Henry
Autoexreginated
John:
Hi!
I'll see if I can answer as best I can, having lived through most of it from the outside looking in. All of the below info I have gleaned through multiple message board discussions, with comments from Ryan Dancey, Sean Reynolds, Monte Cook, Keith Strohm, and many others who were "in the trenches" at the time.
First of all, Ryan Dancey's excellent article tells a good part of the story. It affected me so much with its candor and openness that I have it saved on my hard drive.
From the mid 1980's until 1997, TSR was controlled by CEO Lorraine Williams and a small board of directors. Many disparaged their management tactics, because from the outside, it looks as though they (a) had no desire to run an RPG company, (b) were very sensitive to many minor fundamentalist groups, and made changes in an effort to please said groups while displeasing most gamers, (c) had little concern or respect for their consumers' opinion, and (d) ignored the general trending of the Gaming Market totally.
When WotC took over TSR in 1997, they were exceedingly flush with cash from Magic the Gathering, and were just prior to the Pokemon Craze of the late 1990's. Things were not only good, they were INSANELY good for WotC. It's why they had somewhere between 500 and 1000 employees from 1999 to 2001.
They were faced with the challenge of taking a company with almost NO valuable assets, an unpaid staff, tons of bills, and a potential goldmine of I.P. that had lost a lot of market share
the past 6 years.
They announced 3E at Gencon 1999. I was in the audience at the time, and the enthusiasm was nothing less than deafening. (At the time, there was even hope that Gary would be able to do some work for WotC - however, it turned out to go not further than the Editorials in Dragon Magazine.)
WotC released several 2E products, including Chris Pramas' Guide to Hell, the module Paladin in Hell, The "Return to" series (Tomb of Horrors, Against the Giants, Slavers), the Rod of Seven Parts Megaadventure by Skip Williams, the Aforementioned Die Vecna, Die! and Apocalypse Stone, and several modules through the RPG, as well as some Greyhawk reference material for 2E - two darned good books.
Hope this helps a little!
Hi!
I'll see if I can answer as best I can, having lived through most of it from the outside looking in. All of the below info I have gleaned through multiple message board discussions, with comments from Ryan Dancey, Sean Reynolds, Monte Cook, Keith Strohm, and many others who were "in the trenches" at the time.
First of all, Ryan Dancey's excellent article tells a good part of the story. It affected me so much with its candor and openness that I have it saved on my hard drive.
From the mid 1980's until 1997, TSR was controlled by CEO Lorraine Williams and a small board of directors. Many disparaged their management tactics, because from the outside, it looks as though they (a) had no desire to run an RPG company, (b) were very sensitive to many minor fundamentalist groups, and made changes in an effort to please said groups while displeasing most gamers, (c) had little concern or respect for their consumers' opinion, and (d) ignored the general trending of the Gaming Market totally.
When WotC took over TSR in 1997, they were exceedingly flush with cash from Magic the Gathering, and were just prior to the Pokemon Craze of the late 1990's. Things were not only good, they were INSANELY good for WotC. It's why they had somewhere between 500 and 1000 employees from 1999 to 2001.
They were faced with the challenge of taking a company with almost NO valuable assets, an unpaid staff, tons of bills, and a potential goldmine of I.P. that had lost a lot of market share
the past 6 years.
They announced 3E at Gencon 1999. I was in the audience at the time, and the enthusiasm was nothing less than deafening. (At the time, there was even hope that Gary would be able to do some work for WotC - however, it turned out to go not further than the Editorials in Dragon Magazine.)
WotC released several 2E products, including Chris Pramas' Guide to Hell, the module Paladin in Hell, The "Return to" series (Tomb of Horrors, Against the Giants, Slavers), the Rod of Seven Parts Megaadventure by Skip Williams, the Aforementioned Die Vecna, Die! and Apocalypse Stone, and several modules through the RPG, as well as some Greyhawk reference material for 2E - two darned good books.
Hope this helps a little!
