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 A&Eand Abyss. As for TSR, the founder of our industry: as wags have put it: they sue regularly."

Advanced Designers & Dragons #47: TSR Connections: Licenses & Lawsuits - RPGnet

They also sued WotC once!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think this seriously understimates the tolerance of the gaming public at the time for relatively dense rules. Keep in mind this was the 80's, and that was about as common as not during that period.



There were definitely some problems, but again, I think you're underestimating things like how much attraction their could be to its colorful (if, as you say, overly risky) magic system and the way the skills were presented as quasi-professions.

Again, I think its easy to say in hindsight that it wasn't likely to go anywhere, but I don't think that was at all clear at the time.

Eh, I think people were willing to give it a try. The problem was, it had to be REALLY good if it was going to compete with D&D, T&T, and RQ, which between them pretty well scratched most player's itches as far as Fantasy went. Mechanically it was both dense (and I was a wargamer from way back, and even I found the language less appealing than D&D to read) and simply mediocre. Rolemaster already existed, being published as a full set around the same time. It did the whole professions thing rather better.

So, it was not at all a bad game, but it was never going to make much headway in the FRPG space. The ways which seem to have succeeded were either GURPS (could do anything, so it attracted a decent player base), or something like Skyrealms of Jorune which simply offered a very unique take on fantasy, playing against the tropes of D&D pretty much deliberately, but both of those were 5 years later. I guess it took a while for guys like Steve to figure out that formula.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Eh, I think people were willing to give it a try. The problem was, it had to be REALLY good if it was going to compete with D&D, T&T, and RQ, which between them pretty well scratched most player's itches as far as Fantasy went. Mechanically it was both dense (and I was a wargamer from way back, and even I found the language less appealing than D&D to read) and simply mediocre. Rolemaster already existed, being published as a full set around the same time. It did the whole professions thing rather better.

So, it was not at all a bad game, but it was never going to make much headway in the FRPG space. The ways which seem to have succeeded were either GURPS (could do anything, so it attracted a decent player base), or something like Skyrealms of Jorune which simply offered a very unique take on fantasy, playing against the tropes of D&D pretty much deliberately, but both of those were 5 years later. I guess it took a while for guys like Steve to figure out that formula.

Runequest's strengths also included a weakness; the default setting for the game was just foreign enough that a lot of people attracted to D&D were going to find its Iron Age barbarian-hero vibe harder to engage with than D&D and DQ's pseudo-medieval one. T&T had some virtues, but if you wanted any mechanical engagement there you weren't going to find it, and a lot of people perceived it as silly. Rolemaster had the whole charts-everywhere thing working against it.

DQ had its problems (as I said, the SPI-wargame style rules arrangement wasn't going to go well with people not already used to it, and the magic-blows-up-in-your-face thing was absolutely a problem) but on the surface of it it didn't have the kinds of issues the above games all did. In terms of assessing the willingness of people to engage with it, that all matters.

(A more relevant counter, I suspect, would be to ask why it was perceived by some as a serious competitor while The Fantasy Trip wasn't, but I suspect that had to do with the difference in prominence between SPI and Metagaming).

 

[Rich Ostorero]

In an early 80s edition of SJ Games' house organ Space Gamer, they ran a contest to create a table for RPGish things. Entries included a pizza generation table and one titled "Table Left Unnamed At The Insistence Of Our Lawyer" - Entries included "They Sue Regularly," "Total Staff Resignation," and "Terribly Silly Rules."

Ahhh, memories!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Runequest's strengths also included a weakness; the default setting for the game was just foreign enough that a lot of people attracted to D&D were going to find its Iron Age barbarian-hero vibe harder to engage with than D&D and DQ's pseudo-medieval one. T&T had some virtues, but if you wanted any mechanical engagement there you weren't going to find it, and a lot of people perceived it as silly. Rolemaster had the whole charts-everywhere thing working against it.

DQ had its problems (as I said, the SPI-wargame style rules arrangement wasn't going to go well with people not already used to it, and the magic-blows-up-in-your-face thing was absolutely a problem) but on the surface of it it didn't have the kinds of issues the above games all did. In terms of assessing the willingness of people to engage with it, that all matters.

(A more relevant counter, I suspect, would be to ask why it was perceived by some as a serious competitor while The Fantasy Trip wasn't, but I suspect that had to do with the difference in prominence between SPI and Metagaming).

Well, TFT just wasn't really presented as a full-on RPG. Certainly not at first, as it was simply a couple of very basic microgames. SJ kind of got bored/frustrated with it, and Metagaming in general, anyway. He WAS experimenting with RPGs that went beyond TFT around 1980 (there was a thing called 'T.H.E' that they had us playtesting at one point, though I don't recall exactly which people were mostly responsible for it. I never talked to Steve myself). Later, in the mid-80s, my father ran a TFT campaign, there was a bit more material around, but by then MG was gone and GURPS was Steve's baby, so TFT just died.

I am amused though by your analysis of Glorantha! That setting has historically been extremely well-liked, though I can understand saying that a lot of people may not 'get' what it is really about (deep mythic RP, a rather ignored category really). In fact I would venture to say that the main reason RQ still exists as a living game and DQ is dust is at least partly down to the setting. Honestly DQ's setting never got fleshed out much. I think it might have had promise, the implied nature of magic and whatnot could have been pretty interesting. But then we get back to the topic of the thread, TSR killed SPI and pretty much buried DQ. Can't really blame them, they already had D&D, AD&D, and Tekumel out there. I'm surprised they even reprinted it once.

 

[Kimberly Burgess]

True. She also pursued Gary and his Dangerous Journeys deal with GDW and sued, ultimately causing the latter's ruin. This is why WotC owns all DJ properties as noted up thread.

By that point I was really into GDW games, and so ANGRY at TSR. Yes, I paid for Dangerous Journeys and had to rewrite the rules to make it work, but I REALLY LOVED Twilight 2000, 2300AD, Traveller (the in its 3rd edition as The New Era), Space 1889, and really wanted to work there once my enlistment would have ended. I loved AD&D2E and some of its settings, but I had drifted to Sci-Fi over Fantasy and could get my shipmates into it. And then TSR goes and kills GDW and my love for them.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

By that point I was really into GDW games, and so ANGRY at TSR. Yes, I paid for Dangerous Journeys and had to rewrite the rules to make it work, but I REALLY LOVED Twilight 2000, 2300AD, Traveller (the in its 3rd edition as The New Era), Space 1889, and really wanted to work there once my enlistment would have ended. I loved AD&D2E and some of its settings, but I had drifted to Sci-Fi over Fantasy and could get my shipmates into it. And then TSR goes and kills GDW and my love for them.

In my estimation if GDW had not been sued into oblivion they would still be here today and a major player in RPGs and cross-over IP deals. Just reading up on them, Chadwick, their best-sellers streak (IIRC a few on the NYT bestsellers list), their many awards, their great designs, this tells why I feel that way.

 

[Paragon Lost]

Well, TFT just wasn't really presented as a full-on RPG. Certainly not at first, as it was simply a couple of very basic microgames. SJ kind of got bored/frustrated with it, and Metagaming in general, anyway. He WAS experimenting with RPGs that went beyond TFT around 1980 (there was a thing called 'T.H.E' that they had us playtesting at one point, though I don't recall exactly which people were mostly responsible for it. I never talked to Steve myself). Later, in the mid-80s, my father ran a TFT campaign, there was a bit more material around, but by then MG was gone and GURPS was Steve's baby, so TFT just died.

I am amused though by your analysis of Glorantha! That setting has historically been extremely well-liked, though I can understand saying that a lot of people may not 'get' what it is really about (deep mythic RP, a rather ignored category really). In fact I would venture to say that the main reason RQ still exists as a living game and DQ is dust is at least partly down to the setting. Honestly DQ's setting never got fleshed out much. I think it might have had promise, the implied nature of magic and whatnot could have been pretty interesting. But then we get back to the topic of the thread, TSR killed SPI and pretty much buried DQ. Can't really blame them, they already had D&D, AD&D, and Tekumel out there. I'm surprised they even reprinted it once.

It wasn't boredom so much as he lost the rights to TFT. Agreed though that Melee and Wizard were not a true rpg, but instead were a tactical war game.

As to RQ, that indeed was the turn off for many of us back in 78-83. While it's a fascinating world setting, it's also too narrow in it's focus. Most of us who played it adapted it to our own world settings. Or as in my case when Chaosium released Thieves World I quickly went to that as my setting and expanded from there.

Though I ended up swapping to Palladium Fantasy Rpg from 84' until 1986 when GURPS was released. Palladium for my players had more of a AD&D feel but a more fun and active combat system for them and me. DnD always felt unrealistic, restrictive in an annoying sort of way and abstract.

The more active combat play of Palladium made it much easier for me to convince them to try GURPS at the time. Glorantha was more interesting to read than play in my opinion.

Edit: Damn tablet finger typing errors.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am amused though by your analysis of Glorantha! That setting has historically been extremely well-liked, though I can understand saying that a lot of people may not 'get' what it is really about (deep mythic RP, a rather ignored category really). In fact I would venture to say that the main reason RQ still exists as a living game and DQ is dust is at least partly down to the setting.

That's why I said it was a strength and a weakness. The people it attracted it really attracted, but there've always been a fair number of people who it either left cold or actively put off. Its not even a case that they don't "get" it; its that its not what they're looking for. The quality of the setting didn't change that, any more than it did with the more extreme case of Tekumel.

 

[David Howery]

one thing that occurs to me after reading all this... their shenanigans with SPI and GDW were yet more instances of TSR wasting money they couldn't afford. Trying to sell SPI games wasted more. Combined with some other bad money moves, this was something they really should have just left alone.

looking at my (sadly small) collection of wargames, I still have several by GDW (Beda Fomm, Battlefield: Europe, and the four World War Three games) and a couple from SPI (The China War, World War Three). Had more once upon a time, managed to lose a lot of them over the years....

 

[darjr]

Steve Jackson has the rights to TFT back and even has a zine, adventures, and even third party content/Kickstarters which I never thought I’d see.

 

[Paragon Lost]

Steve Jackson has the rights to TFT back and even has a zine, adventures, and even third party content/Kickstarters which I never thought I’d see.

Yes indeed, I backed that Kickstarter. Had to get the "I want it all" deal, with really awesome packaging.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

By that point I was really into GDW games, and so ANGRY at TSR. Yes, I paid for Dangerous Journeys and had to rewrite the rules to make it work, but I REALLY LOVED Twilight 2000, 2300AD, Traveller (the in its 3rd edition as The New Era), Space 1889, and really wanted to work there once my enlistment would have ended. I loved AD&D2E and some of its settings, but I had drifted to Sci-Fi over Fantasy and could get my shipmates into it. And then TSR goes and kills GDW and my love for them.

I don't even really remember being aware of exactly what GDW and TSR were doing. By '96 I'd already tired of 2e entirely and by then Gygax was a guy who'd been basically out of circulation for a decade. Nothing he did post-TSR really registered, it just wasn't, frankly, all that good or relevant to the state of RPGs at that point. He was basically still living in 1980. So I guess none of my group really much registered whatever was going on there, and we'd LONG ago got everything Traveller we ever needed. I did pick up a copy of 2300. Wasn't that impressed, and never did care much for Aftermath and its focus on the minutia of different guns. That game totally fascinated my brother-in-law, so we played a couple times perfunctorily.

Space 1889, OTOH, while a total market flop, was IMHO a brilliant piece of thematic niche RPG design. I guess I loaned my copy out to someone and it got skeefed long ago, but I really liked the milieu. OTOH we just grafted in some hacked Traveller rules to actually play it, the mechanics were pretty 'meh'.

TSR was definitely tainted by the whole 'sues regularly' thing though. I don't think it hurt them much in the 80's, but as time went on the whole attitude seemed to slowly push them into an intellectual corner of the RPG industry. They were weirdly 90% of the money, but 10% of the ideas, and by the time WotC bought them we all just kind of shrugged our shoulders and said to ourselves it was a pity from the nostalgia standpoint, but that D&D would be better off for it. I think overall that is true, WotC has been a pretty good participant in the industry and made a good effort to be part of the game development community and publishing community in a way that TSR rarely managed.

 

[Paragon Lost]

I don't even really remember being aware of exactly what GDW and TSR were doing. By '96 I'd already tired of 2e entirely and by then Gygax was a guy who'd been basically out of circulation for a decade. Nothing he did post-TSR really registered, it just wasn't, frankly, all that good or relevant to the state of RPGs at that point. He was basically still living in 1980. So I guess none of my group really much registered whatever was going on there, and we'd LONG ago got everything Traveller we ever needed. I did pick up a copy of 2300. Wasn't that impressed, and never did care much for Aftermath and its focus on the minutia of different guns. That game totally fascinated my brother-in-law, so we played a couple times perfunctorily.

Space 1889, OTOH, while a total market flop, was IMHO a brilliant piece of thematic niche RPG design. I guess I loaned my copy out to someone and it got skeefed long ago, but I really liked the milieu. OTOH we just grafted in some hacked Traveller rules to actually play it, the mechanics were pretty 'meh'.

TSR was definitely tainted by the whole 'sues regularly' thing though. I don't think it hurt them much in the 80's, but as time went on the whole attitude seemed to slowly push them into an intellectual corner of the RPG industry. They were weirdly 90% of the money, but 10% of the ideas, and by the time WotC bought them we all just kind of shrugged our shoulders and said to ourselves it was a pity from the nostalgia standpoint, but that D&D would be better off for it. I think overall that is true, WotC has been a pretty good participant in the industry and made a good effort to be part of the game development community and publishing community in a way that TSR rarely managed.

Too bad, you missed out on some great GDW rpgs in the late 80's to mid 90's with the Twilight 2000, 2300, Dark Conspiracy etc. We played a lot of those I spent almost a decade stationed in Europe and GDW stuff was always in the rotation of rpgs we played. And yep I agree Space 1889 was very well done.

 

[fearsomepirate]

one thing that occurs to me after reading all this... their shenanigans with SPI and GDW were yet more instances of TSR wasting money they couldn't afford. Trying to sell SPI games wasted more. Combined with some other bad money moves, this was something they really should have just left alone.

I wonder if someone related to her, or perhaps a personal friend, was the lawyer scooping up the legal fees.

 

[darjr]

Yes indeed, I backed that Kickstarter. Had to get the "I want it all" deal, with really awesome packaging.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying

What do you think? How did it turn out? Are the rules still essentially the same?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Too bad, you missed out on some great GDW rpgs in the late 80's to mid 90's with the Twilight 2000, 2300, Dark Conspiracy etc. We played a lot of those I spent almost a decade stationed in Europe and GDW stuff was always in the rotation of rpgs we played. And yep I agree Space 1889 was very well done.

The whole thing reminded me far too much of Aftermath, lol. It just didn't mesh with what we wanted to do. The original Traveller engine was simpler and gave IMHO equally good results, but without the tedious focus on so many minutia. I think the Traveller 2300 milieu was just less interesting to most people as well. I always felt like the whole game line was mostly aimed at gamers in the Armed Forces, which is actually a pretty decent sized community. Those were always the people I saw playing it anyway. I guess it was moderately successful as there have been periodic revisions to the system. Sounds like there may even be a 'fourth edition' sometime soon.

 

[Paragon Lost]

What do you think? How did it turn out? Are the rules still essentially the same?

Cleaned up a little bit but overall it felt like the same game though you gotta realize I'd not looked at and played Melee and Wizard since 1982-83-ish. A friend of mine was a big fan and he'd whip out the pocket melee anytime we were sitting around waiting for our GM to show up to run a Saturday game at the gaming shop we went to. The collector in me just couldn't resist snagging it when SJG got the rights back.

 

[Paragon Lost]

The whole thing reminded me far too much of Aftermath, lol. It just didn't mesh with what we wanted to do. The original Traveller engine was simpler and gave IMHO equally good results, but without the tedious focus on so many minutia. I think the Traveller 2300 milieu was just less interesting to most people as well. I always felt like the whole game line was mostly aimed at gamers in the Armed Forces, which is actually a pretty decent sized community. Those were always the people I saw playing it anyway. I guess it was moderately successful as there have been periodic revisions to the system. Sounds like there may even be a 'fourth edition' sometime soon.

heh, Good ole Aftermath. Talk about a confusing game at the time, we had a guy who ran it around the time it was new. Aftermath and one other post apocalyptic rpg that slipped my... oh wait I remember know The Morrow Project. The guy was a big fan of anything post apocalyptic. heh.

On the Twilight 2000, I went all in on the recent Kickstarter though the system will be much different. It's being done by Free League Publishing. The system intrigues me, I know it's going to be very different from the old mechanics system.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/twilight-2000-roleplaying-in-the-wwiii-that-never-was/description

The last couple years Free League has gotten a lot of my gaming hobby cash. lol

 

[Kimberly Burgess]

I think the Traveller 2300 milieu was just less interesting to most people as well. I always felt like the whole game line was mostly aimed at gamers in the Armed Forces, which is actually a pretty decent sized community. Those were always the people I saw playing it anyway. I guess it was moderately successful as there have been periodic revisions to the system. Sounds like there may even be a 'fourth edition' sometime soon.

I think there is a lot of truth to this. I was in the Navy at the time and grew up during the Cold War, so Twilight 2000 resonated with me. Traveller 2300/2300AD was the hopeful future of Twilight 2000, set 300 years later when mankind had rebuilt and reached the stars. I loved that idea. It was grittier than regular Traveller, so much more primitive and frontier in setting. Yes, I am buying the next edition that is released, and already backed the Free League's Twilight 2000.

Marc Miller's Far Future Enterprise company sells CDs with many of the GDW properties' entire lines on them. That is how I obtained legal copies of everything Traveller, Dark Conspiracy 1st and 2nd Editions, JTAS and Challenger Magazines, 2300AD, and Twilight 2000. I have their Space 1889 boxed set and books from back in the day and backed a more recent revival of it.

And that led me to purchasing Mongoose's Traveller 1st and 2nd Editions, as well as Mindjammer for Traveller, and keeps me hopeful for their upcoming 2300AD and even looking at their 1E version of that.

GDW is in my blood now.

 

[darjr]

Wait?! I didn’t know he was also selling the rest of the GDW catalog. That’s awesome!