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!

 

[Voadam]

I would really like to see the Role Aids line put out as PDFs. Demons was a lot of fun as a product line and I used the Dwarven Kingdom of Ostohar from Dwarves in a 3e campaign to great effect. The Monsters of Myth line would be great in particular, I never got the whole line in print.

 

[Seramus]

IP theft (WotC instituted a relief/settlement program for such claims many years ago), lawsuits, backstabbing among themselves and others, broken contracts, nepotism, and the list goes on with over confidence (LJN fiasco, movie venture, et al), some embezzling stories, etc.

This is still common! I've had the opportunity to work with both Fortune 500s (main job) and a few big name RPG titles (not D&D), and it genuinely surprised me how some of the biggest names in RPG games today are barely functional friend groups with a few really capable people sprinkled in. It sounds like I'm casting aspersions, but I'm trying to convey how even in 2021 the difference in business practices is like night and day.

 

[MGibster]

That they lasted so long speaks to the strength of their primary property D&D. For how, given that monumental breakthrough. could have anyone dropped that large a leap? TSR: "Hold my beer."

TSR really managed to captured lightning in a bottle. I have to admit that I do feel a bit badly for piling on to TSR all the time. Running a company isn't easy and I imagine finding such great success so quickly can make things especially challenging. i.e. It's hard to learn from bad business decisions when they don't seem to be affecting your bottom line. For all the hate Lorraine Williams gets, she was a financial planner who knew what she was doing and may have saved the company when she took over following the exodus of the Blums and Gygax.

 

[MGibster]

This is still common! I've had the opportunity to work with both Fortune 500s (main job) and a few big name RPG titles (not D&D), and it genuinely surprised me how some of the biggest names in RPG games today are barely functional friend groups surrounded by a tiny number of really capable people. It sounds like I'm casting aspersions, but I'm trying to convey how even in 2021 the difference in business practices is like night and day.

That makes sense. A lot of game stores are run like that instead of a proper retail business.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Back when the company existed, there was a reason their initials stood for They Sue Regularly. lol

 

[Morrus]

Back when the company existed, there was a reason their initials stood for They Sue Regularly. lol

Thus the thread title...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is still common! I've had the opportunity to work with both Fortune 500s (main job) and a few big name RPG titles (not D&D), and it genuinely surprised me how some of the biggest names in RPG games today are barely functional friend groups with a few really capable people sprinkled in. It sounds like I'm casting aspersions, but I'm trying to convey how even in 2021 the difference in business practices is like night and day.

I suspect there a lot of businesses like that. To the outside they look like a solid professional organisation, but on the inside they are a bunch of regular folk bubbling along outside of their competence zone pretending they know what they are doing.

Come to think, I have worked in schools like that.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

TSR really managed to captured lightning in a bottle. I have to admit that I do feel a bit badly for piling on to TSR all the time. Running a company isn't easy and I imagine finding such great success so quickly can make things especially challenging. i.e. It's hard to learn from bad business decisions when they don't seem to be affecting your bottom line. For all the hate Lorraine Williams gets, she was a financial planner who knew what she was doing and may have saved the company when she took over following the exodus of the Blums and Gygax.

Well. It's mostly a matter of historical recounting at this point; there is some unfinished business out there for some, and for some who never recovered from being run over by them. There was a lot of "sweeping it under the rug" with the thought of, well, it'd remain there. Karma's a thing though. The truth always comes out. The Blumes were eager investors but at some point lost the plot; Gary wanted it all back, lock, stock and barrel, after he'd lost control due to Don Kaye's untimely death; and Lorraine, for all of her warts, was probably the best for the company, but too little too late. There's a lot of complication and skewed perceptions driving the whole tragic mess, and everyone I've listed had a hand in it. But bad juju is bad juju, Business, at least good or even fair business, is not about stealing, cheating and destroying.

 

[SkidAce]

@Rob Kuntz

Ever read this one...its one of my favorites.

 

[el-remmen]

@Rob Kuntz

Ever read this one...its one of my favorites.

View attachment 135283

I have the UNDEAD one and incorporated into my old homebrew.