TSR Did TSR Sue Regularly?

Shannon Appelcline (Designers & Dragons) talks about it here! With infographics!

"Every company interacts with the rest of the industry in a different way. For Chaosium it's been more than 40 years of licensing, while Target Games created and defined roleplaying in its home country of Sweden. Dave Nalle's Ragnarok Enterprises instead influenced designers and publishers through interactions in A&Eand Abyss. As for TSR, the founder of our industry: as wags have put it: they sue regularly."

Advanced Designers & Dragons #47: TSR Connections: Licenses & Lawsuits - RPGnet

They also sued WotC once!

 

[SkidAce]

@el-remmen I am going through my stack now, to find the others (Fantastic Treasures etc, but it will probably be after work tomo before I can post and comment. Probably in the other thread.

D&D General - Favorite Role Aids Supplements with Covers

Here is my submission, for what its worth. Havent integrated it into my homebrew for 5e yet....so not sure how it has held up. But I loved it back in the day.

www.enworld.org

 

[el-remmen]

@el-remmen I am going through my stack now, to find the others (Fantastic Treasures etc, but it will probably be after work tomo before I can post and comment. Probably in the other thread.

D&D General - Favorite Role Aids Supplements with Covers

Here is my submission, for what its worth. Havent integrated it into my homebrew for 5e yet....so not sure how it has held up. But I loved it back in the day.

www.enworld.org

Already done by the time I saw this!

 

[Rob Kuntz]

@Rob Kuntz

Ever read this one...its one of my favorites.

View attachment 135283

I used to own it before moving to France, but sold a lot I didn't store, that included. I read Role Aids more often at the beginning and grew to appreciate their layout, art and maps, so I contd collecting when I could but never got around to reading all, this one included

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Apple of all companies was mere months from declaring bankruptcy in 1997. For TSR, going from hobbyist game designers to running a multimillion dollar company was probably a shock, and something they just didn't have the skills for.

As I've said before, Lorraine Williams' general silence on her time at TSR has enabled her to be cast as the villain in many people's narratives, when the truth is more complex than that.

TSR really managed to captured lightning in a bottle. I have to admit that I do feel a bit badly for piling on to TSR all the time. Running a company isn't easy and I imagine finding such great success so quickly can make things especially challenging. i.e. It's hard to learn from bad business decisions when they don't seem to be affecting your bottom line. For all the hate Lorraine Williams gets, she was a financial planner who knew what she was doing and may have saved the company when she took over following the exodus of the Blums and Gygax.

I hadn't heard about Rose Estes filing a lawsuit against TSR, but I'm not surprised. Between this and accounts from Linda Lowery and Jean Wells, TSR back then didn't always do right by the women employed there.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Apple of all companies was mere months from declaring bankruptcy in 1997. For TSR, going from hobbyist game designers to running a multimillion dollar company was probably a shock, and something they just didn't have the skills for.

As I've said before, Lorraine Williams' general silence on her time at TSR has enabled her to be cast as the villain in many people's narratives, when the truth is more complex than that.



I hadn't heard about Rose Estes filing a lawsuit against TSR, but I'm not surprised. Between this and accounts from Linda Lowery and Jean Wells, TSR back then didn't always do right by the women employed there.

Well reasoned assumptions.

 

[David Howery]

For all the hate Lorraine Williams gets, she was a financial planner who knew what she was doing and may have saved the company when she took over following the exodus of the Blums and Gygax.

I'm sure the company benefited from some real financial knowledge/business management at the top... but... didn't she also drive one of the nails into TSR's coffin by demanding that they license Buck Rogers (which then sold miserably, AIUI)?

 

[Rob Kuntz]

I'm sure the company benefited from some real financial knowledge/business management at the top... but... didn't she also drive one of the nails into TSR's coffin by demanding that they license Buck Rogers (which then sold miserably, AIUI)?

True. She also pursued Gary and his Dangerous Journeys deal with GDW and sued, ultimately causing the latter's ruin. This is why WotC owns all DJ properties as noted up thread.

 

[MGibster]

I'm sure the company benefited from some real financial knowledge/business management at the top... but... didn't she also drive one of the nails into TSR's coffin by demanding that they license Buck Rogers (which then sold miserably, AIUI)?

Don't get me wrong. As CEO, Williams was responsible for leading the company into a financially tenuous situation with serious cash flow problems and an inability to respond to changes in market forces. I don't really know how costly Buck Rogers was for TSR as a whole. Williams very often plays the role of the villain in the story of TSR, a bugbear if you will, where her failures are highlighted. It's rare to find a narrative where she's given any credit for turning the company around in the 80s nor for the number of years they thrived under her leadership. And I include myself as being rather dismissive of her work at TSR but I think it might be time to reassess Williams' tenure there.

 

[MGibster]

True. She also pursued Gary and his Dangerous Journeys deal with GDW and sued, ultimately causing the latter's ruin. This is why WotC owns all DJ properties as noted up thread.

She may have done the world a favor by limiting the amount of damage Dangerous Journeys could do by preventing it from running free.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

She may have done the world a favor by limiting the amount of damage Dangerous Journeys could do by preventing it from running free.

Urm. It broke a long established (1975) GDW and ended Chadwick's top-flight multi-award winning game company, so I cannot concur. I get the ironic twist but...