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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9064390" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>There's no contradiction there; Riggs definitely wanted to paint a positive picture of Williams. He just failed, despite trying his best. That's because the tale of why TSR failed is ultimately on her, and while he does dig up several anecdotes that paint her in a good light, there are more that paint her in the opposite manner. He can't really ignore that, though he certainly slants it.</p><p></p><p>Whether or not you think the positives outweigh the negatives is up to you. Personally, I think the sentiment of trying to say that good behaviors are justification for overlooking bad ones opens the door to enabling a lot of abuses to go unchecked, which is something I don't want for our hobby. We should be able to say that a toxic boss was a toxic boss, even if people want to minimize that by saying that her predecessor was worse (which strikes me as a stretch; the totality of the relationship between Gygax and Arneson is beyond the scope of this discussion – entire books have been written on it – but the issue of yelling allows for an apples-to-apples comparison; you (in the general sense of "you") can't write off what Fallone said while simultaneously holding the single anecdote about Gygax against him).</p><p></p><p>You're mischaracterizing what I said before. Riggs' book is at its best when the author doesn't editorialize; the problem is that he does that a <em>lot</em>, and so it makes me extremely hesitant to put much faith in his assurances. Take a look at how, early in the book, he mocks the idea that "Saint Gary" couldn't have known that TSR was doing so badly just because he was in California (as I recall, Riggs makes a joke about not having telephones). A few chapters later, when discussing the history of TSR West, he directly states how that company's placement in California made it hard for it to keep abreast of what was happening at TSR headquarters. Things like that make it hard for me to take Riggs' personal assurances as being trustworthy.</p><p></p><p>Have you read <em>The Game Wizards</em>? Because the picture it paints is far less stark than the one you're pointing out here. While it was certainly presented to the public that Gary and the Blumes made their decisions in concert, the actual state of things was much less sanguine. With regard to Gygax's shares, I'll quote from Jon Peterson's excellent <a href="https://medium.com/@increment/the-ambush-at-sheridan-springs-3a29d07f6836" target="_blank">Ambush as Sheridan Springs</a> article (which formed the nucleus of <em>The Game Wizards</em>), where he notes that "On May 6, Brian and Kevin Blume did execute a severance agreement with TSR. When neither Gygax nor TSR made any further movement to acquire their position, they subsequently issued to TSR a “Notice of Intent to Sell and Offer to Sell” on July 22 which again declared their interest in selling their shares at $500 each, a price Gygax deemed unreasonable."</p><p></p><p>In other words, the "waffling" was due to the share price being beyond what Gary could reasonably afford. To say that he was an "abject failure" paints a picture that the reality doesn't reflect. Whereas even William W. Connors, who flat-out calls Lorraine Williams "a hero" in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20071213191608/http://www.ptolus.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?int_dnd30_WWC" target="_blank">this interview</a>, characterizes her as having "run the company into the ground." </p><p></p><p>When even your biggest supporters characterize your leadership that way, <em>that's</em> an abject failure.</p><p></p><p>Notice that you've moved from "Williams wasn't so bad" to "Gygax was awful." Even if we grant the latter premise, that doesn't confirm the former.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 9064390, member: 8461"] There's no contradiction there; Riggs definitely wanted to paint a positive picture of Williams. He just failed, despite trying his best. That's because the tale of why TSR failed is ultimately on her, and while he does dig up several anecdotes that paint her in a good light, there are more that paint her in the opposite manner. He can't really ignore that, though he certainly slants it. Whether or not you think the positives outweigh the negatives is up to you. Personally, I think the sentiment of trying to say that good behaviors are justification for overlooking bad ones opens the door to enabling a lot of abuses to go unchecked, which is something I don't want for our hobby. We should be able to say that a toxic boss was a toxic boss, even if people want to minimize that by saying that her predecessor was worse (which strikes me as a stretch; the totality of the relationship between Gygax and Arneson is beyond the scope of this discussion – entire books have been written on it – but the issue of yelling allows for an apples-to-apples comparison; you (in the general sense of "you") can't write off what Fallone said while simultaneously holding the single anecdote about Gygax against him). You're mischaracterizing what I said before. Riggs' book is at its best when the author doesn't editorialize; the problem is that he does that a [i]lot[/i], and so it makes me extremely hesitant to put much faith in his assurances. Take a look at how, early in the book, he mocks the idea that "Saint Gary" couldn't have known that TSR was doing so badly just because he was in California (as I recall, Riggs makes a joke about not having telephones). A few chapters later, when discussing the history of TSR West, he directly states how that company's placement in California made it hard for it to keep abreast of what was happening at TSR headquarters. Things like that make it hard for me to take Riggs' personal assurances as being trustworthy. Have you read [i]The Game Wizards[/i]? Because the picture it paints is far less stark than the one you're pointing out here. While it was certainly presented to the public that Gary and the Blumes made their decisions in concert, the actual state of things was much less sanguine. With regard to Gygax's shares, I'll quote from Jon Peterson's excellent [url=https://medium.com/@increment/the-ambush-at-sheridan-springs-3a29d07f6836]Ambush as Sheridan Springs[/url] article (which formed the nucleus of [i]The Game Wizards[/i]), where he notes that "On May 6, Brian and Kevin Blume did execute a severance agreement with TSR. When neither Gygax nor TSR made any further movement to acquire their position, they subsequently issued to TSR a “Notice of Intent to Sell and Offer to Sell” on July 22 which again declared their interest in selling their shares at $500 each, a price Gygax deemed unreasonable." In other words, the "waffling" was due to the share price being beyond what Gary could reasonably afford. To say that he was an "abject failure" paints a picture that the reality doesn't reflect. Whereas even William W. Connors, who flat-out calls Lorraine Williams "a hero" in [url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213191608/http://www.ptolus.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?int_dnd30_WWC]this interview[/url], characterizes her as having "run the company into the ground." When even your biggest supporters characterize your leadership that way, [i]that's[/i] an abject failure. Notice that you've moved from "Williams wasn't so bad" to "Gygax was awful." Even if we grant the latter premise, that doesn't confirm the former. [/QUOTE]
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