It started out as a simple ad for an upcoming Indie TTRPG Creator’s Summit.
Goodman Games and BackerKit had a great idea to benefit the TTRPG community in 2024. It went from great idea to near-failure at the speed of X (Twitter.) The ad clearly shows the names and faces of ten Caucasian men. Yes, many of them look like me to some extent.
It’s 2023. People DEMAND to be represented and included in a fair and equal manner. If that doesn’t show at first glance, there will be repercussions. This is especially true on the Internet. It’s especially true on social media, namely X (Twitter.) We can do better all around.
Here is a link to the Summit page. Please go have a look, especially if you have avoided the social media drama. It really does look like a great online event for those trying to get into the TTRPG industry.
First glances are so deceiving.
Full confession: I was excited about this Summit at first glance when I saw a friend reposted it on X (Twitter.) I love Goodman Games, especially Dungeon Crawl Classics. I’ve had tons of great experiences with BackerKit so far. Bob Worldbuilder, Mike Shea from Sly Flourish, and several Goodman Games notables are pictured as panelists for this thing. Cool! Right? No?
Then I scrolled down a bit and started reading the comments (See Gallery of Comments.) I am absolutely appalled at how fast the comments devolved into accusations of bigotry and racism. Worse comments (that I’m not going to show) were on the Goodman Games apology. The real hardcore bigoted 🦆🦆🦆holes showed themselves and dozens more!
Let’s look at the purpose behind the summit itself.
Why am I excited? I’m working on developing my own game supplements for Shadowdark, possibly ICONS, maybe Cypher System, and develop my own game at some point down the road. I’ve been trying to catch a break in the TTRPG industry for so long, fighting against a bunch of gatekeepers for decades now. It’s not as easy as it looks or as people make it sound. It works differently in 2023 than it did in 1983, 1993, or even 2003.
Independent TTRPG creators need all the help they can get. Wizards of the Coast sure isn’t going to do it. If anyone remembers the great Dungeons & Dragons Open Game License Debacle of January 2023, they remember WotC tried to take control of the whole industry. Anyone with an OGL product almost lost their ability to publish without their work becoming another revenue funnel for WotC.
Thank goodness Goodman Games and BackerKit had the kindness, understanding, and wherewithal to hold this Indie Creator’s Summit! Remember the WotC Content Creator’s Summit? Do you honestly think WotC will give me the time of 🦆🦆🦆kin day? Nope.
So many people, regardless of race, gender, status, orientation, etc could benefit from this! Anyone considering putting out their own indie product alternative to mainstream D&D would benefit from it. That’s why this summit exists. They’re trying to encourage more people to enter the industry.
What does any of it have to do with all this outrage?
As the picture shows, all twelve panelists share a certain demographic. The comments were fast to point out exactly what the problem was. Unfortunately for perhaps everyone involved, there was a serious lack of any People of Color, women, or any visibly non-white guys. That was clearly a poor choice of optics on behalf of whomever made the ad.
If I saw something like this summit and I didn’t think it spoke to me, I might be upset, too. “Indie TTRPG Creator Summit” should appeal to everyone, not just the long-perceived primary audience of those games. This is the same problem we ran into with Wizards of the Coast’s Content Creators’ Summit 2023. There wasn’t enough obviously diverse, inclusive representation. And yeah, people got rightly pissed off.
Here’s where I run into a problem: See my photo.
Do I look like an old white guy that’s been playing games in his basement for 40 years? Yeah, I kinda do. I mean, it’s not a 100% honest representation of my disability, neurodiversity, or even sexual orientation, but that’s a little hard to fit in a photo. My apologies. It can’t be helped.
Basic appearances vs accomplishments is the main argument over the first post. Sure, I know what Bob Worldbuilder, Joseph Goodman, Mike Shea, Harley Stroh, and Phil Reed all have done. The rest would probably occur to me if I really thought about it. They’re all names I recognize from the TTRPG industry and/or YouTube. I’m a Goodman Games fan, though.
Alas, good old Kyle Brink of Dungeons & Dragons executive fame (whatever his title is this week,) made the now infamous comment that guys like me/him and the ones in the first ad for this Goodman summit, “can’t leave soon enough for this hobby.” Yet here we are. Many of us still in the hobby fit the description of “white dudes in a basement playing D&D.”
Someone whom I don’t usually agree with recently pointed out that if you watch the doors open for the dealers’ area of Gen Con, it’s still a lot of white guys. I only mention this because I was at the front of the line many years ago when the doors opened. It’s kinda comparable to the end of a holy pilgrimage for me. I’m sure it’s still a destination of choice for many diverse TTRPG fanatics like me.
The comment I referred to above about the white guys at Gen Con came from someone who I consider to be one of the most bigoted 🦆🦆🦆holes on YouTube. As disgusting as that is, he might have a point. The hobby was created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, out of a mostly historical miniatures wargaming club which in 1974 was a lot of college-age plus Caucasian men. Again, it can’t be helped. There just wasn’t a ton of diversity in the wargaming hobby back in the 1970s. It doesn’t justify anything now, but it does explain some of the origins of the hobby.
I was born into this body same as other folx were born into theirs. It speaks not a single word about who I am, what I may have accomplished, or what makes me unique as a person. That’s what got the first ad in trouble. A lot of us recognized the achievements of the panelists. If that was a live convention seminar even ten or fifteen years ago, no one would have been surprised. I suspect it was just an editing flub on the part of whoever designed the ad. Nothing stuck out about all 10 pics being Caucasian males.
Bear in mind I got accused of being a bigot for pointing out that it’s twelve Caucasian men. Somehow I’m a bigot for noticing someone’s appearance. Sorry, somehow my telepathic omniscience hasn’t quite kicked in yet. In the context of the rest of the ad, it all makes perfect sense that they’re all first rate citizens of the TTRPG Community in good standing. I get it and I respect everyone in that first group of ten. However, many in the comments below the ad only went based on the physical appearance of the twelve gentlemen presented and that’s when things got ugly.
Goodman Games/BackerKit responded rapidly with their second ad.
Was it too little, too late?
Ten different people in the photo for the new ad. This time it’s a very diverse group. I have to confess I don’t know as many of the folx pictured, but I’m interested in finding out about the ones I haven’t seen before.
Needless to say, my curiosity is lost on the majority of the commenters. The new post brought out the other side of the diversity and inclusion argument including a ton of alt accounts where some guys tend to spew their hateful venom forth onto the Internet. Hate and ignorance are on full display. (*I’m starting to understand why WotC chose “incurious” to replace words like “stupid” or “dimwitted.”)
I admire Goodman Games/BackerKit for going out of their way to correct their error from the first ad. They have gone the next steps in trying to regain their audience with a full, perceptibly sincere apology, and a third ad that lists the events.
They officially apologized and that’s just not good enough for some people.
Goodman Games apologized for the oversight on the first ad and promised to do better going forward. I’m not 100% sure the apology has done what it was intending to do. I feel sad to see it and even more sad when I read some of the just awful, bigoted, ignorant comments directed toward the company. I can’t even post the comments from the apology. I’m not giving the real bigots a platform here.
By this point, I think a good number of people who might have benefitted from the Indie RPG Creator Summit have been chased off completely by one side or the other. Now Goodman Games has to live with the “woke” label and all of the right wing nutjobs complaining because they’ll, “never buy Goodman’s stuff again.” (*Yeah, go ask WotC how fast people turn around off of that statement. Not me, but…)
Much of the group involved in the initial outcry over Goodman’s apparent lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion have marched off into the usual two camps. Half have accepted the apology and vowed to stay vigilant of the company’s promise to do better. The other half are not satisfied with any of it and are locked in proverbial Mortal Kombat with the anti-woke crowd.
You know is really taking a major mental and emotional beating on all this?
Goodman Games and BackerKit along with all of the well-intentioned panelists who wanted to put together an Indie RPG Creator Summit are getting their lunches eaten by people who were never going to the summit in the first place. I even went so far as to say they might think about canceling the event entirely. Tickets go on sale December 13th. The event is January 8-10, 2024. The last day is only available if you pay the $49 ticket price in advance. Days one and two are FREE.
I recommend that everyone go and enjoy this Summit because it’ll likely never happen again. Too much backlash over a simple, well-meaning event to help new creators into the business is going to be the end of what seemed like a good idea at first glance. No one involved intentionally set out to cause a controversy. If I were in charge, we’d never do it again. In fact, because tickets haven’t gone on sale and there’s theoretically no money to refund, I’d just cancel altogether.
Of course, following the cancellation I’d say, “Hope to see an exclusively BIMPOC/LGBTQIA/Neurodiverse/Womyn’s RPG Creator Summit real soon.”
I’d also say, “Hope all of you conservative right wingnuts are happy. You’ve ruined yet another event for the whole community because you failed to play nicely with others. This is why we can’t have nice things on the Internet.”
I’ve seen other exclusive events that went out of their way to say, “No old white dudes.” You know what? I’m not offended. That’s their call to make who they want or don’t want to have around. It’s true the gatekeepers of the TTRPG hobby kept anyone who wasn’t exactly like them out of the industry and out of the hobby for years with some obvious exceptions.
The difference now is the number and types of opportunities available to modern gamers when it comes to being a player or GM. If one person’s D&D campaign or play style doesn’t mesh with a particular group, pack up and find a different group that does fit. Or maybe try an indie game. Maybe try your hand at designing a game. Isn’t that how this all started?
It’s draining to deal with a bunch of misunderstandings, miscommunication, misanthropy, and malcontents who are never satisfied with anything. All this does is reinforce the rancid gatekeeping that has been present in the system for decades. It’s not just an old white guy club, it’s the gatekeeper’s paradise. Does anyone realize how 🦆🦆🦆king hard it is to get into the TTRPG industry as a writer, artist, or editor? It doesn’t matter who you are, IT SUCKS! (*That’s another article for another time.) If independent creators are trying to make a change in the broken, old, tired, crappy system- LET THEM!
I’m going to wrap this up before I have to take it down.
I’m planning to disable comments all the way around. If you know me, you know how to get in touch with me. I’d prefer not to have people screaming “racist” all over the internet. Thank you.
More to come on this subject, undoubtedly. If you think I harbor any ill will toward you, I don’t. That applies to everyone. I disagree with a lot of people on many topics, but I rarely hate anyone these days. (*I’m pro LGBTQIA, BIPOC, neurodiverse, differently abled, and I love women.)
We have to conquer fear and hate on this mortal plane if we ever hope to make a better Earth. This Indie RPG Creator Summit is such a simple, helpful endeavor and somehow we’ve already found a way to foul it all up. That doesn’t bode well for the TTRPG community, indie creators, writers, or panelists. Sigh.
Thank you for being here. I truly appreciate you even if we don’t agree on everything. I hope we can discuss our differences in a calm, rational fashion. (Not on X/Twitter.)
Jeff's Game Box 