D&D General Lorraine Williams: Is it Time for a Reevaluation?

[Dausuul]

No.

There is a reason why we have a distinction between "for-profit" and "non-profit" corporations. Again, this isn't supposed to veer from the topic of TTRPGs, and I had to simplify, but corporations (in America, I can't speak to every place in the world) exist to maximize shareholder value. A return of profit for their shareholders.

Anything else is ancillary. That is the purpose of a corporation.

...I can't respond to this in a broad sense without crossing the line into politics. So, I'll stick to the part I agree with: It is not unethical for the owner of a corporation to run it with an eye to their own profit, and this applies to Lorraine Williams and Buck Rogers.

Whether it's a good idea is another question.

 

[Voadam]

No.

There is a reason why we have a distinction between "for-profit" and "non-profit" corporations.* Again, this isn't supposed to veer from the topic of TTRPGs, and I had to simplify, but corporations (in America, I can't speak to every place in the world) exist to maximize shareholder value. A return of profit for their shareholders.

Anything else is ancillary. That is the purpose of a corporation.


*EDIT- such as charities, foundations, and the like.

Second edit- I said I would bow out after my two comments, so I will.

Definitionally purpose would depend on the actor.

A shareholder could become a shareholder to maximize their investment return. They could also do so for other purposes such as to influence the company in specific ways through their ownership control. Investment return could be one of multiple purposes behind why someone becomes a shareholder or owner.

I feel a better view of the general purpose of a corporation is from the perspective of society in general (which generally includes a purpose of providing desired stuff and wealth generation) and not just shareholder profit maximization.

I am happy to leave off this line of discussion as well however.

 

[Deset Gled]

Because the more I think about it, the more actual evidence I see, the more I realize that parroting the words of older gamers about her ... is not a good look for me.

I don't feel like a lot of your evidence is what I would call evidence.

Take the Jose Freitas story you've brought up multiple times. "I remember her throwing a fit at GenCon (92 or 93, can't remember) because some girls were in a bikini chain mail suit, and she was on a roll and badmouthed and cursed gamers (loudly!) for at least ten minutes."

You want this to be evidence that she was fighting the good fight about girls in chainmail bikinis. And maybe that was what started her anger. But you have ignored the part where she badmouthed at cursed at her customer base (at a convention!) for 10 minutes. That's not evidence of standing up for principles, that's going full Karen. What you are doing is re-inventing the narrative. Taking a first hand account from someone who was there, someone who is a member of these boards, and saying their experience wasn't real.

What I also see is a complete lack of evidence in this thead about the good she did. You want to re-evaluate her policies, like playtesting? Great. Tell me about what policies she set that had positive impact. You want to talk about things she did to expand D&D? Awesome. Tell me what lines she pushed for and which lines she pulled back on, and we'll talk about the impact. I know that these things exist. But so far all the "evidence" seems to be attacking the stories from people who worked at TSR, not adding new information.

On the other hand, imagine you own a company. If you make a decision to enrich yourself (say, by increasing your dividends instead of the salaries of the employees), that might or might or not be a good business decision, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. The entire purpose of the corporation is to make money for ... the owners of the company.

This just makes me feel dirty. As a partial owner of a company, I would like to oust anyone else from the corporation that shares this mentality.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Part 2- Why I have begun to re-think the Lorraine Williams Saga.

So this is a general response and addition in regard to some of the comments (some thoughtful, some ... well, I don't agree with) in the thread. Why? What brought me to this point, other than reading Peterson's book (causing me to re-evaluate the ouster)?

A brief interlude. When I was growing up, it was common to bike everywhere. I remember it as a time of unfettered freedom. Think of it like Stranger Things (maybe a little earlier time, but same gist). Day or night, I could be on a bike, out somewhere. Anywhere. Sometimes in packs of kids, sometimes alone. It was awesome. It is one of my most treasured childhood memories.

So I was talking to a friend of mine. She grew up in the same place. Same time. And we were discussing biking. And she agreed it was great, but she said that she never, ever, biked alone at night, and wouldn't even bike alone in remote areas. And I was kind of stunned- because, you know, it was safe, right? But she explained that there were older men in some areas that would catcall and harass girls. Middle school girls. And she just felt that lack of safety. Thing is- I never knew that. I had no idea. I just assumed everything was the exact same, because ... why wouldn't it be? But from a young age, her experience was already very different than mine (in a lot of ways, I know, but I'm just pointing this one out).

And now I think about Lorraine Williams. And I think about these older posts people are pointing to as definitive evidence of how bad she was. Like the one Desert Gled linked to, by Mike Breault. Why? Well, Desert Gled wanted to push back against the possibility that Lorraine might not have liked "bikini clad" girls at a convention, so he quotes Breault as saying that Lorraine called a woman a fat cow.

But is that true- what Breault actually said to begin that quote was, "I did not witness this but was told it independently by two higher-ups whom I trusted" Okay then! So, maybe? Could be true, could be urban myth. Who knows?

But what else do we see Breault say?
"This is rather cruel but I will pass it along, considering my audience. One Christmas party, Lorraine announced she was eight months pregnant. While we all politely applauded, you could see all the stunned looks in the room; almost no one knew. Did I mention she was a large woman?

"

Ha! She was fat! Get it? In her list of horribles that he is producing, no one liked her, and so it was funny when she told the company at a Christmas Party that she was pregnant, because she was so fat! Ha! That's so funny!

I can't even.

And that's where we get to the root of the issue I'm having. We have a female executive in the 80s and 90s. That's not easy. And ... she was the executive of a gaming company! I mean... wow. Okay.

Now, let's imagine, for a second, just imagine ... that the gaming community back then was somewhat male-dominate. Somewhat insular. Maybe just a little ... I know it's hard, but work with me. And the head of THE gaming company is a woman.

Imagine the pushback she would have received. After a while, I think she might not have been very fond of all those people mocking her. Giving her lip. Talking down to her. "Man"splaining things about the business. And yet, when you read many accounts that discuss individual and personal dealings with Lorraine, you usually see something along these lines (by Jose Freitas)-
These are my opinions based on stuff I heard from a lot of the insiders, they may not be entirely true and as usual one's perception of reality is skewed by the people we know, those we call friends and so on. To me, Ms. Williams was always unfailingly nice and polite, even though the 2000 or 3000$ royalties per year my company was sending her were probably close to insignificant.

And then you have the received opinions, most of which are rumors upon rumors, or don't look that great in the light of day.


This isn't a request for canonization. This doesn't minimize the eventual failure of TSR under watch. But my goodness, we really might need to re-evaluate this vilification. Because the more I think about it, the more actual evidence I see, the more I realize that parroting the words of older gamers about her ... is not a good look for me.

YMMV.

This. I won't lie, I had a lot of animus against LW for a long time. Because I heard all these things and believed them.

Then Gamergate happened, and I saw how a huge swath of our community reacted towards women.
Then I saw comments on forums like Dragonsfoot by posters who made fun of her appearance, rather than what she actually did
Then I saw how many of the complaints about her were hearsay without any actual evidence, and in fact, counter evidence came out.
Then I saw how today, in the year 2021, how gamers are still reacting towards women and other disparately treated minority groups.
Then I think, "Self, if all these toxic attitudes are still going on today, just imagine what she had to deal with in the 80s?"

so yeah, while I think it's clear she made some serious mistakes, and absolutely should be taken to task for those, she shouldn't be treated unfairly for things there isn't any proof of, and I am 100% positive that many of those complaints and rumors were because she was a woman in charge and that's it, because we have a mountain of evidence just how toxic many gamers were, and still are.

Edit: Here's an example. This was from yesterday. Wesley happened to post a review for Chromatic Dungeons, and this shining star decided to comment on it. Short version? Unless white men are still the centerpiece of a game, then it's not really diverse and just pandering to SJWs. This happened yesterday, not 1986. Attitudes like this were the norm, rather than exception, in the 80s, so forgive me if I take a lot of the criticism she faces with a grain of salt.

 

[Voadam]

I think the key here is the market value to the two parties of the self-dealing.

If the Buck Rogers license was just one licensed property treated the same as other licensed properties that does not seem inappropriate, it is just leveraging a connection to a property.

So if 2e era Buck Rogers licensing was treated the same as 2e Lankhmar licensing that seems not a villainous thing to do at all and worthy of no opprobrium.

Self dealing though provides an incentive for non-market rates and negotiations and a reason to be skeptical of whether the market value is the same as if it was an open market negotiation between two separate entities.

If the Buck Rogers licensing deals had different terms and actions from TSR that favored payouts to the Buck Rogers estate this would be reason to say Williams was inappropriately exploiting TSR to enrich herself and worthy of opprobrium.

There is not going to be an easy direct public source on the terms of the deals.

So is it plausible that a majority shareholder would use a self-dealing opportunity to enrich themself more than market rates in one deal and product line? Alternatively did she act above board in setting up a standard pareto optimal license deal without using the opportunity to exploit the company for her personal maximized enrichment and the stories alleging the non-market rate deal and production actions are based on telephone hearsay distortion further modified by sexism?

 

[David Howery]

. Whenever Gygax is brought up, do people reflexively say "OH MY GOD, LOOK AT ALL THE SELF-DEALING!"

again, I have to ask... is anyone here claiming EGG was a good business manager and did a good job managing TSR when he was in charge? Even when I was just starting out in D&D way back during his management, I thought he wasn't all that great. My general impression of him was always 'good idea man, not so great businessman'....

 

[Sacrosanct]

again, I have to ask... is anyone here claiming EGG was a good business manager and did a good job managing TSR when he was in charge? Even when I was just starting out in D&D way back during his management, I thought he wasn't all that great. My general impression of him was always 'good idea man, not so great businessman'....

I don't think anyone is arguing that. What people are saying is that LW has been blamed for the downfall of TSR for doing things that Gary did worse, and the only criticism Gary gets is "well, we never said he was a great businessman."

It's the disparate treatment that people are taking issue with.

 

[David Howery]

I don't think anyone is arguing that. What people are saying is that LW has been blamed for the downfall of TSR for doing things that Gary did worse, and the only criticism Gary gets is "well, we never said he was a great businessman."

It's the disparate treatment that people are taking issue with.

To me, they always seemed guilty of the same things... some nepotism, some bad investments. I've said before though, that LW did bring some needed business savvy to the company, which EGG lacked. Denying that is looking at EGG's management with rose colored glasses. The only good part of EGG's term was his connection with the creative part of it; he wrote some of the most iconic parts of the early game. Still, LW's detachment from the creative part and letting the creative people do their thing on their own while she focused on the management part was likely the better way to run the company...

 

[Deset Gled]

This. I won't lie, I had a lot of animus against LW for a long time. Because I heard all these things and believed them.

Then Gamergate happened, ... Attitudes like this were the norm, rather than exception, in the 80s, so forgive me if I take a lot of the criticism she faces with a grain of salt.

Adding to my post above, I should add note I agree that the business world at large (and the gaming world specifically) was not particularly fair to women when LW was in charge (or now, for that matter). But that doesn't excuse a lot of the history, for many reasons.

First, I think it's possible to be discriminated against and also be a jerk. Just like my earlier post said, I am fine embracing both simultaneously. And IMNSHO the evidence for her being abrasive and narcissistic is too strong to completely file it under misogyny.

Second, no amount of bigotry justifies shady business dealings. The Buck Rogers stuff has been brought up a few times already. How the movie rights to D&D were handled is another one we haven't brought up yet. I'd have to dig to find more info, but here's the easiest quick link I could find: The Long, Sordid History of D&D Movie Rights I am sure there are others we haven't discussed yet, and none of it can be hidden behind her gender.

And finally (I could be wrong on this point) my understanding is that LW was able to obtain her leadership role at TSR because of money she inherited, not money she earned. Maybe it's not completely fair, but this changes my view of hardships that she faced in the business world. Now, she did start at TSR at a more basic level, and she deserves credit for entering the way she did, both on merit of her financial skills and as a female who was likely discriminated against. But she didn't fight her way to the top, she bought her ticket there with family money. And IMNSHO, that puts her in the category of people who are handed (a chance at) success, not those who earned it while battling discrimination.

 

[Voadam]

The only good part of EGG's term was his connection with the creative part of it; he wrote some of the most iconic parts of the early game.

And turned it from a personal game into an actual product and a company. That is a bit more than just the creative writing part.