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!

 

[MGibster]

I'll push back against the idea that TSR starting a Buck Rogers product line was a bad idea. At least, the first Buck product line (Buck Rogers XXVC), the later revamped one (High Adventures Cliffhangers) was terrible IMO. The XXVC products were ultimately not successful, but so have been many other product lines. New RPGs come and go all the time, Buck Rogers was just a little more high profile. Buck Rogers is a classic sci-fi property ripe for a reimagining, both back then and still today.

I was thinking along similar lines. Buck Rogers was a household name and just a few years earlier we had the glorious television series starring Gil Gerard and Erin Gray (rawr) that ran from 1979-1981. As hard as it is to believe, by 1985 with no new movies on the horizon and the Kenner line of toys ceasing production, Star Wars was essentially dead. Buck Rogers wasn't a bad property to base a new game off of.

Back in the day, I read all the XXVC novels, had the board game, and the RPG boxed set and LOVED IT ALL. None of my friends wanted to play the XXVC game sadly, but I still have that problem today when trying to get friends to play anything other than D&D. The reimagined Buck Rogers universe for the XXVC game was pretty awesome, IMO. Why was it ultimately unsuccessful? Who knows? Marketing? Only DireBare loved it? Everybody else was playing Star Wars?

I can't even recall seeing it on the shelves at the local game store though it must have been there. I don't know anyone who owned it let alone played it. We did play a lot of Star Wars though.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Back in the day, I was the only kid I knew who even knew what Buck Rogers was, and that was because I found an anthology on my granddad's bookshelf that he gave to me. It really isn't just hindsight. Buck Rogers in the 1980s was a nostalgia brand for the WW2 generation; there was no question of whether Star Wars or Buck Rogers were bigger, particularly with kids. The basic problem is, even if you own a corporation outright, like Williams did, you can't legally do stuff like have it take out loans and just give you money. But what you can have it do license an IP you own, and take out loans to finance the creation of products from which you reap up-front royalty payments. From what I've read, Williams didn't receive royalties primarily based on sales; she received them based on the size of print runs. So basically she'd found a way to get herself massive cash advances from a product that didn't sell. And when it all blew up, well, the liabilities were TSR's, not hers.

Yes. It seems that Williams was no better than the prior leadership. On top of it all, it was really the Random House distribution deal returns that broke their back for good.

 

[Stormonu]

I still have my copy of the Buck Roger games, though I have not yet convinced anyone to play it. I originally had purchased it on the nostalgia of the TV show, and reading through it found it interesting on its own.

Still, it’s easy to see that while what Williams did with publishing it through TSR was legal, the way it was handled was very immoral. And, as the guiding hand at the tiller, her disdain for her own customers was readily apparent.

 

[Voadam]

From the covers I thought the Buck Rogers RPG was based on the comic and not the 80s show. None of the covers looked anything like the TV show the way that the TSR Indiana Jones ones did.

 

[Stormonu]

The Buck Rogers game was a re-imagining of the comic, definately - it had nothing to do with the TV version. However, my only previous interactions had been with the TV Show, so the familiarity with the name itself got me interested enough to pick it up.

The background and story is, to me, very interesting. However, I think the gameplay mechanics weren’t that great. I’m betting the reason it never got off the ground was that it was a bit of “WTF - why didn’t they bring back Star Frontiers instead?”

 

[darjr]

why didn’t they bring back Star Frontiers

Why indeed?!

 

[Sithlord]

I loved buck rogers with Gil Gerard. First season definitely better than the second.

 

[Voadam]

My memories from 30 years ago say there was evocative TV Buck stuff for RPGs.

 

[darjr]

That second guy was definitely appropriated for other sci fi. I have spoken.

 

[MGibster]

My memories from 30 years ago say there was evocative TV Buck stuff for RPGs.

No memories of Princess Ardala?