D&D General Lorraine Williams: Is it Time for a Reevaluation?

[MGibster]

I don't mean to take this off on a tangent, but let's talk about playtesting for a moment. Games Workshop is currently one of the largest producers of table top miniature war games. Scratch that, they're the biggest company in the industry with $367,000,000 revenue in 2020. They released the 9th edition of Warhammer 40,000 in 2020 and even before I even played a single game I could see a glaring problem. If you were the second player, your last turn of the game was essentially pointless.

You don't just win the game by killing your opponent('s army), you win by scoring points primarily by capturing objectives on the map. You score these objectives at the beginning of your turn. So in turn one, if I capture an objective, I don't score it until the beginning of turn two assuming I'm still holding it. A standard game of 40k consists of 5 rounds, so the player who went first ended up with four rounds where he could score his primary objectives whereas the second player only had three rounds to do the same. You could still score some secondary objectives, but those aren't typically as lucrative as the primary objectives.

I'm not going to blame Lorraine Williams for the state of unbalanced rules in 2nd edition. Though is it fair to blame her for The Complete Book of Elves?

 

[GreyLord]

In the end, people can have the opinions that they want.

I'm just no longer comfortable parroting the opinions I have heard about Lorraine Williams. When I look back at a lot of the stories about her, I find that many of them are either completely untrue on closer examination, are contested by other people, or are hearsay. More importantly, looking back at some of the "ha ha she's an evil witch and fat too" stories makes me deeply uncomfortable.

I think her faults are well-known and obvious- TSR didn't adapt and survive in the 90s. More and more, though, I think that it's ... interesting ... that one of the only women heavily involved in TSR is the single most vilified figure that we have in our gaming history. And as I wrote, it was fascinating to read a book that had the receipts (Game Wizards) and see how completely different that account of Gygax's ouster was from the accounts of the many people who didn't actually know what happened, but are comfortable using it to vilify her.

In the end, I keep thinking back to the same thing. It's a shame we haven't heard her perspective on this. Look, D&D (and the TTRPG hobby in general) wasn't exactly super-welcoming to women in 80s and 90s. I'm just thinking that, perhaps, some of the people at TSR might have been predisposed to feel unfavorably to a woman who was in charge, and not a gamer. Just maybe. It doesn't exonerate her, but perhaps we should have a more nuanced view (and/or see who has actual receipts). That was why I started the thread.

YMMV.

On the REASONS why she is vilified, it wouldn't have mattered if she was a woman OR a man. Margaret Weiss pre-dates here and overall is very much beloved by fans of Dragonlance.

It's not because of her receipts that I see her vilified at all, it's her ACTIONS she took aggressively against others in the RPG community that gave her a bad rep among some. Those actions would have given ANYONE in the same position as her a bad rep, regardless of sex or gender (IMO).

The first five pages of this thread seem to debunk most of what you wrote here, as all of the things you're accusing have been pointed out as hearsay without a whole lot of concrete proof, and in some cases, proof of examples that are the opposite of the claims.

I haven't heard it debunked, just people saying they don't agree with others.

And, of course, some who say those who worked with or at TSR or had lawsuits or other interactions should with TSR should not be listened to or have anything validated from them because it puts Mrs. Williams in a bad light.

I am not partial to her (more on that below) but most of my personal items are not why others have problems with her, and I can see some good things she did, but I think turning one's head around and plugging their ears to reasons WHY she got vilified (and LONG before TSR went under) isn't really doing people favors.

The ONE GOOD thing about her mis-steps that she took in many instances is that they were lessons for those who came afterwards, and many have taken great care to avoid the same mis-steps that she took.

One that has avoided the missteps of Mrs. Williams (in my opinon at least) overall has been Lisa Stevens, another lady who leads an RPG company and (I think, at least up until recently at least) has been respected overall in the RPG community.

It's NOT that Mrs. Williams was a woman, but certain things she did that have some who dislike what went down with TSR (or T$R as many would put it) during her tenure over it. I feel that ANYONE, man or woman that had such things occur under them would probably ALSO engender the SAME feelings towards them. It was the ACTIONS, NOT the gender that are behind some of the attitudes that people have.

Mine also are somewhat biased and personal in general, as she was a total aggressor against Gygax (IMO) and RPG's in general. To ME, it appeared she was leading a crusade against him to drive him out of the business forever if she could, and some of the things that took place REALLY don't sit well with me in that light...but that's more on a personal bias than something I would say is concrete.

 

[GreyLord]

On a DIFFERENT personal note, there are some GOOD things that Williams did that are not noted...even with financials.

I wish I could quote the source, but it always evades me, but the thing is, Williams was actually incredibly GOOD for TSR for the first few years.

Under her, gross sales went up to around 100 MILLION USD! That's a LOT of money, and a LOT of sales of various products (I have to admit, not all of it was D&D, a lot of that were other items).

D&D, financially (though probably not customer wise, I have nothing to back this up, but I feel that a LOT of the sales were from a smaller player base, but a group that bought a LOT more material individually than the gamers did in the early and mid 80s, that D&D was more in the public's eye and popular in the early to mid 80s, and by the late 80s and early 90s it was more a fringe group than a massive popularity thing going) was having sales galore!

But, there were some things and deals that enabled those gross sales to happen that would eventually come back to bite them...and when you spend like you are going to earn 50-80 million USD a year without forethought, and continue to do so even if sales drop dramatically...well...

In the beginning, I think she did a GREAT job at pushing TSR forwards and being successful.

There are things she did I disagree with (more targetted towards Gygax and the actions TSR took towards some fans and fan material and such), but overall, what is missing from this conversation is that under her, at least at first, financially, TSR became FAR more successful than it had EVER been (and perhaps, even now, maybe gross sales wise may be on par if not better than even now...at least for a year or two).

It went almost as quickly as it came, but TSR was a hot company for a while after she took over.

 

[Sacrosanct]

On the REASONS why she is vilified, it wouldn't have mattered if she was a woman OR a man. Margaret Weiss pre-dates here and overall is very much beloved by fans of Dragonlance.

It's not because of her receipts that I see her vilified at all, it's her ACTIONS she took aggressively against others in the RPG community that gave her a bad rep among some. Those actions would have given ANYONE in the same position as her a bad rep, regardless of sex or gender (IMO).

Everything she did, Gary (and the Blume Bros) did worse, if you actually go back and look at the behavior of each tenure of leadership. Seeing as how she gets vilified for things that the men did worse at, and they don't get vilified nearly as much, sort of proves your statement wrong. By your own admission later on you're attacking her because "she was a total aggressor against Gygax". So it seems that you've got some blinders on, totally ignoring the more egregious errors Gary made to vilify someone who attacked your personal favorite.

Also, Margaret Weiss wasn't in charge of the game, and wasn't telling the good ol' boys what they should be doing from a leadership position. completely apples and oranges to say because Margaret wasn't vilified, it's somehow proof Lorraine wasn't because of her gender.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

On the REASONS why she is vilified, it wouldn't have mattered if she was a woman OR a man. Margaret Weiss pre-dates here and overall is very much beloved by fans of Dragonlance.

It's not because of her receipts that I see her vilified at all, it's her ACTIONS she took aggressively against others in the RPG community that gave her a bad rep among some. Those actions would have given ANYONE in the same position as her a bad rep, regardless of sex or gender (IMO).

Obviously, your use of all-caps indicates your correctness (or, at a minimum, your feelings about your correctness), but I would just mention-

Yes, Margaret Weis (that's one s- just noticing that if you're going to say someone is super famous and beloved, you might want to spell her name correctly). I think that this post dating back to 2011 illustrates the issue well-

GenCon’s Guests of Honor: Unless you’re Margaret Weis, forget it ladies

Oh man. After the response that I got last week, getting ready to write this post feels like walking back into a biker bar and punching someone in the face again. So let me disclaim by saying that …

gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com

Margaret Weis, who is an amazing person and designer, is usually remembered as 1/2 of the creative duo- heck, remember the thread we had here about how the real creator of D&D that we play today is Tracy Hickman? So she usually get a wee bit less than 1/2 credit.

What about the rest? Jean Wells? The first female designer of TSR? She was the original Sage Advice, but not, sadly, we remember her for having her adventure pulped largely because of the art of Erol Otus and because people spread terrible rumors about her. She left the industry after that.

Darlene? Despite some iconic freelance art work (including the most beloved map in D&D history) her work was, at best, sporadic for TSR and discontinued by 1984.

Rose Estes? Has stated repeatedly that the TSR culture was not welcoming to women, and then left TSR after her stock option deal wasn't honored by Gary and the Blumes. She wrote again for them after the departure of Gygax and Williams was in charge.

It's just a bizarre for me to hear that women weren't marginalized to at least some extent in the gaming community in the 70s through the 90s. It's not that they weren't there at all, but a lot of people made it really, really tough for them. If you don't agree with that, maybe we had different experiences.


And so on. Look, if you don't read some of those accounts with fresh eyes, I don't know what to tell you. I doubt anything will change your mind.

 

[GreyLord]

Obviously, your use of all-caps indicates your correctness (or, at a minimum, your feelings about your correctness), but I would just mention-

Yes, Margaret Weis (that's one s- just noticing that if you're going to say someone is super famous and beloved, you might want to spell her name correctly). I think that this post dating back to 2011 illustrates the issue well-

GenCon’s Guests of Honor: Unless you’re Margaret Weis, forget it ladies

Oh man. After the response that I got last week, getting ready to write this post feels like walking back into a biker bar and punching someone in the face again. So let me disclaim by saying that …

gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com

Margaret Weis, who is an amazing person and designer, is usually remembered as 1/2 of the creative duo- heck, remember the thread we had here about how the real creator of D&D that we play today is Tracy Hickman? So she usually get a wee bit less than 1/2 credit.

What about the rest? Jean Wells? The first female designer of TSR? She was the original Sage Advice, but not, sadly, we remember her for having her adventure pulped largely because of the art of Erol Otus and because people spread terrible rumors about her. She left the industry after that.

Darlene? Despite some iconic freelance art work (including the most beloved map in D&D history) her work was, at best, sporadic for TSR and discontinued by 1984.

Rose Estes? Has stated repeatedly that the TSR culture was not welcoming to women, and then left TSR after her stock option deal wasn't honored by Gary and the Blumes. She wrote again for them after the departure of Gygax and Williams was in charge.

It's just a bizarre for me to hear that women weren't marginalized to at least some extent in the gaming community in the 70s through the 90s. It's not that they weren't there at all, but a lot of people made it really, really tough for them. If you don't agree with that, maybe we had different experiences.


And so on. Look, if you don't read some of those accounts with fresh eyes, I don't know what to tell you. I doubt anything will change your mind.

Personal experiences with people kind of has MORE of an impact than people talking about them on the internet.

On a side note: Absolutely LOVED Rose Estes and everything she did.

 

[GreyLord]

Everything she did, Gary (and the Blume Bros) did worse, if you actually go back and look at the behavior of each tenure of leadership. Seeing as how she gets vilified for things that the men did worse at, and they don't get vilified nearly as much, sort of proves your statement wrong. By your own admission later on you're attacking her because "she was a total aggressor against Gygax". So it seems that you've got some blinders on, totally ignoring the more egregious errors Gary made to vilify someone who attacked your personal favorite.

Also, Margaret Weiss wasn't in charge of the game, and wasn't telling the good ol' boys what they should be doing from a leadership position. completely apples and oranges to say because Margaret wasn't vilified, it's somehow proof Lorraine wasn't because of her gender.

My point is that there were OTHER women in the RPG community that were not vilified, and in some cases adored at least by the fans if not the company itself.

This isn't blinders, it's pointing out that disregarding those who saw these and experienced stuff personally are not going to be convinced by trying to tell them it was other than how they experienced it.

The Lawsuits and such are NOT things that just did not happen. The things that went against the fans had more than just one or two people affected.

There ARE things that TSR under Gygax and the Blumes did that may be similar and some items that people will hold against him either, but I'm not here specifically defending him right now (though I might later or in another thread), but specifically trying to point out that there are REASONS that Mrs. Williams was not liked by many. This is NOT a new thing like some are trying to paint. It actually started over 3 decades ago, and ignoring those reasons will make it impossible to actually do what I think would be a valid re-evaluation...as the thread calls for.

HOWEVER...as I also point out, I also see good in some of what she did (and perhaps, you guys are so focused on the negatives yourselves that you missed my post on that, pointing out something MUCH BIGGER in my opinion that what some have said about her regarding a positive than other posts in the thread).

Ignoring the positive items just as much will affect being able to do a re-evaluation as well. HOWEVER, if you ignore one side or the other you simply don't get a re-evaluation, you get junk that is completely ignoring one side of the equation.

 

[Voadam]

Everything she did, Gary (and the Blume Bros) did worse, if you actually go back and look at the behavior of each tenure of leadership. Seeing as how she gets vilified for things that the men did worse

She was running things in the online Cease & Desist harassment and undercutting of fans era of TSR.

That seems a big her era only negative.

 

[MGibster]

Mine also are somewhat biased and personal in general, as she was a total aggressor against Gygax (IMO) and RPG's in general. To ME, it appeared she was leading a crusade against him to drive him out of the business forever if she could, and some of the things that took place REALLY don't sit well with me in that light...but that's more on a personal bias than something I would say is concrete.

By some accounts, Gygax was killing the company. So why not drive him out?

 

[Sacrosanct]

She was running things in the online Cease & Desist harassment and undercutting of fans era of TSR.

That seems a big her era only negative.

Gary was tossing out C&Ds as early as the late 70s (ironically while at the same time stealing other IPs himself without permission). Again, Lorraine getting vilified for things Gary did as well but seems to get a free pass. that's the issue people are having. Not that Lorraine was getting vilified for things, but the clear double standard between her and the men.