than to play, then they should certainly disregard his opinion.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I recently listened to a podcast where Keep on the Borderlands was given as the quintessential clear the dungeon adventure. That's not how I read or run it back in the 80s or today. I think it is much more about exploiting inter-tribal rivalries and breaks down if run as a slaughterfest.

Yeah, I question whether people who say stuff like that have run B2 recently.

There is a tree outside the kobold cave -- the first cave most groups come to -- with a dozen archers in it. You are not going to clear that tree at level one in BD&D or AD&D. That tree is going to clear you.

In other news, I've been using morale more recently in my 5E, after using it a bunch in Shadowdark, and I find it really makes the world seem a lot more alive (and it allows me to worry less about combat balance in 5E, since groups can now scare off enemies rather than battle them all to the death).

 

[overgeeked]

In other news, I've been using morale more recently in my 5E, after using it a bunch in Shadowdark, and I find it really makes the world seem a lot more alive (and it allows me to worry less about combat balance in 5E, since groups can now scare off enemies rather than battle them all to the death).

The other side of that coin is the reaction roll. Not every encounter will necessarily be a fight.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The other side of that coin is the reaction roll. Not every encounter will necessarily be a fight.

Definitely. I should have mentioned that initially.

 

[Artamo]

I watched most of his new follow-up video last night and he gets into viewer responses. Some folks opine that, at least for their tastes, the longer descriptions and entries in DCC modules feed their imaginations more and give more depth to the modules, and they find the OSE house style too dry and bare-bones. Others said that they're always HOPING to run modules they buy, but they find the DCC format more pleasurable to read, so they feel they get more reliable value from a DCC module than from an OSE module, because they enjoy it whether they get to run it or not.

Personally I tend to agree with you that OSE is much more user-friendly, especially at the table, but I can see the merit of a format somewhere in between, too. Clearly some of this comes down to people's personal preferences.

Based on the way that I’ve approached running older modules in the past, I usually create notes based on each room that ends up approximating the style that OSE uses, but I still like having the original. There is a particular voice that gets lost when it’s pared down to just its utmost functional parts. IMO, this is akin to stripping out all of the artwork of a TTRPG - you don’t technically need that artwork but the overall product is more enjoyable for me having it.

If I had my druthers, published adventures would have the narrative text followed by a TL;DR bullet points section.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Yeah, I question whether people who say stuff like that have run B2 recently.

There is a tree outside the kobold cave -- the first cave most groups come to -- with a dozen archers in it. You are not going to clear that tree at level one in BD&D or AD&D. That tree is going to clear you.

In other news, I've been using morale more recently in my 5E, after using it a bunch in Shadowdark, and I find it really makes the world seem a lot more alive (and it allows me to worry less about combat balance in 5E, since groups can now scare off enemies rather than battle them all to the death).

Would you be up for detailing how you are using Reaction Rolls and Morale in 5e? I'd be interested in reading it. (Maybe in a new thread if it warrants a good discussion.)

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, I question whether people who say stuff like that have run B2 recently.

There is a tree outside the kobold cave -- the first cave most groups come to -- with a dozen archers in it. You are not going to clear that tree at level one in BD&D or AD&D. That tree is going to clear you.

Where do you see that? I'm looking at B2 now and in the description of Area A it says there is a 2/6 chance of 8 Kobolds Archers (edit: not archers) emerging from the trees above the cave entrance and attacking when a group enters the tunnel. Not a guaranteed dozen.

In other news, I've been using morale more recently in my 5E, after using it a bunch in Shadowdark, and I find it really makes the world seem a lot more alive (and it allows me to worry less about combat balance in 5E, since groups can now scare off enemies rather than battle them all to the death).

The other side of that coin is the reaction roll. Not every encounter will necessarily be a fight.

Absolutely in both cases.

One of the big problems with B2 is how many times Gary explicitly tells the DM that monsters will attack, instead of to roll Reactions.

He wrote it more like multiple Lair Assaults (a la G1 but without so many ways to sneak around) than like the "play the factions off each other and cut deals" adventure that so many modern OSR folks advise (correctly, IMO) that it should be played as. Gary's descriptions of nearly every lair (including the Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, and Minotaur - the Ogre is arguably an exception) indicate that they immediately attack.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If I had my druthers, published adventures would have the narrative text followed by a TL;DR bullet points section.

You can find that in plenty of modern OSR adventures.

The reason Milton posted the original video about DCC adventures is that the wall of text format mostly the purview of "we're so big, we don't need to innovate" publishers at this point.

I think if Goodman or WotC or Kobold Press or Paizo suddenly improved their information presentation, most of their customers would be excited by it.

Looking at the comment sections for the two Questing Beast videos, DCC fans felt like their game was being attacked by an outsider, but if you drill into them, a lot of them were tacitly agreeing. "I read all the adventures twice and then highlight all the important stuff and make notes in the margin" is the comment of someone who only thinks they're disagreeing with Milton's original criticisms.