Goodman Games

• 1. Introduction

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  Goodman Games started with a dinosaur RPG and a bet on an untested license. In 2001, Joseph Goodman launched his company by publishing Broncosaurus Rex, seizing on the newly available d20 System license that let independent creators build games compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. What followed was two decades of publishing that would eventually produce the best sales month in the company's entire history, triggered not by a blockbuster release but by a corporate crisis at a competitor. How did a small American publisher grow from a single dinosaur-themed RPG into a company that sold out print runs during an industry controversy? And what is Dungeon Crawl Classics, the label that became synonymous with the Goodman name? Those questions run through the story of one of tabletop gaming's most persistent independent voices.

• 2. Building the Catalog

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  Complete Guide to Drow arrived in 2002 as the first entry in what became a series of more than ten books. The Complete Guides carved out a niche by covering unusual fantasy races that other publishers were ignoring: Doppelgangers, Rakshasas, Treants, and Wererats all received dedicated volumes, each published between 2002 and 2003. These were d20-compatible supplements, meaning they plugged directly into the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Goodman made a deliberate structural choice during this period: he did not hire in-house game designers. The company ran on freelance talent, keeping overhead low while the catalog widened into fantasy dungeon crawls and beyond. The Dungeon Crawl Classics label carried a specific ambition from the start. Goodman wanted to publish what he considered intelligent dungeon crawl adventures and to reach an older generation of gamers who had grown up with the hobby. That demographic focus would shape the company's identity for years. Card games also found a place in the lineup, with Geek Wars, World Championship Dodge Ball, and Scavenger Hunt entering the catalog alongside the RPG titles.

• 3. The DCC RPG

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  In May 2012, Goodman Games released an entirely original role-playing game built on the Open Game License, named after the company's own adventure series: Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. The stated design goal was to create a modern RPG that reflected the origin-point concepts of Dungeons and Dragons while applying decades of later rules thinking. DCC RPG became the spine around which Goodman built an expanding family of games. Mutant Crawl Classics followed in April 2018, released after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Inspired by the post-apocalyptic RPG Gamma World, Mutant Crawl Classics ran on the DCC rules engine and was designed to be fully compatible with the core DCC game. It stands as a complete, stand-alone product rather than a supplement. The third major branch of the DCC family arrived in 2019, when Goodman released Dungeon Crawl Classics: Lankhmar. That game used DCC mechanics to explore Fritz Leiber's world of Nehwon, home to Leiber's sword-and-sorcery characters Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Goodman held the Lankhmar license from Leiber's estate and built the setting-specific game on top of the established DCC mechanical foundation.

• 4. Licensed Worlds and Partnerships

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  Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories gave Goodman Games its next major licensed project. In April 2023, Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth launched as a Boxed Set core game accompanied by nine all-new adventure modules set in Vance's world. The design added setting-specific mechanics on top of the core DCC rules to capture the tone and texture of Vance's fiction. Goodman also produced licensed adventures for a range of other properties over the years, including Judges Guild, Xcrawl, Iron Heroes, Castles and Crusades, and Death Dealer. The company's licensed Call of Cthulhu adventures began with Death in Luxor. A further expansion of the DCC family was announced in August 2023, when Xcrawl Classics completed a successful Kickstarter campaign. The game reimagines Xcrawl using DCC mechanics and sets arena-style dungeon crawling in an alternate reality where adventurers compete as star athletes in deadly engineered dungeons. Goodman also published Amethyst: Foundations in 2010, a science fantasy setting for the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Amethyst had originally been published by Dias Ex Machina under 3.5 rules and earned an Honorable Mention for Best Setting at the 2008 Gen Con ENnie Awards before Goodman brought the fourth edition version to market.

• 5. The OGL Crisis and Record Sales

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  Leaked documents from Wizards of the Coast in January 2023 indicated that the company planned to revise the Open Game License in ways that could restrict third-party publishers. Goodman Games responded quickly, stating that the proposed OGL changes would have no impact on its own product lines. The company's DCC RPG was built on its own interpretation of the OGL, and Goodman positioned itself as insulated from the controversy. Goodman Games joined the ORC License Alliance on the 13th of January 2023. The alliance formed around the Open RPG Creative License, a new framework announced by Paizo as a response to the Wizards situation. The ORC license was designed to be open, perpetual, and irrevocable, with a nonprofit as its steward. As Polygon reported at the time, customers spent an extraordinary amount of money investing in competition to Hasbro during the weeks that the OGL controversy played out publicly. Goodman Games announced that January 2023 became the best sales month in its two-decade history. Sales through the company's online store surpassed all previous records, exceeding even prior Black Friday and holiday events. DCC core rulebooks moved steadily throughout the month, accessories and adventure modules sold out, and the DCC core rulebook accelerated toward the end of its current print run.

• 6. Community and Recognition

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  Goodman Games has participated in Free RPG Day every year since 2007, regularly producing new adventures and supplements for DCC and Mutant Crawl Classics to be distributed at no cost to fans who visit their local game stores on the day. The company also organizes DCC Day, an annual event designed to bring players into their local stores for public games of DCC, MCC, and other Goodman titles. Beginning in 2020, DCC Day has featured exclusive products available only at participating stores. In July 2009, Goodman Games ran a contest to identify America's Favorite Game Store, with the award going to Yottaquest. Award recognition from the industry followed the company across multiple years. Goodman Games won the 2006 Gold Ennie Award for the Grognard Award, a category named after the term for veteran, old-school gamers. Seven years later, the company won the 2013 Silver Ennie Award for Fans' Choice for Favorite Publisher. The Original Adventures Reincarnated line extends Goodman's relationship with gaming history directly: the series reprints, annotates, and expands classic RPG adventures, mostly drawn from TSR's Advanced Dungeons and Dragons catalog, presenting them to both new and veteran audiences in updated form.