Goodman Games City State of the Invincible Overlord - An Act of Grubby Bastardry

I was going to write a big post about merging the different DCC adventures together, about using the XCrawl setting as a framework to hang the different locations.

Then I found out that Goodman Games was going to make an Original Adventure reincarnated of the City State of the Invicible overlord, by Judges Guild. And I thought “cool, that takes it away from the actively Neo-Confederate, Nazi-enthused and anti-semetite jerk Bob Bledsaw II”.

Whose response to his own bungling of the City State of the Invicible Overlord Kickstarter campaign 15 years ago was to blame a conspiracy of Jews and lesser races five years after it failed to deliver. Causing Bat in the Attic Games, which did more than anyone else to keep his dad’s setting alive to cut ties with him.

As in total here:

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2020/02/concerning-judges-guild.html

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2020/02/concerning-judges-guild-further.html

Then I started working on the idea the Wilderlands were in some sort of Western Interior Seaway.

Then I found out that Goodman Games were just licensing it. And worse going back on a promise made in 2020 to not work with Bob Bledsaw II back when he did his ranting.

And the more I read of Goodman Games lacklustre response, not even a “we are contracted to do this” but that they must for such a classic to be published and insist to tie their campaign back into the previous failed CSIO campaign. With rebates for those involved in that. As Judges Guild has only now been refunding people ten years on. But why staple themsleves to a Kickstarter they weren't involved in for the purpose of bailing out someone who ran his company into the ground?

Their statement talks about building bridges and they have to do this. To quote the Enworld forum:

"So, at best, GG is still supporting something they all find reprehensible, in order to bail Judges Guild out of their Kickstarter fumble from 15 years ago, based on a commitment by JG."

Then they talk about escrows and ensuring that the money for this goes first to pay for the damages of the old CSIO Kickstarter, with no word on Judge’s Guild’s following Tengel Manor Kickstarter which was diverted to pay for CSIO, and no one ever saw anything out of it. And for every refund Judges Guild hands back for that, there is the equivelent value of this OAR book they get to keep. And it's clear they were working on this post-2020, the statement Goodman Games put out saying this was the work of many years (from 2025) confirmed that. Even as Bledsaw was being a jerk on Twitter and they were saying they wouldn't work with him again.

And should this one fail to deliver as well?

It certainly won't becuase they are running it, not Bledsaw. But anyone who could waste two Kickstarters and be so obnoxious to go on a racist tirade about how it wasn't his fault, is someone who does convery any trust that the money for this won't become a point of contention as well.

He might even see it as a reward for being a jerk.

Regardless Goodman Games has taken down a disclaimer for another Judges Guild product theyw ere selling, claiming Judges Guild wouldn't get a cent and it would go to chairty.

All this grandstanding to say they have gone back on a statement on their website, after working with a classic Judges Guild creator, Jennell Jacques, to get her work published separately. After years quietly mulling over whether they can go back to work with someone who personally hates one of the creators for their race.

https://goodman-games.com/a-statement-on-judges-guild/

It is to use a few favourite words I’ve heard,

An Act of Grubby Bastardry.

And so is the act of every person who decides that paying money to someone like that or people who enable him because they want to relive nostalgia or because they want it in DCC/5E.

I’ve read and played a campaign in the Wilderlands. There is nothing in that setting that couldn’t be replicated with the OD&D encounter charts, random roll tables and an online dice roller. The sole thing worth trading on is the brand name and Bledsaw II has done his utmost to trash that.

Considering what else Goodman Games’s OAR reprints have done, they could get 90% of the experience with the corebook because they don’t change much and don’t need to a setting where every few hexes there is another premade encounter fresh from OD&D.

This kind of derailed last week and this week’s schedule as I had to try and stop and start rewriting.

As for my idea. Just have XCrawl be the cities, regular DCC be the boonies and have the other settings be foreign third-world countries the XCrawlers or holidaying party find themselves in. No more though is justified.