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...

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."


They also sued WotC once!
 
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Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.
Rob Kuntz

Rob Kuntz

Hero
Paragon Lost said:
This. I was so pissed off when they broke GDW. I don't pretend to be a lawyer but I wonder if a lawsuit of that nature would go anywhere today. I recall flipping through DJ at the time of it's release and I didn't feel that the lawsuit had any merit at the time.
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In discussing the aftermath with Gary he said that the judge ruling on the matter had no experience with adjudicating IP cases. Thus the matter fell to TSR outspending GDW's lawyers with their spurious arguments. The amount that GDW spent has been reported as high as $600.000, though I'm suspect of that figure. Chadwick (and other GDW alum), who still lives, would have the info on that. GDW was a great company and I owned many of their board games
 
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Cergorach

Cergorach

The Laughing One
fearsomepirate said:
The major ethical problem in this case has to do with TSR's creditors. A corporation is a legally separate entity from its owners. If I am the sole owner and CEO of a corporation, even as the sole owner, any debt it takes on is not my debt. If it goes bankrupt, I can't lose my house, my car, my boat, my personal secret moon base, etc. That's why I can't just go to the bank, have the corporation take out a $5m loan, and buy myself a yacht. The bank can't repo the yacht. That money has to be used for company purposes. I also can't just pay myself a $5m bonus, or give myself a $5m raise, just on my own decision. That's why, in theory, the board is supposed to review any company activity that could benefit me. It's not just about protecting shareholders. It's also about protecting creditors.
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I'm wondering, here in the Netherlands a company CEO can be held personally liable if he/she 'improperly' managed the company. That sounds great in theory, in practice that is often difficult to prove... Is there something similar in the US? Or is this only with criminal actions as CEO?
 

fearsomepirate

fearsomepirate

Hero
Cergorach said:
I'm wondering, here in the Netherlands a company CEO can be held personally liable if he/she 'improperly' managed the company. That sounds great in theory, in practice that is often difficult to prove... Is there something similar in the US? Or is this only with criminal actions as CEO?
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It is extremely difficult to hold a CEO personally liable for anything, even criminal actions. A lot of securities & antitrust law is basically dead letter, as American jurisprudence tends to favor the most relaxed possible reading. The reasons for this aren't all bad, as we want companies to be able to take risks and innovate, which means being allowed to make bad decisions. In the current example, yes, we do want a company to be legally allowed to make a bad decision about licensing an IP. But we also don't want a company to be used as a legal shell game to move money into the CEO's bank account and leave creditors holding the bag. In practice, this is easier said than done.
 

MGibster

MGibster

Legend
Cergorach said:
I'm wondering, here in the Netherlands a company CEO can be held personally liable if he/she 'improperly' managed the company. That sounds great in theory, in practice that is often difficult to prove... Is there something similar in the US? Or is this only with criminal actions as CEO?
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Sure, we have the Securities Act of 1933 and I'm sure we've got other laws. Bruce Wayne secretly using Wayne Tech money to fund his spelunking activities would actually violate several laws. But generally speaking, making bad business decisions isn't illegal.
 

C

Cameron Guill

Villager
Am I the only one who enjoy the insane complexity of DJ when it came out? It is rough by today's standards, but back then it had some cool new ideas (at least to a broke teenager). I ran games and people enjoyed them.

Back on topic, I remember reading that the DJ lawsuits was more a spite suit than anything else.
 

RealAlHazred

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
MGibster said:
Sure, we have the Securities Act of 1933 and I'm sure we've got other laws. Bruce Wayne secretly using Wayne Tech money to fund his spelunking activities would actually violate several laws. But generally speaking, making bad business decisions isn't illegal.
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Listen, don't get me started on that Wayne hack. If he spent his billions on improving the infrastructure of Gotham and providng steady salaries and benefits to the working class people of the city, psychopaths like the Joker and the Penguin would rapidly find it hard to hire lackeys to do their crazy schemes!

... I kid, I love the Batman. But I have a hard time disapproving of that hot take.
 
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Orius

Orius

Legend
TSR earned the whole "They Sue Regularly" moniker as well as the acronym T$R from the whole crackdown on early fan websites and other online material.

As for Williams' legacy, that's a bit more murky. Arguably, there might be some sexism involved with some of the disdain she gets from fans, but she was also known to have a very negative view of her core customer base, so she earned some of that disdain. The Buck Rogers stuff may not have been outright illegal but it was definitely questionable and shady. And there was what was little more than harassment of Gary after he left TSR and attempted to continue working in the RPG field. Those suits against GDW may have been something of a Pyrrhic victory for Williams and/or TSR, because it cost them money at the time they really couldn't afford and to do little more than spite Gary.
 

Henry

Henry

Autoexreginated
Cameron Guill said:
Am I the only one who enjoy the insane complexity of DJ when it came out? It is rough by today's standards, but back then it had some cool new ideas (at least to a broke teenager). I ran games and people enjoyed them.

Back on topic, I remember reading that the DJ lawsuits was more a spite suit than anything else.
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Oh, absolutely - I liked the ideas it had - it was just execution that was rough, IMO. But to this day I would still say there was no merit to the legal case - Lotus lost to Microsoft over more “look and feel” and “user experience” with spreadsheets than DJ and D&D had in common. Heck, Rolemaster would have had a bigger beef than TSR, frankly.
 

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