History

The time is about 1987. I had played Ultima and thought a computer game license could be great for TSR; besides I wanted to play a D&D computer game. I was surfing the net on a Commodore 64 and that was interesting and that effort gave me a little insight into the computer game industry. I went to upper management and pitched them the idea of searching for a computer game license. They didn't think much of the concept. None of them knew anything about computer games or had interest in such things, but they said I could write and contact companies and see what type of response TSR and AD&D would generate. I sent out letters to lots of companies and every one of them answered back. All of them had heard of D&D and knew it was all the rage among the exact same market as hand held and computer games. They were companies like Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, the Ultima creator, SSI, and Sierra Entertainment. I was able to slim down the choices to Electronic Arts and SSI and TSR invited them to come to the offices and present what they thought their company could do for TSR. At the time Electronic Arts had huge distribution with their sports games. The SSI people really impressed me with their depth of TSR products. I scheduled them for alternate Mondays. I picked up Joe Yabera(sp) at the airport in Milwaukee and drove him to TSR. He was one of Electronic Arts product managers. No, he didn't play D&D. No, he wasn't a fan of fantasy. However, his company was willing to offer TSR an unusually large advance check on the one game a year they would be doing and they wanted a five year license. He talked a good game and all of the upper managers were very impressed when he was done. After Mr. Yabera left, I found myself feeling very sorry for the SSI people. While I wasn't impressed with Mr. Yabera's knowledge of the game, we were all impressed by the check offer. We spent the week talking about EA and the possibilities of a game they could develop. Next Monday came...

Benjamin Riggs is continuing to talk about his research into the history of TSR. He recounts here a tale of TSR's accounting practices which contributed to their eventual demise. Check out Ben's Plot Points podcast In April of 1996, Random House sued TSR for lack of payment on an $9.5 million loan. You may ask yourself how TSR came to owe its distributor such a large sum of money. The answer lies in the 1979 distribution agreement between Random House and TSR, in which Random House became TSR's exclusive avenue into the book trade. In that agreement, signed by Gygax himself, Random House agreed to advance TSR 27.3% of the retail value of their product upon receipt. Random House could also return the product to TSR for a refund. All this meant that TSR could produce cash by shipping to Random House instead of waiting for actual customers to purchase their products. The arrangement seems bizarre, but Jim Fallone, a TSR alum familiar with the agreement, said there may be an excellent reason for it. TSR's books were beautiful, and therefore expensive. Also, TSR had a back catalog that sold well. Sometimes, TSR faced a choice between printing new material, and reprinting old material that sold well, but might take time to make a return on printing costs. The Random House agreement was a way around this problem. TSR could print and ship new copies of the Player's Handbook knowing that they would get paid for it soon, and then also afford to print new material. According to Fallone, the math on all this works out fine, so long as no more than 20% of TSR's products are returned. But in the 90's, TSR's many forays into creating new game worlds increased their levels of returns to more like 30%. At the same time, TSR began overprinting products. DragonStrike, for example, was a hit game that was driven into the red by overprinting. The game sold 100,000 copies, and had reorders for 50,000 more. Management, however, decided to print 150,000 copies of the game, which...

Roughly two years before Luke Gygax was born I walked through the front door of the Gygax residence at 330 Center Street in Lake Geneva. This was at the invite of Gary through his gamer friend and a very recent acquaintance of mine, Larry Zirk. Very few people from that time know of Larry Zirk, so I will tell the story of our meeting and how that would, soon thereafter, lead me to Gary's doorstep. Note from Morrus -- this is the first in a series of monthly articles by TSR veteran Rob Kuntz. Don't forget to also check out the monthly columns by Jim Ward, Ed Greenwood, and Jonathan Tweet! Larry lived on the same side of the street, two properties down Center, from Gary's residence--a 1 minute walk between. He worked as an assistant manager at Schultz Bros. Co. variety store (a regional chain encompassing 5 states that ended in 1988) on Main Street adjacent to the Clair Hotel (the latter which was purchased by TSR prior to its move there from the Williams & Marshall Street location). It is worth noting, as an aside, that Shultz Bros. was one of two "dime stores" that Gary would later frequent in his search for toy figures to use as fantastical creatures for his Chainmail Fantasy supplemental rules; and that I accompanied him on a great number of those forays, then, as it was (solely) him and myself who had locally (Jeff Perren who lived in Rockford, IL had his own collection) invested in 40mm Elastolin miniatures to play-test the original Chainmail rules (first occurrence of the rules being 1970, Geneva Medieval Miniatures rules, Perren & Gygax, in Panzerfaust Vol. V., #1). Back to meeting Gary via Larry. My (single) mother had been institutionalized August of 1968. Prior to that my brother had been placed in foster care. My Aunt Minnie traveled from Delevan (7 miles away) every weekend to see to my extended needs while the upstair's neighbors, a young, married and pretty liberal couple, saw to my immediate needs. I went to school and pretty much came...

Benjamin Riggs recently revealed this tidbit of TSR history -- Lorraine Williams passing on the rights to Tolkien's works in 1992! "So, in 1992, TSR almost acquired the rights to JRR Tolkien's work. John Rateliff was sent to London to negotiate the deal, missing Gen Con. (Apparently, no TSR employees were allowed to miss Gen Con, but he was for this...) He met Christopher Tolkien at the Harper-Collins offices, where he asked for the rights to make RPGs, merch, and new books set in Middle-Earth. Chris Tolkien said yes to the RPGs, and some merch, but no to the fiction line. Back in Lake Geneva, Rateliff communicated this to TSR CEO Lorraine Williams. Rateliff said, "Her immortal words were, ‘Not worth our while.’” She then passed on the whole deal." Rateliff wrote the book The History of the Hobbit: The Hobbit / Mr. Baggins / Return to Bag-end. https://www.amazon.com/History-Hobbit-Baggins-Return-Bag-end/dp/0618964401

Begin at the beginning, saith the maxim. So here we go… Yes, I’m the guy who created The Forgotten Realms. Back in the spring of 1965. You read that right: 1965, about a decade before D&D, which came along in 1974, and wasn’t seen by most of the world (all the places that weren’t colleges in or near Wisconsin) until 1975. I was five years old. A few months away from being six. I was one of those kids they called “child prodigies,” and devoured all the books in my parents’ den. Like many book collectors, my Dad built his own bookshelves so he could cram the maximum amount of books onto them and out of the maze of boxes that filled the basement, so books ended up sorted by size, which meant an inquisitive young reader could stumble across anything. And I did. Everything from wartime National Geographics to “give one to a friend in uniform” wartime paperback murder mysteries and lurid pulps to fantasy and science fiction. Lots and lots of fantasy and science fiction. Note from Morrus -- I'm super happy to announce Ed Greenwood's new column here on EN World! Upcoming articles include Mirt Strides Out Of My Mind, and Making A Setting Come To Life! Please let us know in the comments about topics you'd like to hear, and don't forget to check out Jonathan Tweet's new column and, of course, Jim Ward's excellent column which delves into TSR's history! Many was the occasion upon which I’d go racing up the stairs waving a discovery I’d fallen in love with but just finished, calling, “Dad! Dad, where’s the next one? There IS a sequel, isn’t there?” And my father, who knew books and writers and the world of magazines like few mortals I’ve ever met (and I’ve worked for forty-five years in public libraries), would either direct me to where it could be found, or far more often would say something along the lines of, “Son, that writer died in 1938, and never wrote a sequel to that one, so far as I know, so if you want to read one, you’ll have to write it.” And I’d...