Since 2013, Goodman Games, the publisher of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic has released a book especially for Gen Con, the largest tabletop hobby gaming event in the world. That book is the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Book, a look back at the previous year, a preview of the year to come, staff biographies, community content, and a whole lot more, including adventures and lots of tidbits and silliness. The first was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but not being able to pick up a copy from Goodman Games when they first attended UK Games Expo in 2019, the first to be reviewed was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book. Fortunately, a little patience and a copy of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book was located and reviewed, so since 2021, normal order has been resumed with the Goodman Games Gen Con 2015 Program Guide, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Book, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book, and Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, and Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston.
With both Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, and Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston, the series had begun to chart a new direction. Each volume would contain a mix of support for the various RPGs published by Goodman Games and the content recognising the Goodman Games community, but the major feature of each volume would be a tournament scenario, staged the previous year at Gen Con. Unfortunately, events caught up with the eighth entry in the series, Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named, as the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world to adjust, which of course, included Goodman Games. The result was that the traditional Gen Con Program Guide became a ‘Yearbook’ and this trend has continued since with the Goodman Games 2021 Yearbook and the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook.
Art and how they look has always played a big part of the books that Goodman Games publish and highlighting this has always been part of the publisher’s Gen Con Program Guides and the Gen Con Year Books. The Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook is no exception, but there is an element sadness in the fact that it mirrors the artistic content in the previous volume in the series, the Goodman Games 2021 Yearbook, as it both notes the death of an artist who contributed numerous covers to its books and interviews another artist. Thus it says, ‘Goodbye, Ken Kelly’ to the late Ken Kelly and conducts ‘An Interview With Sanjulián’, in both cases showcasing their art and their contribution to the Goodman Games look.
Goodman Games is also well known for the extra dice it uses in both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, as well as the more recent Xcrawl Classics Roleplaying Game. The Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook embraces this as it takes a silly turn and suggests ways in which the eleven-sided die from Impact Miniatures can be used. Thus, in ‘Take It To 11!’ by Michael Curtis gives two new tables, one ‘The Quick And Dirty Foe Description Table’, the other, ‘The Weird Property Of That Thing You Just Found Table’, whilst separately, Chris Doyle offers two further tables in ‘d11 Fates for 5E’. These two include the bonuses to be gained from inserting coins into an altar dedicated to Myna, the Goddess of Luck, with better coins donated increasing the likelihood of a blessing rather than a curse, whilst ‘The Pool of Life’ has table of healing results for a fountain found in ancient ruins. To be fair, all four tables will work with both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, though the entries in ‘d11 Fates for 5E’ require a little bit of set-up to use. Of course, four tables dedicated to an eleven-sided die does not seem sufficient. Surely, the number of tables should also have gone up to eleven?
‘When Tolls the Bell of Ruin’ is the first of two adventures in the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook. It is a scenario for a party of four to six First Level Player Characters for Dungeon Crawl Classics which begins with the Player Characters responding to the ominous tolling of a bell that has rung out across the land and instilled a sense of dread in all. It has been traced to an ancient monastery of muted monks and as the Player Characters investigate this isolated facility, they will potentially trigger the further tolling of the bell. The bell is actually the Bell of Ruin and whenever it rings, the monastery and the surrounding land are beset by a calamity. These begin with a constant chill and greyness enshrouding the land in a permanent twilight and escalate into everyone suffering rashes of boils, flames randomly striking the ground, and so on. The fun here is that the players will be rolling to see when the bell actually tolls. In between the peal of the bell, the adventure has a pleasingly quiet eeriness to it, the monastery silent and monks strangely missing. Inspired by the Conan the Adventurer cartoon, this is a solid adventure that is easy to add to almost any campaign.
The Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook details four monsters, not once but twice. First for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and then for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. They include the Humming-Wasp Swarm, a creature actually from the Terra A.D. setting of Mutant Crawl Classics whose drone stupefies enslaves victims into collecting harvests for the insects; the Shroud Ghoul which shoots gobs of caustic bile from its nose; the Shroud Phantom, undead that looks like burial shroud and suffocates it victims; and the Tri-Crystalline, a crystalline humanoid with three faces, each one of a different alignment that performs particular missions according to the alignment of the face that is awake. The Humming-Wasp Swarm is done as a fantasy version for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but even the Mutant Crawl Classics version can be used in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Otherwise these are very serviceable monsters.
The Goodman Games’ creative efforts at Gen Con in the past have shown us how the famous Ziggurat was created. Here, ‘A Wizard Van Is Summoned...’ shows how the infamous Goodman Games Wizard Van was modified, reupholstered, and fitted with furniture so as to be suitable to host games at the events where it appeared, whilst in ‘The Original Doom Beard’, Dieter Zimmerman not only provides stats for the Wizard Van (as ‘GG Joe Wizard Vandroid’), but also for its creator! This is followed by ‘Interview With The Mask Maker’ by Tim Wadzinski, who talks to professional mask maker Jordyn Boci, the creator of the masks worn at the convention by some of the Goodman Games staff. ‘The Original Doom Beard’ is, of course, another piece of silliness, but together these three pieces show some of the thought and processes that go into the creation of these items that at the show add to Goodman Games’ presence.
The second scenario in the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook is ‘Secret of the Slayer’s Sword’ by Alex Kurowski. This is designed for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and a party of four to six, Twelfth Level Player Characters, and it can be run as a sequel to Fifth Edition Fantasy #5 Into the Dragons Maw. However, it does have quite a complicated backstory that the Player Characters will need to be aware of, but what it boils down to is that Dracusa, a half-green Dragon Medusa, in her continued attempt to proof herself worthy of her draconic half, is hunting for a legendary sword, Vritrastrike, capable of delivering a mortal wound to any dragon. The adventure, set in a Mesoamerican style country, quickly gets the Player Characters to the shrine where the sword rests. The shrine consists of two big encounters, one quite a challenging puzzle, the other a big bruising battle with Dracusa. Success will reward the Player Characters with some fantastic treasure. ‘Secret of the Slayer’s Sword’ is a short, one session affair though nicely detailed. Given its detail and setting, it will require some adjustment to fit into a campaign, and although it states that it does not have to be run after Fifth Edition Fantasy #5 Into the Dragons Maw, to get the best out of the scenario, it really should be as it does feel like the second and concluding part.
Goodman Games has always been highly supportive of its community and showcases their activities in every issue of the ‘program guide’ or ‘yearbook’. The Goodman Games 2021 Yearbook is no exception and dotted throughout its pages are numerous photographs from the events at which there was a Goodman Games presence. These include Gary Con 2022, Kublacon 2022, Origins 2022, and others, as well as Gen Con 2022 itself. There is also the results of the ‘2022 Bumper Sticker Design Contest’, ‘Gen Con Signage’, and in ‘Inkburn!’, even shows how Hector Cruz, a fan of regular Goodman Games artist, Doug Kovacs, got him to draw a tattoo for him, and the ‘Twitch Shows Of 2022’, in which Alana Thompson encapsulates some of the best media streams dedicated to Dungeon Crawl Classics. Lastly, ‘The 2022 Goodie Awards’ spotlights the contributors to the Goodman Games community over the course of the previous year around the world. Lastly, the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook comes to a cozy close with the return of ‘Dear Archmage Abby’ and some gaming advice.
Physically, the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook is a slim affair, in keeping with the current reduced format of the series. It is well presented, a pleasing read, and full of very good artwork.
With the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook gone is the uncertainty of the Goodman Games 2021 Yearbook that chronicled Goodman Games’ adjusting to life after the Covid-19 Pandemic and returning to gaming and a convention presence as was before the events of 2019 and 2020. In fact, with the arrival of the Wizard Van, it is as if Goodman Games are screaming, “We’re back and we’re doing bigger and better things!!” Yet in comparison to the grandeur of the earlier Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, and Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston, that does not really apply to the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook, which feels restrained and not quite as adventurous in the slimmer format. Fans of Goodman Games will undoubtedly enjoy the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook, but perhaps regret that there is not quite as much to enjoy as there once was.
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