vecna00
Speculation Specialist Wizard
I always find it a little weird (I don't know if that's the right word) when learning about the things that were happening to TSR as a company. Especially during the days that I was most actively gaming in high school. My group and I were just blissfully unaware of everything that was happening and just eagerly awaiting the next cool book.I missed the worst of it, stepping away from the hobby in the mid 90s. When I came back, Wizards was the new owner. But between looking at Usenet archives and listening to the Plot Points podcast, it's easy to piece together a grim picture. Yes, people on the internet will always complain, but TSR's name really seemed like it was absolute mud back then.
One wonders what would've happened if Wizards' hadn't been there to pick up the ball. While some people like to fantasize about D&D having reverted to Gary Gygax or some small (the unsaid part adds "less woke" in a lot of those fantasies) company purchasing the rights, it was only ever going to be a choice between another large company buying it or the game fading away, considering how much those rights were going to sell for. People would've likely just kept playing using those old books for a long while, but one wonders what the world would be like without both D&D and the OGL.
Wizards has kept the torch burning and now burning brighter than ever.
I do wonder how I would have felt knowing what was going on at the time.