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.

 

[Jahydin]

So, the language I suggested above kind of handles that. With that form, usually it is said that racism does require a power imbalance - it is looking at impact, rather than intent of individuals. Bigotry, however, does not require power imbalance. Anybody can hate anybody.

This explains so many awkward disconnects I've had with others over similar topics....

Thanks for sharing.

 

[LordEntrails]

Since policies never (?) have only a single affect, what are the thoughts on a policy that has racists affects, as well as numerous other affects such as improved health, safety, education, lesser environmental impacts, etc.?

Judging a policy by a single impact seems... narrow.

 

[Deset Gled]

Another way to look at this is: why have this policy at all? What difference does it make to anyone not living in that apartment how many people sleep in each bedroom? I can't think of any, although, who knows, maybe there's some valid reason for such a policy that I can't see right now. Barring a sensible reason I'm not aware of, to me, this seems like a policy whose purpose is to weed out those of a specific culture.

There are a myriad or reasons why policies like this exist. Many of them are put out under the umbrella of "property values", but it can have a lot more nuance to it.

In areas of single family homes, the addition of high density housing can have drastic affects on schools: redrawn district lines, changes to transportation, changes to class size, etc. It can have major effects on infrastructure like garbage services, or water, gas, and electrical supply. It can cause very real problems for traffic, parking, and public transportation.

In rural areas, it can be even harsher. Changes in population density can put extremely high strain on emergency services, access to healthcare, and law enforcement. And farmers often have concerns about NIMBY and other related issues.

And all of that is before even broaching the ever present gentrification angle.

The bottom line is, yes, population planning is a thing. There are legitimate reasons why zoning and occupancy laws exist. And it can sometimes be very difficult to separate stop-gap measures for valid concerns from racially motivated problems. Arguably, there are times when there really isn't much separation at all.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Appreciate the civility in this thread the past few days discussing a really hard topic.
Gratitudes

 

[Libertad]

Joe Goodman is actually a guest on the Roll for Combat stream right now... I wonder if he'll be answering any questions around working with Bob Bledsaw II & Judges Guild.

Here's a link to the stream

I looked at the transcript and attempted to search for certain terms via CTRL + F, and didn't see any mention of Bledsaw, Judges' Guild, racism, or similar topics. I haven't had time to watch it in full.

There is someone in the comments section below who has three thumbs up asking the following 1 day ago:

So did Goodman address the controversy about him aiding the known Holocaust denier Bledsaw (Judge's Guild)?

It has yet to be answered.

Honestly, I haven't been impressed with Roll for Combat's handling of controversial topics in the gaming industry, and I wouldn't trust them as a reliable source based on their prior track record. Mostly in that their doomsaying about Wizards of the Coast has been remarkably fact-free at times. A while back during the OGL scandal, they spread a false rumor on Twitter that WotC was planning to sue Disney for ownership of Star Wars KOTOR due to using the D20 system. Ryan Dancey, one of the people who worked on the game directly refuted this...but RfC continued posting as though that was the case.

Link to the original Twitter claim.

This hasn't been a one-time thing. Around the time that their Battlezoo Ancestries Year of Titans project wrapped up, they sent out a newsletter that rubbed me the wrong way because it contained just straight-up disinformation:

The age of the tabletop might be ending. Wizards of the Coast has made it clear — the future of Dungeons & Dragons is a digital-only experience. Virtual tabletops, subscriptions, microtransactions, and AI-driven DMs… it's not just coming — it's already here. And maybe it's actually a good thing?

Besides the fact that WotC is still releasing hardcovers and discontinued Shard at the time of the newsletter, throwing VTTs into the same vein as microtransactions and LLM AI is downright Luddite in nature. They also had an ill-advised thumbnail and title about the LGBT art Wizards released:


I haven't watched the whole thing, but their comments section has unfortunately attracted the "LGBT people are pedophiles" chuds, who ironically are also angry at RFC when one of the people in the stream who regularly partners with RFC compared TSR-era chainmail bikini art to blackface minstrel shows about 35 minutes in. Which is a bad analogy IMO, even if it was currently drawing ire from the chuds. Said person in the comments section also claimed ignorance about the anti-LGBT criticisms of the artwork.

I checked back out of curiosity, and the Knightsoflastcall guest's "release the files" comment was removed for some reason.

I haven't really seen any outright chud behavior from Roll for Combat, but I am feeling that they're being too lenient and eager to go into the "modern D&D is bad" grift which causes them to be buddy-buddy with some rather shifty people and makes it impossible to take them seriously when they keep making content for it. While I did like their work, it's made me not so willing to purchase or Let's Read their work in the future (which I've done in the past) unless something changes.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

One thing I can think of is health and safety, buildings will typically have a maximum occupancy by floor to enable ease egress during a fire or other emergency. It might be less about how many people are actually using each bedroom and more about how many people are in each apartment, saying 2 per bedroom might just be easier than saying that a floor has a maximum of 50 people.

There are a myriad or reasons why policies like this exist. Many of them are put out under the umbrella of "property values", but it can have a lot more nuance to it.

This is exactly why I left open the possibility that there was something I was overlooking. Being 100% positive about something or never being open to changing your mind is le suck. Thanks lads.

 

[mamba]

Since policies never (?) have only a single affect, what are the thoughts on a policy that has racists affects, as well as numerous other affects such as improved health, safety, education, lesser environmental impacts, etc.?

Judging a policy by a single impact seems... narrow.

First of all, that policy is still racist, no one said a policy can only be racist and if it is, it has no other effects.

Second, I’d argue that there is a non-racist version of that policy that is better at accomplishing all that other stuff, and you should implement that one instead

 

[mamba]

I haven't really seen any outright chud behavior from Roll for Combat, but I am feeling that they're being too lenient and eager to go into the "modern D&D is bad" grift which causes them to be buddy-buddy with some rather shifty people and makes it impossible to take them seriously when they keep making content for it. While I did like their work, it's made me not so willing to purchase or Let's Read their work in the future

yeah, their YT is not doing them any favors as far as I am concerned. I came across that first and as a result never bought any of their stuff.

 

[Nightfly]

Yes, I would love to license this property from Sith Publishing, to publish a re-mastered edition of Puppy-Kicking Racists are the Heroes.

"The original 1979 edition of Puppy-Kicking Racists Are The Heroes was a seminal publication in the history of Dungeons and Dragons. In order to ensure it's properly preserved, we've entered a licensing deal with the reanimated corpses of Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, and the guy who shot Uncle Ben." -- Goodman Games, probably