Bigotry from Judges Guild and the endless treadmill of bad actors in the old-school RPG hobby

As a longtime fan of Judges Guild’s output from the 1970s and early 1980s (as evidenced by a string of posts here on Yore; they turned out some wild, creative stuff back in the day), I was dismayed to learn that the current owner, Robert (Bob) Bledsaw II, posts racist, Nazi, and antisemitic bullshit on Facebook.

Bob Bledsaw II needs to unequivocally apologize, make amends, and step down from his position as owner of the company. The new owner needs to denounce his remarks and take steps to assure the TTRPG hobby that this is not what Judges Guild stands for or represents.

Fuck Bledsaw II, and fuck bigots.

I’ve pulled all of the affiliate links I had here on Yore to Judges Guild products. I haven’t deleted my posts — yet — because I see no evidence that the original owner of the company, Bob Bledsaw, was a shitheel. But Judges Guild will never get another dime of my money until they turn this asshole out.

Mr. Toad’s wild fucking ride

Separately, I have to say that this exhausting treadmill of so-frequently-OSR or OSR-adjacent racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry is a big part of why I’ve more or less stopped blogging.

I’ve gotten rid of my entire Lamentations of the Flame Pricess collection. Scrubbed anything I ever wrote about Zak Sabbath. Stopped buying Frog God stuff (and now, Judges Guild). Blocked a parade of toxic asshats on any site where they appear. Stopped identifying as part of the OSR, and then participating in the scene at all. Done blog housekeeping to convert that category and associated tags to the more generic “old school.” Nuked connections to folks who still follow or promote the bad actors in the hobby. It never fucking ends.

I recognize that I have a headache and haven’t slept well in like a week and I’m fucking ornery, but here it is: In the past two years or so, the time I’ve spent removing or otherwise dealing with content related to the worst people in the TTRPG hobby exceeds the amount of time I’ve spent pleasurably blogging about gaming.

And every fucking time there’s a new revelation, what do you know? It’s like 99% likely to be in the OSR or OSR-adjacent corner of the hobby.

I’m not saying that everyone in the OSR is a Nazi or everyone who likes OSR-style gaming or books is a Nazi . . . but there is literally no other corner of the TTRPG hobby I’m aware of where so many visibly toxic assholes and hatemongers congregate.

I will now take my salty ass back to Twitter, where this post originated.

Out now: The Unlucky Isles

The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.