TSR The Dreams in Gary's Basement

[Clint_L]

The source for that quote ISN'T Frank. That's the quote they produced when they said they couldn't verify Frank's claim about Jimi Hendrix, but they did find multiple TSR alum sources said that about her trophies of employees she'd fired.

So again, how many sources is enough before people are not harassed for considering the possibility it might be a true claim? Give me a number. Or do you need to personally vet each source before people can freely consider the possibility without it being implied they're wrong for doing so?

Gonna push back. No one on this thread is being harassed for considering the possibility it might be a true claim. However, it does seem implausible, and I think it is not great to spread rumours about people based on hearsay. It seems like one of those stories that might or might not have a kernel of truth in there somewhere but has grown in the telling, the way gossip inevitably does.

Writing this from the perspective of a high school teacher. The rumour mill is ridiculous. And I'm not just talking about teenagers.

 

[Parmandur]

Gonna push back. No one on this thread is being harassed for considering the possibility it might be a true claim. However, it does seem implausible, and I think it is not great to spread rumours about people based on hearsay. It seems like one of those stories that might or might not have a kernel of truth in there somewhere but has grown in the telling, the way gossip inevitably does.

Writing this from the perspective of a high school teacher. The rumour mill is ridiculous. And I'm not just talking about teenagers.

I don't even think it is implausible: I just want names and specific details for it to matter.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't even think it is implausible: I just want names and specific details for it to matter.

Right. I could believe it, I just want to know it's not something that is coming from someone who hates her and nowhere else. That would lead me to be dubious.

 

[DarkCrisis]

It is true that Lorraine Williams could be difficult to work with. We have plenty of first-hand accounts. It is also true that she did many kind things. We have plenty of first-hand accounts. It is definitely true that almost every ex-employee who worked for both and has gone on the record preferred the Williams regime over the previous one at TSR.

People are complicated. There are few real life supervillains or superheroes. And there is more than a hint of misogyny in many of the anti-Williams diatribes. One thing I will say is that there is abundant evidence (c.f. Jon Peterson) that TSR dies in 1985 without Lorraine Williams, and I am thankful she kept it going long enough for WotC to buy it.

Going back to the OP, if the documentary is high enough quality, it would be pretty cool for WotC to make a distribution deal with the creator and offer it as a link via DnDBeyond. I would love to see DDB offer archival material as part of the free membership; I think that would be great for the hobby.

Yeah at the end of the day she kept TSR going for a few more years and we got some great products. So a net positive.

I do wonder how things would have played out if Gary hadn't been removed and kept control. How would he have righted the ship? Sold it to some other gaming company while keeping a designer job or management job? AD&D 3E?

 

[Mistwell]

The difference here is we have a trail thanks to Ben Riggs. He cites John Rateliff for the statement that people preferred working under her to Gygax and the Blumes. The other story you're peddling is, until you put us on a real trail, is apocryphal.

One guy said hundreds of employees said X, and that's taken as gospel, and a known documentarian says several sources said X and that's taken as false until proven true?

 

[Mistwell]

Gonna push back. No one on this thread is being harassed for considering the possibility it might be a true claim.

Yeah, we are. It's what made me finally respond. If you think a pile-on of people Sea Lioning for sources from a documentarian's claim he has sources isn't a form of harassment, I disagree. The ongoing increased level of "name your sources" is in fact a pretty well trod form of online harassment.

John Rateliff is not a "better" or "more extensive" source than the producers of this documentary (Pat Kilbane, James Lowder, Jon Peterson), particularly when John makes a claim about what hundreds of people said without naming names or providing copies of interviews with those people. But the standard applied is not just "name names" but "what exactly did they say" and even then "show me the interviews" for this claim the documentary filmmakers claimed to have multiple sources about a specific aspect of one person. That's exactly what Sea Lion level harassment looks like. It's intended to shut off the conversation with that distraction, particularly when it's done in numbers like it's being done right now.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Alright, if you're going to insist on throwing around terms like "harassing" and "sea lioning" and inferring my argument is based on throwing out the sexism card rather than an actual point, that's just too many red flags for me. I'm out and won't engage any further. Trying to be better in 2024...

 

[billd91]

One guy said hundreds of employees said X, and that's taken as gospel, and a known documentarian says several sources said X and that's taken as false until proven true?

See, the thing here is I was able to produce a name right away for people to go to while you were just casting vague aspersions about the more measured view of Lorraine Williams until your very last post when you finally pulled some concrete names up (though at the same level as Ben Riggs not as drilled in as John Rateliff).
So if you feel raw about any of this, maybe you should consider how YOU set the tone.

 

[Alzrius]

For me, the big "I didn't know that" moment was Flint Dille's discussion of the Scepter of Seven Souls project. According to him, Flint and Gary were working on this project (unclear whether it was going to be a movie or a series) that would've followed the protagonists as they travelled from one TSR world to another (e.g., from D&D to Boot Hill to Top Secret and so on). I tend to take things Dille says with a grain of salt, however.

He talks more about that in his memoir, The Gamesmaster: Almost Famous in the Geek '80s.

 

[Parmandur]

One guy said hundreds of employees said X, and that's taken as gospel, and a known documentarian says several sources said X and that's taken as false until proven true?

Honestly, I think the Hendrix story is pretty hilarious, and not in a way that reflects poorly on Williams particularly. I would need more information on what these supposed "trophies" even are for the tidbit to mean much of anything.