D&D General Companies Cut Ties With Judges Guild After Owner's Racist Posts

Several game publishers, including Bat in the Attic, have said that they will no longer do business with Judges Guild after its owner posted a number of racist and anti-semitic statements. They don't need to be repeated here; but there are several examples.

Judges Guild has been around since 1976, producing products compatible with Dungeons & Dragons; the current owner, Bob Bledsaw II, is the son of its co-founder, Bob Bledsaw, and has run the company since 2008. The company is well known for 1976's City State of the Invincible Overlord, amongst other classics. Bat in the Attic and Frog God Games both license Judges' Guild properties.

Rob Conley of Bat in the Attic stated yesterday 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 has been working with Judges Guild for nearly 20 years, 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."

UPDATE — DriveThruRPG has severed ties. “The Judges Guild publisher account has been closed and they are no longer available on DriveThruRPG.”

A few years ago, Judges Guild ran a Kickstarter to bring back City State of the Invincible Overlord, with nearly a thousand backers raising $85K. The Kickstarter has not yet been fulfilled. The latest update was in October 2019.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I agree that is some horrible things to say, but maybe through wise discussion he can be shown the errors in his opinions and become wiser for it.

I know some disagreed with this, but this HAS happened. I know of a Rabbi who convinced a neonazi who was harassing him of the error of his ways. The man eventually left the movement, married a nice hispanic girl, and even lived with the Rabbi When times were especially tough for him.

...and then there’s this man.

 

[Umbran]

I agree that is some horrible things to say, but maybe through wise discussion he can be shown the errors in his opinions and become wiser for it.

Generally not. These positions are not generally arrived at after some well-considered, logical thought. They are typically emotionally based, with a wall of rationalizations stacked up to protect that emotional position.

It is sometimes possible to change their minds. But not through discussion on the internet. It typically takes making a real emotional connection that challenges their current stance on that more visceral level to get them to abandon their position.

 

[Ratskinner]

...What's actually happening is some people are choosing not to do business with somebody who has espoused values that do not align with their own. Do you think I as a customer shouldn't be allowed to not buy from somebody whose values are antithetical to my own? And if so, why should I be forced to buy from that person?

I agree with the cancelled stuff being just a social thing....there's a similar phenomenon with "free speech" and "censorship" where, oddly, right wingers who (in the US at least) espouse all manner of deregulation, but then complain when they are de-platformed by private corporations or individuals for acting like jerks as if it were some kind of government tyranny. (Whether it was originally a left or right term appears irrelevant anymore.)

However, with the business things, I think its a bit more complicated. Especially when its the "deplorables" who hold the "power" end of the stick. For example, should a public business be allowed to refuse service to [insert minority group here] because they "believe" that those people are sinners or inhuman? In many US states, the answer is yes, but only if you include a statement that your refusal comes from religious grounds. So far, this has mostly been used to deny service to minorities like homosexuals or transsexuals. But historically, when desegregation came to the US South, many churches quickly created private schools and claimed that they could refuse people of African descent because of their beliefs. (They simultaneously gutted their public school funding.) I'm awaiting with bated breath the moment when some business owner refuses to serve such a "Descendant of Ham" on religious grounds.

 

[Gradine]

Generally not. These positions are not generally arrived at after some well-considered, logical thought. They are typically emotionally based, with a wall of rationalizations stacked up to protect that emotional position.

It is sometimes possible to change their minds. But not through discussion on the internet. It typically takes making a real emotional connection that challenges their current stance on that more visceral level to get them to abandon their position.

This. In these sorts of anonymous internet situations it's often much more important to show empathy and solidarity with those who are most impacted and affected by the bigotry and hatred. Making it clear that those attitudes and behaviors are not acceptable or welcome in polite society/whatever individual communities we're collectively a part of.

The work of changing hearts and minds is best left to those who have already formed personal connections with those in need of change, as they're infinitely more likely to be successful in that endeavor.

 

[Celebrim]

I agree with the cancelled stuff being just a social thing....there's a similar phenomenon with "free speech" and "censorship" where, oddly, right wingers who (in the US at least) espouse all manner of deregulation, but then complain when they are de-platformed by private corporations or individuals for acting like jerks as if it were some kind of government tyranny. (Whether it was originally a left or right term appears irrelevant anymore.)

However, with the business things, I think its a bit more complicated. Especially when its the "deplorables" who hold the "power" end of the stick. For example, should a public business be allowed to refuse service to [insert minority group here] because they "believe" that those people are sinners or inhuman? In many US states, the answer is yes, but only if you include a statement that your refusal comes from religious grounds. So far, this has mostly been used to deny service to minorities like homosexuals or transsexuals. But historically, when desegregation came to the US South, many churches quickly created private schools and claimed that they could refuse people of African descent because of their beliefs. (They simultaneously gutted their public school funding.) I'm awaiting with bated breath the moment when some business owner refuses to serve such a "Descendant of Ham" on religious grounds.

I think this gets us back to discussing US law, which got some posters flagged earlier, so I'm not going to discuss it except to say that your understanding of US law is predicated on some false premises. Like virtually everything in that second paragraph is false.

 

[SkidAce]

Why? That was from Judges Guild pre B2 and B3. B1 owned and ran it, prior to his death in 2008, and should not be tainted by what his son and grandson do. To quote someone on RPG.net who knew/worked with Bob Senior

"No, Bob Sr. wasn't like that at all. We only discussed race, religion, and politics about theWilderlands Campaign setting. He was from that generation that lived right after WWII so he knew the holocaust was true. In 2001 he took a wargamers tour with Bill Owen to France and Germany, and toured all the WWII sites including Normandy Beach and the Ardennes to pay his respects, and of course gather firsthand knowledge of battlefields."

Older JG products should not be tarred by those that inherited the company, in my opinion

Quoted for Truth.

 

[seebs]

I welcome you to try. I don't have hopes that you'll do anything, (mainly because you need other people, and the more heads that are on something, the stupider it gets) but if you do? Good, for now, now go fix this and that and the other thing. Oh wait, the first thing got screwed up and doesn't work anymore, come up with something new, wait you should be focusing on this problem instead it's much more important, wait why did you do that we didn't do that for a reason and now everything is screwed up.

"You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it."

I know I can't make everything better for everyone. But I've saved lives, and I've gotten people out of horrible situations, and I can look at the world I live in and see that it's better for me having done those things. Nothing is stopping you from making things better but your belief that you can't.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

"You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it."

I know I can't make everything better for everyone. But I've saved lives, and I've gotten people out of horrible situations, and I can look at the world I live in and see that it's better for me having done those things. Nothing is stopping you from making things better but your belief that you can't.

And other people, who outnumber me like 6,000,000,000 to one.

 

[seebs]

And other people, who outnumber me like 6,000,000,000 to one.

They're not stopping you from making things better. They might make things worse. They might make things better. But they don't prevent you from affecting the world immediately around you. You can, every day, decide to be kind to people or to be cruel to them. It may not have a huge impact on the world, but it will have an impact at all on the world. Keep in mind that the impact you have on the part of the world you interact with is a ton larger than the impact you have on the world as a whole.

The correct evaluation is not whether you are able to single-handedly ensure that the overall trend of reality is positive or negative. It's whether you are able to make the part of the world you're in better or worse than it would be if you acted differently, and you absolutely are.

 

[Alzrius]

So DrivethruRPG seems to have removed almost all Judges Guild products from their storefront at this time. Right now, the only things that are available are two bundles: one collecting the first twelve issues of Pegasus magazine, and the other with collecting the Sword and Sorcery Studios d20 Wilderlands books.

I should point out that, insofar as I recall, DriveThruRPG's standard operating procedure is to pull stuff while internally discussing if they should de-list a product or not (which, according to someone in the RPG.net thread, is what they're currently discussing); it's not necessarily an indicator that these books are gone from their storefront forever.

So, as a follow-up, DrivethruRPG seems to have deleted the Judges Guild publisher page in its entirety. No news as to whether this is permanent or part of their internal review about what to do.