UPDATED – Goodman Games Saddles Up With Racist, Anti-Semitic Publisher…and Their Reasons Make No Sense – WobbleRocket

Goodman Games, publishers of Dungeon Crawl Classics, announced a remake of City State of the Invincible Overlord at DungeonCon recently.

Originally published in 1976 by Judges Guild under Bob Bledsaw, City State of the Invincible Overlord was the first city supplement released for Dungeons and Dragons.

The new book, to be released for 5th Edition and for Dungeon Crawl Classics, would be part of Goodman Games’ Original Adventures Reincarnated (OAR) series, published under license from Judges Guild’s current owner.

There’s just one problem: Robert Bledsaw II, the current owner of Judges Guild, has some REALLY problematic history.

First, Some Background

The Kickstarter raised over $85,000, more than triple its goal. Despite that, the Kickstarter never delivered.

Back in 2020, Rob Conley of Bat in the Attic released a number of screenshots of Facebook posts from Robert Bledsaw II. The Facebook posts consist of anti-Semitic and racist posts against Jews and African-Americans. A thread on RPGGeek shows a few more.

Other posters comment that Bledsaw II had posted 9/11 Truther and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, defended a political candidate running on a “Make America White Again” slogan, and additional disgusting stances.

Conley was a licensee of Judges Guild games and cut ties with them after releasing the Facebook posts.

In a response to Bat in the Attic’s post, Bledsaw posted a statement in which he states he is anti-gay, but claims he isn’t racist because he has some black friends and sort of seesaws on whether or not he’s anti-Semitic. The original post has been deleted, but you can still read it on the Wayback Machine.

Other TTRPG companies drop Judges Guild

In the aftermath, many other vendors cut ties with Judges Guild. DriveThruRPG stated “The Judges Guild publisher account has been closed and they are no longer available on DriveThruRPG.”

Frog God Games, another licensee of Judges Guild games, cut ties with Judges Guild as well. Here’s a screenshot of their statement on Facebook:

Goodman Games was among those companies who cut ties with Judges Guild. In a February 18th, 2020 post, they stated:

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. 

Why Is Goodman Games Going Back On Their Word?

The Internet never forgets, so it came as a big surprise that Goodman Games would get back in bed with Judges Guild for this product. The response on Bluesky is about what you’d expect:

Among many other more colorful comments.

A thread was published on EN World, titled “Goodman Games Revives Relationship With Anti-Semitic Publisher For New City State Kickstarter,” that sheds a little more details, including this tidbit:

“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.”

Goodman Games Responds To The Backlash

The same say, Goodman Games released a statement titled “A Statement About City State of the Invincible Overlord.” You can read the statement on their website, but I’ve reproduced it here for posterity:

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 [Wobble’s note: 2014, actually], 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 

There’s some evidence here that the City State of the Invincible Overlord project was in the works before the 2020 revelations came to light. Note this passage: “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.”

Dungeon Beef on Bluesky posted a screenshot from a Facebook comment exchange with Aaron James Bledsaw (Robert Bledsaw II’s son), in which AJB seems to state moving forward with the project is a contractual obligation for Goodman Games.

Here’s where things begin to fall apart. Goodman Games states “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.“

This suggests Goodman Games did have a choice in the matter. Possibly not a great one, financially, especially if license fees have already been paid and work has already been done on the product, but they had a choice and acknowledge they could have dropped the product as Bat in the Attic and Frog God Games did back in 2020 (at no small expense to themselves).

Goodman Games’ Statement Just Doesn’t Make Sense

Remember that 2014 Kickstarter that Judges Guild failed to deliver on? That crops up here too.

Goodman Games essentially states that the reason why are moving forward with the project is so that they can offer refunds to Judges Guild’s undelivered Kickstarter. Here’s the quote:

I’ve kept the quote intact, but the campaign referenced happened in 2014, not 2010. Small error.

So here’s my big unanswered question. How on earth is Goodman Games responsible for helping another game company refund an undelivered Kickstarter that Goodman Games wasn’t part of?

It makes zero sense to me. Here’s a few additional thoughts and questions on the matter:

• Backers of a Kickstarter from 11 years ago that failed to deliver have almost certainly written off their pledge as a loss.
• Judges Guild has been offering refunds by request for years — anyone who wanted a refund has almost certainly already requested one.
• Goodman Games state they have a “commitment” from Judges Guild that funds from the new product will go towards these refunds, but how exactly is this enforced? Judges Guild had a commitment to deliver a product to their Kickstarter backers, but they bailed on that one too.
• If Goodman Games‘ product is successful, there will likely be excess funds that haven’t been allocated to a refund — either because there are no outstanding requests for refunds, or because the amount exceeds the total refundable amount. What happens to the excess?

While it sounds like Goodman Games may be caught in some contractual entanglements here, they freely admit they had a choice in the matter and there are also a lot of unanswered questions about how Judges Guild‘s anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, conspiracy-theorist owner is profiting from this relationship.

There simply cannot be any room to allow those types of beliefs in the TTRPG hobby space and Goodman Games should be ashamed of themselves for proceeding with this project. I will not be buying any of their products moving forward unless they immediately reverse this decision.

Goodman Games is NOT beholden to the backers of the 2014 Kickstarter. It’s just not their responsibility to make them whole.

Be sure to read my follow-up to this article: Goodman Games Addresses City State Controversy – Take Two.