Road Crew 2022: Pedal to the Metal
by Brendan LaSalle
I’ve never been prouder to be War Chief of the Goodman Games Road Crew than I am today, here towards the end of our best year ever.
The year that was 2022 was a game changer for the Crew. Every year we try to find new ways to make the program more fun and I believe that this year – with a little help, which I will mention in a bit – we went beyond anything we have done before.
The Road Crew went hard this year, running adventures at conventions, game stores, and basically everywhere else with a surface level enough to roll dice. More RC Judges began school clubs than ever before. The amount of games and stories and pictures is absolutely gratifying.
We had our first ever Road Crew Game Day, an online event that allowed all the hard-working judges to kick their feet up and actually play for once, with games run by some of the best Judges the tribe has to offer. That was a great success, and we will be holding another one in 2023. Don’t miss it!
We hosted our first Adventure of the Month events, allowing the entirety of the Road Crew to synch up on some of the greatest adventures Goodman Games has to offer concurrently all over the world and the web. Reading through the breakdowns from multiple GMs on given adventures really gave me new perspective into some old classics.
The craziest success of the Road Crew in 2022 in my humble opinion is the rise of the Road Crew Playtest Group. We put together a list of GMs who were willing to test out adventures for our designers, and the results exceeded my most aggressive estimates for how much practical feedback we would receive from how many judges. My huge thanks to all the GMs and players who helped playtest new adventures this year. I promise there will be many more to come.
This year saw an exclusive Road Crew adventure, Van on the Run, by the amazing Terry Olson, which became a must-run adventure for the Road Crew. The exclusive adventure wound up being so popular that we are already planning on another for next year.
And Crom and Mitra, has anyone mentioned this year’s swag? Every year we do things a little better and I feel like this year was a great mix of cool stuff for our Judges and their players.
Never underestimate the power of a fresh perspective. We had invaluable help deciding the direction of this year’s Road Crew from our first ever Road Crew Advisory Council in 2022. They had so many ideas that we implemented (and quite a few that we are looking at for the future) that I had to take this opportunity to say thank you once more to this year’s Council: Sarah Brown, Cory Gahsman, Christian Ovsenik, and Ed Stanek. This year was a game changer, and it was y’all who changed the game. My huge thanks!
More thanks! Huge thanks to Jess McDevitt, the Oracle of the Events page, for keeping the whole party moving forward. Huge thanks to Brett Brooks, the Keeper of the Flame, who makes sure the Gods of the Digital Horizon are appeased. Huge thanks to the Dark Master himself, Joseph Goodman, the Founder of the Feast.
But my biggest thanks of all is for y’all, the Crew. To everyone who participated in the Crew in 2022, who got out there and made the arrangements, ran the games, taught new players, and increased our tribe. Huge thanks! Get ready for even more fun in 2023.
