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.

 

[HatWearingFool]

Please do. He might not be aware of the situation.

Fair point, I posted a short comment with a link to this thread. Just in case he actually wasn’t aware.

 

[Argyle King]

I think if people haven't seen better adventure design, of which Necrotic Gnome is one of the best, they don't realize how much they are compensating for dated designs. ("I just make sure to read it all twice ahead of time and make my own notes" is compensating for a design not being table usable by default.)

Goodman Games (and WotC) are professional adventure publishers, though, and should 100% be aware of better adventure design and incorporate it.

I would be interested in seeing what they [Necrotic Gnome] do differently. As I haven't used their products, I don't currently have an opinion.

My own anecdotal experience has been that I find what DCC provides for adventures to be a big improvement over what WoTC has been doing. So, if what DCC is doing is considered "dated," I think WotC could benefit from going back to an older style. Newer isn't always better.

He's the biggest voice in the OSR on YouTube. He's a huge name.

Thanks for the additional information.
My experience with OSR is limited. DCC is the first game that I've regularly played which is said to maybe fall into that category, so I'm likely not well versed on who some of the people are. (I backed OSRIC, which I think is considered OSR, but don't yet have the product to be able to play it.)

I also don't follow a lot of YouTube personalities either. The few that I know (Bob the Worldbuilder, Professor DM, etc) are because the algorithm suggested their content.

 

[mamba]

No, I am not giving him the views at this point. What was said?

he doesn’t like their ‘walls of text’ approach to adventures and wishes they were more like the OSE (Necrotic Gnome) ones.

According to some polls he must have done only 50% of people that buy GG adventures do so to play them, the others just to read them, while for OSE that ratio is 70% play and 30% read, and he attributes the difference to the style

 

[timbannock]

Fair point, I posted a short comment with a link to this thread. Just in case he actually wasn’t aware.

I did the same on Bob's video. Maybe it'll inform him.

I don't ascribe malice to either of these content creators, as ignorance is more likely. But for this and other reasons, I have unsubscribed and no longer view any of their stuff (Ben for about a year now)

 

[Retreater]

As far as I can tell, Goodman appears to be following through with everything they've said about how they were going to approach City State. Recently, they put out an artwork preview of what parts of the book will look like.

You know, it's not even so much the City State of the Invincible Overlord project that got me. Goodman was honest about his intent behind it - using profits to pay for refunds, etc. I can recognize that the product isn't for me and even consider it "yucky" that Goodman would willingly partner with such a character. But I can understand and even forgive all that.
But what crosses my line is that Goodman has been paying Bledsaw for years and has been deceitful about it. That he's been paid his share for things still on sale on the Goodman website, going back to the 3.5 era. He's gotten pay for Kickstarters that Goodman said he wouldn't - such as the JG coffee table books, Dark Tower, Caverns of Thracia.
Bledsaw has come out and bragged about getting this money, and Goodman hasn't denied it. I'm assuming that it must be true if Goodman hasn't taken up for his honor since these statements. Essentially, Goodman has been giving royalties to Bledsaw for most of the entire history of Goodman Games.
A one-off project? That's not bad enough for me to boycott the entire brand. But when it's an ongoing lie to your customers and fans - that's too much for me. I make certain to tell all my friends and every gamer I see about Goodman's shady business associates. I put a curse on their booths at every convention I attend.

 

[Argyle King]

I can see why someone would criticize their style and layout, it's definitely not up to current specs as far as best-practices go.. on the other hand I've found many DCC adventures very easy to run because they're well-written. I think if they updated their layout/style it'd be even better, but at the same time it sets them apart from others (for better or worse).

It has also been my experience that their adventures are easy to run.

I haven't found that I have an issue with their layout. Maybe I would feel differently if I saw an example of how one of the DCC adventures could be "better" in terms of layout.

Regarding following through, I don't think people are criticizing the current process- they're pissed that Goodman said he wouldn't work with JG anymore because they're awful people, IIRC that promise made with Jennell Jaquays, and then a few years later decided to break his word work with JG for Invincible Overlord, saying it was an exception (and that the money would go to previous backers, not to JG).

I remember that being done of the discussions throughout the City State threads. As I understand it, Judges Guild didn't work on the project or (as you said) profit from the project.

Folk point to the fact that JG isn't seeing profit from it, but others point out that it's giving JG visibility due to the new updated product, which indirectly benefits JG. Basically, it doesn't matter how well Goodman handles doing the new Invincible Overlord if you think that he never should've done the product in the first place.

Has Judges Guild had a noticeable increase in visibility?

I see people talking about distasteful things that Bledsaw posts on social media. That's pretty much what he was doing before.

 

[Argyle King]

You know, it's not even so much the City State of the Invincible Overlord project that got me. Goodman was honest about his intent behind it - using profits to pay for refunds, etc. I can recognize that the product isn't for me and even consider it "yucky" that Goodman would willingly partner with such a character. But I can understand and even forgive all that.
But what crosses my line is that Goodman has been paying Bledsaw for years and has been deceitful about it. That he's been paid his share for things still on sale on the Goodman website, going back to the 3.5 era. He's gotten pay for Kickstarters that Goodman said he wouldn't - such as the JG coffee table books, Dark Tower, Caverns of Thracia.
Bledsaw has come out and bragged about getting this money, and Goodman hasn't denied it. I'm assuming that it must be true if Goodman hasn't taken up for his honor since these statements. Essentially, Goodman has been giving royalties to Bledsaw for most of the entire history of Goodman Games.
A one-off project? That's not bad enough for me to boycott the entire brand. But when it's an ongoing lie to your customers and fans - that's too much for me. I make certain to tell all my friends and every gamer I see about Goodman's shady business associates. I put a curse on their booths at every convention I attend.

I feel that those are more understandable reasons.

What has been officially reported was that Judges Guild did not receive direct profit or royalties from Dark Tower.

The information about Caverns of Thracia is unclear (due to different people claiming different things,) it does seem that there was money related to licensing going to JG.

Personally, I don't put enough value in Bledsaw's word to take it as gospel. However, I can understand how the information that is available may cause some to have ethical concerns over a Goodman product.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would be interested in seeing what they [Necrotic Gnome] do differently. As I haven't used their products, I don't currently have an opinion.

My own anecdotal experience has been that I find what DCC provides for adventures to be a big improvement over what WoTC has been doing. So, if what DCC is doing is considered "dated," I think WotC could benefit from going back to an older style. Newer isn't always better.

In this case, it definitely is. I promise, adventures laid out like Necrotic Gnome adventures, or like Rot Black Sludge is laid out in the Mork Borg book (it breaks from the rest of the art punk style of the rest of the book to be aggressively usable at the table) make a giant difference.

That doesn't make other adventures inherently bad, but definitely check out the alternative presentation styles. You can see Rot Black Sludge in the free no-art PDF of Mork Borg.

My experience with OSR is limited. DCC is the first game that I've regularly played which is said to maybe fall into that category

One of the few useful comments on Ben Milton's video is that DCC is probably not representative of modern OSR game play, but falls instead into a more "traditional" game play. But that's a whole different theory discussion.

I do think a thread about what the OSR gameplay approach is, and how it differs from how many (most?) people actually played back in the 1980s would be worthwhile.

 

[mamba]

Personally, I don't put enough value in Bledsaw's word to take it as gospel.

it’s one thing to take their word at face value, but if the ‘accused party’ stays silent rather than rebuts things, it is starting to become more than just one guy’s claim

 

[Argyle King]

it’s one thing to take their word at face value, but if the ‘accused party’ stays silent rather than rebuts things, it is starting to become more than just one guy’s claim

People claim a lot of things online.

I certainly agree that there are details that don't look good for Goodman. At the same time, I can also understand that there comes a point where there's nothing to be gained and everything to be lost in trying to engage with certain people. The guys who wrote Stranger Things are experiencing that now.

In this case, it definitely is. I promise, adventures laid out like Necrotic Gnome adventures, or like Rot Black Sludge is laid out in the Mork Borg book (it breaks from the rest of the art punk style of the rest of the book to be aggressively usable at the table) make a giant difference.

That doesn't make other adventures inherently bad, but definitely check out the alternative presentation styles. You can see Rot Black Sludge in the free no-art PDF of Mork Borg.

Are there any specific adventures that are a good example of the Necrotic Gnome layout?

One of the few useful comments on Ben Milton's video is that DCC is probably not representative of modern OSR game play, but falls instead into a more "traditional" game play. But that's a whole different theory discussion.

I do think a thread about what the OSR gameplay approach is, and how it differs from how many (most?) people actually played back in the 1980s would be worthwhile, though.

I agree with much of that.

I don't believe that my own tastes tend to fit neatly into how the usual terminology defines those things, but I still find value in better understanding the mindset behind a playstyle or a design decision.