Lorraine Williams did... what?

[Dire Bare]

To complicate matters further, the character was not called "Buck" Rogers until the comic strip. I'm not sure that the brand would have the staying power it does if it had been called "Anthony Rogers," which was the character's name in the original Amazing Stories tales.

--Erik

I am enjoying the Buck history posts from Erik and Jim, but I could care less about all the Williams bashing going on. Like others, I feel she was a bad CEO for TSR, but I don't believe she wears black dresses with high collars and black pointy hats. And even if she was, it's all water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned.

Hating the Buck Rodgers property because of someone's possibly shady dealings with one aspect of it is the epitome of silly, IMO. There may have been warehouses full of Buck unsold Buck products, but there were also warehouses full of unsold DragonDice and D&D products as well.

I personally loved the Buck Rodgers RPG and novels TSR originally put out, but didn't care for the "reboot" they did later with a board game (and maybe other stuff).

I love the property, and I'm crossing my fingers that Dille and Williams succeed in bringing Buck back!

Of course, I would like the history of the Dille Family Trust part of the website to be corrected. That'd be nice.

 

[Rolflyn]

I read it teh interwebs so it must be true.

Like Rev's coma.

Too soon!

 

[Xyxox]

IHating the Buck Rodgers property because of someone's possibly shady dealings with one aspect of it is the epitome of silly, IMO. There may have been warehouses full of Buck unsold Buck products, but there were also warehouses full of unsold DragonDice and D&D products as well.

The unsold DragonDice and D&D products didn't directly contribute to the financial well being of a single family's trust fund.

The unsold Buck Rogers products did, taking cash directly from TSR and putting it into this single family's pockets.

Informed consumers are better consumers. I will not contribute to the financial well being of such a family ever again.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

I personally loved the Buck Rodgers RPG and novels TSR originally put out, but didn't care for the "reboot" they did later with a board game (and maybe other stuff).

Amen.

I loved the RPG and computer games based on it. I'm the only person I know
who has ebay-ed or bargained hunted for BR RPG goodies.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

As far as the "chain mail bikini" stuff goes--well, you seem to be judgmental of gaming culture in general. Like I said, that is not a good attitude to have if you are running a company that supports them.

Oh please. I'm judgemental of everything. That's what it means to be human. I'm extra judgemental of "gaming culture" because I'm a freaking part of it - why wouldn't I be looking in the mirror to see what I don't like? I'm not even going to go into detail on chainmail bikinis as, last time that cropped up, the thread devolved into shallow and petty sexism with taunts and insults doled out to those that didn't touch themselves to thoughts of blowup women. Suffice to say, it is, in the very least, rather stupid to think that someone disliking chainmail bikinis somehow hates gaming.

 

[Orius]

I'm not doubting that she hated the chainmail bikini wearing people at the con, but quite frankly, I tend to have a dislike for them as well. So uh, yeah, I guess?

This is one thing I can't really blame her for. I mean chainmail bikinis aren't exactly known for being...ahem...empowering (to be honest I've never understood the appeal either, I prefer staff chicks to warrior babes myself ). So yeah, career woman in the early 90's blowing her stack over it, yeah believable.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Oh please. I'm judgemental of everything. That's what it means to be human. I'm extra judgemental of "gaming culture" because I'm a freaking part of it - why wouldn't I be looking in the mirror to see what I don't like? I'm not even going to go into detail on chainmail bikinis as, last time that cropped up, the thread devolved into shallow and petty sexism with taunts and insults doled out to those that didn't touch themselves to thoughts of blowup women. Suffice to say, it is, in the very least, rather stupid to think that someone disliking chainmail bikinis somehow hates gaming.

If you defend being judgemental, why are you attacking the others who are judging Lorraine Williams? You're the one who started the argument saying our community "deserves to be dismissed". And with the CB thing, you are overlooking the fact that she ranted about gamers in general for 10 minutes, not just the fashion people, and has called gamers "disgusting little idiots".

And to be fair, only one person in this thread called her a "witch", and from what I saw the "bashing" came mostly from criticism of the claim of creating TSR. Nobody was attacking her on a personal level from what I've seen. Most people here were critical of the web site's fib. And in the other thread, I think Jose's take came from honest opinions of dealing with her as a businesswoman.

Just because the website contains a false statement, that doesn't mean she deliberately lied about it. This could be a simple error, on the part of the person who wrote the text for the website; someone who may not know much about Lorrain or TSR and didn't get his or her facts straight.

I doubt it. Usually web sites are commissioned, but the client writes the copy. Since mistakes to the site are being written to Flint Dille's e-mail address, I'm sure he's at least aware of the error, and likely wrote the copy himself. (Flint tends to be the Linus to Lorraine's Lucy, from what I've heard. Nice guy, but I believe Lorraine makes most of the decisions for the family's business).

As far as the Buck Rogers thing goes, I doubt Ryan or Jose were lying about the excessive inventory. Put it this way, if this happened at a company I had stock in, I'd say there was at minimum a conflict of interest in that relationship.

 

[BryonD]

Too soon!

So this family walks into a talent agency....

 

[amethal]

Put it this way, if this happened at a company I had stock in, I'd say there was at minimum a conflict of interest in that relationship.

There's clearly a conflict of interest.

In the UK, at least, directors of private companies are usually allowed to take part in decisions where they have a conflict of interest, so long as they disclose that interest to the rest of the board.

Presumably the other directors agreed with the decision at the time.

 

[TerraDave]

The linked thread is really a good one, and was shut down after getting into all this Buck Rogers $ business (but I don't blame myself for that thread being shut down...). In any case, suffice to say that Buck was not good for TSR, and neither was Lorraine Williams.

Now, as far as fragmentation goes...back in the 2E heyday, they were releasing 4, 5, 6 D&D, products a month, every month, and not just (or hardly) little 64 page adventures. There is no way you don't start canibalizing your own sales at some point, and start to see product quality fall.

This was also a time when TSR faced a lot of competition, and lots of other mid-sized game companies where also churning out lots of product, using all sorts of disparate mechanics. The Dancy response: pull back what WoTC released (though in hindsight they still released a lot in 3Es early days), use the OGL to bring more unity in mechanics across the market as a whole, and let 3rd parties release all that supporting material and canabilize each other. It seemed to work, at least for a while.