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

[Deset Gled]

So the reason I didn't go into this is because it's tiring seeing this same thing trotted out over and over again- yeah, so what? This wasn't a factor, at all, in the demise of TSR. If someone has receipts showing that this was some backdoor to funnel money to Williams, then I will gladly change my opinion! Otherwise ...

From Jose Freitas in an earlier thread:

But I am quite convinced that Ms. Williams really ran the company to the best of her abilities, which were very good, but this meant that she ran it to benefit herself to the exclusion of anyone else, employees included. There are some very fine lines re. ethical issues, but one might very well question the continued release and overprinting of a game that was really selling close to zero, while paying yourself royalties advances based on 60% of the printruns. And since I was a partner of a company that distributes RPGs and MtG and WotC products in general in Spain, Portugal and Brasil, and I was there when WotC bought TSR, and talked to pretty much everyone, including Peter Adkinson, I was told there were TONS of unsold Buck Rogers in the 25th Century RPG in the warehouses.... And at the same time that Ms. Williams got paid a really good salary, employees were underpaid, given bad equipment to work on things, etc.... Just read Ryan Dancey's accounts of what he found when he went and audited TSR for WotC before they bought it.

Edit: Bah! Beaten to the punch by @Voadam !

 

[Voadam]

Now, are there facts that could change my mind? Sure! If she was using this to funnel TSR's money to herself, by paying outrageous sums, that would be one thing.

Honestly, so long as these are at market rates

So the reason I didn't go into this is because it's tiring seeing this same thing trotted out over and over again- yeah, so what? This wasn't a factor, at all, in the demise of TSR. If someone has receipts showing that this was some backdoor to funnel money to Williams, then I will gladly change my opinion! Otherwise ...

That is my understanding of the allegations, funneling money from TSR to herself using above market rates and nonstandard contract terms.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Can't find the original threads thanks to links changing but there is this post.



I have no first hand knowledge of any of this. But if true it is enough for me to think of her as a villain.

She and her family got royalties from Buck Rogers licensed stuff as heirs of Buck Rogers rights owners. As head of TSR she allegedly got TSR to license Buck Rogers stuff on non-market negotiated terms including much bigger than normal market royalties based on print runs, not sales, then had TSR do huge print runs that did not sell.

Again, we would need sourcing. I would point this out-

First, we have Gygax's post in the linked comment. I really hate to pile on, but his account isn't in accord with the historical record. Quite frankly, for Gygax to say that he wanted to give employee stock options and she was preventing him ... is ... um ... wow. I can't even. He was running the company when it was repeatedly sued for promising stock options and then refusing to honor them! My goodness, that's why Rose Estes originally left the first time.

If you go to the full post by JoseFreitas here-

lorraine williams

I do know Gygax has mentioned this in his QA threads here on EN, but I can't recal if he stated that was something he heard Williams say, or if it was all hearsay to him too. :\ Of course, if all we have is Mr. Grgax's claims of what she said, that's still hearsay itself.

www.enworld.org

You will note that there are some things in there that go both ways, but I'd like you to key in on the following-

These are my opinions based on stuff I heard from a lot of the insiders, they may not be entirely true and as usual one's perception of reality is skewed by the people we know, those we call friends and so on. To me, Ms. Williams was always unfailingly nice and polite, even though the 2000 or 3000$ royalties per year my company was sending her were probably close to insignificant. But she did despise gamers in general and made no secret of this. I remember her throwing a fit at GenCon (92 or 93, can't remember) because some girls were in a bikini chain mail suit, and she was on a roll and badmouthed and cursed gamers (loudly!) for at least ten minutes.

Some things, in retrospect, seem obvious, don't they? Like ... REALLY OBVIOUS!


Anyway, the point of the thread is pretty simple- no one is perfect, but I honestly can't believe the amount of vitriol she gets. Wait ... no, I think I do get it.

But she doesn't deserve it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That is my understanding of the allegations, funneling money from TSR to herself using above market rates and nonstandard contract terms.

Cool story, but does anyone have any actual evidence? And that this had anything regarding the overall state of TSR? Because ... even assuming (which is pretty generous) that all of that is true, that's a drop in the bucket, and was occurring prior to the collapse.

Weird how it keeps coming up. Seriously- when I say it's weird, I really do think it is. It's a licensing deal. She owned the company. The pre-publication was just the standard arrangement that they had- unless they were refusing to pay their other royalties the same arrangement, I don't understand why this is an issue. And, again, this was irrelevant in terms of the collapse of TSR.


Just like how everyone points to the same comment, and doesn't seem to see to notice her objecting to girls in bikini chain mail suits in the evidence that she hates gamers.

 

[el-remmen]

Well ... so, this is what I would say (I don't have my copy handy).

My recollection is that the book makes it clear that Gygax disputes this. It was also clear that Gygax was the only one disputing this. My recollection is that the extrinsic evidence seems to indicate that Gygax was not being truthful- everything from the repeated letters from the Blumes to the existence of the settlement to the actions of the Board.

IIRC (do you have your book) I believe that there was a reference to a judicial finding which basically implied that Gygax's account was not credible. Did you read it some other way?


EDIT- Gygax has disputed a lot of things in his life; as much as I love what he did for bringing us D&D, I do not believe him to be a reliable narrator.

I am not gonna waste my time trying to defend Gygax, as I think you are probably right. However, I just read that whole last chapter + epilogue last night and he makes it clear no one else was there and knows for sure. This is a point Peterson makes sure to mention more than once. While I think the judgement you mention is a reasonable conclusion, I think the Blumes' own sketchiness and nepotism requires that we preserve at least a little doubt.

 

[Bolares]

I can't shake the feeling that there is some amount of sexism in how the industry and its history viewed Lorraine... Not that she may not have done anything wrong but, we seem to give a lot more leway to her male counterparts...

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

Lorraine Williams: Is it Time for a Reevaluation?

 

[Mannahnin]

C. So ... why the Hate?

<snip>

2. Lorraine wasn't a gamer. This is a little more nuanced, especially consider that, for example, Kevin Blume wasn't really a gamer either. But Lorraine never cared much about the "community" in the sense of gamers. She wanted to run TSR as a company, with products. This tends to be a reciprocal thing- you don't care about us, we don't care about you.

Good article.

There are a couple more pieces to this. Jim Ward, for one, has talked about the cluelessness of management under her leadership doing things like forbidding playtesting on company time (EDIT: This seems to be at least a bit of an exaggeration- links to direct accounts from him and another staffer provided later in this thread) . While a lot of things are understandable or forgivable for a company short-staffed and struggling, this is not a good way to run a company, with products. Testing is important.

The others that immediately leap to mind were mentioned already- the hostility to fans, particularly as regards the internet, and the legal abuses leveled at Gygax. Which seem to have gone above and beyond TSR's prior misdeeds in that area.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I can't shake the feeling that there is some amount of sexism in how the industry and its history viewed Lorraine... Not that she may not have done anything wrong but, we seem to give a lot more leway to her male counterparts...

I feel like this is also a generalization in business in general. I'll link an article I'd recently read about that anecdotally addresses the issues in the perception of leadership in business based on gender. Not to open a can of worms - just information that people can process in relation to this all. In case you want to TLDR it - it's an article about a "tech bro" who transitioned and suddenly was being constantly talked over when it hadn't happened before.

Corporate Transition

When presenting as a man, this “tech bro” entrepreneur was the toast of Silicon Valley—until she stepped into boardrooms as a woman.

www.elle.com

 

[Willie the Duck]

I can't shake the feeling that there is some amount of sexism in how the industry and its history viewed Lorraine... Not that she may not have done anything wrong but, we seem to give a lot more leway to her male counterparts...

This is sadly anecdotal and I can't find it again, so pretty much means nothing. However I do recall one of the 2E TSR alum retelling a story about how she once made mention after a meeting that she was expecting, and that alum mentioning that no one knew she was pregnant (because she was so fat to begin with). That's when I realized, 'oh dear. I don't know if I'm right about who (if anyone) the good guys are.'

There are a couple more pieces to this. Jim Ward, for one, has talked about the cluelessness of management under her leadership doing things like forbidding playtesting on company time. While a lot of things are understandable or forgivable for a company short-staffed and struggling, this is not a good way to run a company, with products. Testing is important.

The others that immediately leap to mind were mentioned already- the hostility to fans, particularly as regards the internet, and the legal abuses leveled at Gygax. Which seem to have gone above and beyond TSR's prior misdeeds in that area.

These are definitely the kinds of things we need to go back and corroborate. We've all been passing these chestnuts back and forth so long, we all assume that they are true. I think that's the OP's general point.

 

[Mercurius]

This is a case where we should honor Gary Gygax for who he was and what he created, but not over idolize him. I mean, we can compare what TSR put out after he left, vs what he created. The "Golden Age of Settings"--and thus one of the most fruitfully creative periods in D&D's history--began in 1987 with the publication of the FR gray box, and then Spelljammer a couple years later. Gygax, on the other hand, created Dangerous Journeys, which wasn't exactly lauded or influential, or breaking any new ground.

Meaning, it is possible that a hypothetical TSR under Gygax would have remained closer to the fold and eventually stagnated, or at least remained more "Gygaxian." Nothing wrong with that, but then we might not have had the later waves of creative output.

This also relates to the nature of change. Change isn't always inherently evolutionary, despite what some say about the nature of recent changes - as if any changes, anything new or from younger generations is inherently a move forward. Sometimes change is regressive. But it is always good for someone and, in general, it brings new things to the table. I think the key is whether or not that change includes the old; meaning, if it transcends the limits of the old but adds to it, it is evolutionary. If it negates the old too much and goes in a specific direction that limits possibilities too much, it can become regressive.

So my point is, that under Williams--at least creatively--the change was evolutionary. D&D broadened substantially, and by 1995 you had a much richer range of play possibilities. The glut and eventual demise of TSR is related, but I don't think it would be correct to say that TSR's demise was due to the creative wealth; it had more to do with over-saturating the market (meaning, it was the breadth and quantity of product, not the depth or quality).

 

[Sacrosanct]

For reference:

lorraine williams (includes opinions from Gygax et al)

maybe it's the lingering christmas spirit, but... i've always found a bit sad that lorraine williams's name is *so* reviled by the general D&D community. if there is one thing that unites D&D gamers of all editions is that lorraine williams is a hag, a bitch, an evil person. gygax said less...

www.enworld.org

Lorraine Williams did... what?

I don't see anywhere in that post where it was suggested they were. All that was said was that a staff member proposed it and it was dismissed.I'm saying that I think it's wrong that the designers had an idea for one, and that is what was implied. How do you know?Based largely on things Ryan...

www.enworld.org

TSR - Lorraine Williams, unfairly lambasted?

This is something that's bothered me for a while. Lorraine Williams is often attacked to this day of single handily destroying TSR. Whenever people talk about the TSR failing, it's always, and only, Lorraine they talk about. I'm not excusing her bad business decisions (refusal to playtest...

www.enworld.org

Yep. When I first saw this thread, I immediately looked for these others (one started by me a couple years ago). It will be interesting to see how opinions have shifted over time.

 

[payn]

This is a case where we should honor Gary Gygax for who he was and what he created, but not over idolize him. I mean, we can compare what TSR put out after he left, vs what he created. The "Golden Age of Settings"--and thus one of the most fruitfully creative periods in D&D's history--began in 1987 with the publication of the FR gray box, and then Spelljammer a couple years later. Gygax, on the other hand, created Dangerous Journeys, which wasn't exactly lauded or influential, or breaking any new ground.

Meaning, it is possible that a hypothetical TSR under Gygax would have remained closer to the fold and eventually stagnated, or at least remained more "Gygaxian." Nothing wrong with that, but then we might not have had the later waves of creative output.

This also relates to the nature of change. Change isn't always inherently evolutionary, despite what some say about the nature of recent changes - as if any changes, anything new or from younger generations is inherently a move forward. Sometimes change is regressive. But it is always good for someone and, in general, it brings new things to the table. I think the key is whether or not that change includes the old; meaning, if it transcends the limits of the old but adds to it, it is evolutionary. If it negates the old too much and goes in a specific direction that limits possibilities too much, it can become regressive.

So my point is, that under Williams--at least creatively--the change was evolutionary. D&D broadened substantially, and by 1995 you had a much richer range of play possibilities. The glut and eventual demise of TSR is related, but I don't think it would be correct to say that TSR's demise was due to the creative wealth; it had more to do with over-saturating the market (meaning, it was the breadth and quantity of product, not the depth or quality).

This is what I was getting at in my rant. Folks can take things out of perspective when it comes to people they venerate, and particularly when they despise them.

 

[Mannahnin]

This is a case where we should honor Gary Gygax for who he was and what he created, but not over idolize him. I mean, we can compare what TSR put out after he left, vs what he created. The "Golden Age of Settings"--and thus one of the most fruitfully creative periods in D&D's history--began in 1987 with the publication of the FR gray box, and then Spelljammer a couple years later. Gygax, on the other hand, created Dangerous Journeys, which wasn't exactly lauded or influential, or breaking any new ground.

Meaning, it is possible that a hypothetical TSR under Gygax would have remained closer to the fold and eventually stagnated, or at least remained more "Gygaxian." Nothing wrong with that, but then we might not have had the later waves of creative output.

Yup. DJ was dire.

 

[Dausuul]

@Snarf Zagyg, I pretty much agree with your take (with the caveat that I haven't yet read the book, so going off what I've seen on the subject previously).

Viewed purely in their respective capacities as chief executive officer of TSR, Williams was better than Gygax. She wasn't a great CEO by any means, I can make a long list of things she did wrong, but she did manage to pull the company out of a tailspin, and she was able to perform the basic responsibilities of the job. Gygax was incapable of either. He was, as you say, a disaster.

That said, Gygax can claim credit for having brought the game to market in the first place. He has his success as an entrepreneur and game developer to set against his abysmal record as executive. Williams has no such fallback: She stands or falls purely on her accomplishments as CEO.

It seems like Williams's main failures as CEO stemmed from her well-known distaste for gaming. She was competent to handle the corporate-management part of the job, but she did not really understand her company's audience or its product--basically the mirror image of Gygax. As a result, she succeeded in putting TSR on a sound financial footing, which it desperately needed; but she then pursued strategies that saturated the market* and split the company's product lines, alienated fans with heavy-handed legal tactics, and failed to recognize where the company needed to go, leading to the final collapse in the '90s.

Bearing in mind, again, I haven't yet read the book: From what I've read, every leader TSR ever had was kind of terrible. Williams was, too, but no worse than the rest and better than some. But various factors (misogyny, gamer tribalism, and the fact that she pushed out the Heroic Creator Figure) led to her receiving far more than her share of condemnation.

*Which, ironically, led to an explosion of creativity, as TSR cranked out massive volumes of material in a hopeless Red Queen's race. The wild abundance of 2E settings is a legacy from which D&D continues to draw, decades later, even as it was a fiscal disaster for the company that created it.

 

[Malmuria]

4. Misogyny. Not to put too fine a point on it, but female executives were not common in the 80s and 90s. And the gaming community could be rough. I'm not going to spell this out for you, I'm just going to say this- Lorraine was probably treated a lot worse than a comparable male executive would have been.

She could have been a total train wreck of a CEO and manager and this would still be an issue. She could have also been a die hard gamer, and misogyny would still be an issue, and a reason for people to dislike her, both within and outside of the company.

The Misogyny At The Core Of Our Hobby

I consider myself a tabletop roleplaying games fan. I have enjoyed playing RPGs for most of my life, I’ve run games myself for over 25 years and I have introduced quite a few people to the ho…

stargazersworld.com

Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary

In 1976, after Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, the most important person in roleplaying games was a Los Angeles woman named Lee Gold. She still contributes to the hobby and still runs…

dmdavid.com

Her one personal encounter with Gary Gygax revealed a similar bias. Early on, Lee sent copies of A&E to TSR. After a couple of months, she received a phone call, which she recounts.

“This is Gary Gygax,” said the voice, “and I’d like to speak to Lee Gold.”

“I’m Lee Gold,” I said. “I gather you got the copies of A&E I sent you.”

“You’re a woman!” he said.

“That’s right,” I said, and I told him how much we all loved playing D&D and how grateful we were to him for writing it.

“You’re a woman,” he said. “I wrote some bad things about women wargamers once.”

“You don’t need to feel embarrassed,” I said. “I haven’t read them.”

“You’re a woman,” he said.

We didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, so I told him goodbye and hung up.

 

[LordEntrails]

I remember her throwing a fit at GenCon (92 or 93, can't remember) because some girls were in a bikini chain mail suit, and she was on a roll and badmouthed and cursed gamers (loudly!) for at least ten minutes.

Reading this today I'm... wondering something. I mean not know what her "rant" actually was; the word, tone, or actions; is this actually something we would consider "bad" today?

In today's eyes, male gamers fawning over chainmail bikini girls at a con today, at least for myself, I would expect not only from woman but other men as well to rant against the sexism displayed by such male gamers. With little detail, I would actually think of such a "rant" by a senior RPG executive in the early 90's railing against such blatant sexism as not only a good thing, but 'bold', 'forward looking', 'liberating' and just down right the 'right thing to do'.

Sounds to me she had better social morals than most of the gamers of her time.

 

[jolt]

No, it is not time for a reevaluation - she was terrible.

A lot of cool stuff came out during her tenure, but she didn't create any of that. She didn't create anything. Almost none of the upper management at TSR under her were people who created anything or, in fact, even gamed at all. Het attempts to use the use the properties of the defunct SPI ended up as a financial disaster. Her decision to sue GDW and Gygax was a monstrous failure (despite that both Gygax and GDW were willing to settle out of court). Not only did she lose the case, she ended up having to settle out of court anyway.

When important art projects came up, Brom would be told by upper management to only use "expensive" paints. No one in upper management seemed to understand that supplements sell less than core materials and so almost every product was over printed. She didn't save TSR at all. Despite th high quality of the 2E products, she was still utterly incompetent at managing it and drove it into the ground. She treated the artists and writers like crap.

You don't have to take my word for it either. Most of those people are still around. Go to the artists websites and see what they have to say. Got to dragonsfoot and look at the forum archives from the early 2000's when many of the old TSR grognards were posting and see what they have to say. Look at the court filings from when TSR tried to sue Gygax and GDW and look at what they're arguing.

We'll likely never know the specifics of who said what to whom in exact terms, but the generalities have never been in any doubt. Trying to cast it in doubt because maybe Gary (who is Satan incarnate....apparently) maybe kind of said something that was maybe kind of untrue is 100% BS (and would change nothing even if true).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I would also add a fifth reason: we've never really heard her side of anything. I'm not really aware of any interviews with her at all. I could be misremembering, but I think Ben Riggs tried to schedule an interview, but was rebuffed. There's a Masters of Fantasy video interview from the 90s floating about, but it feels more like someone doing corporate PR.

In the absence of one side's story, it becomes very easy to create a convenient narrative. As with Gary's legacy, the truth is more complicated.

C. So ... why the Hate?

I have a few theories I'd like to throw out-

1. Lorraine ousted Gygax. This is the most simple. Gygax was, for many people, D&D. So she was always going to be the villain in any morality play.

2. Lorraine wasn't a gamer. This is a little more nuanced, especially consider that, for example, Kevin Blume wasn't really a gamer either. But Lorraine never cared much about the "community" in the sense of gamers. She wanted to run TSR as a company, with products. This tends to be a reciprocal thing- you don't care about us, we don't care about you.

3. Surprise. I'm not sure I agree with this, given there was a lot of hate even before the collapse, but ... I think a lot of people were genuinely shocked that TSR collapsed suddenly, and, moreover, it was sold to a "mere" card company. It's more difficult to understand now, but there was a sizeable number of people that thought that D&D was it, and M:TG was just some kids playing a silly game. Kind of like how, way back when, wargamers thought what they were doing was it, and D&D was just kids playing a silly game. Anyway, the collapse and sale of TSR was shocking to a lot of people, and Lorraine was a convenient target to blame.

4. Misogyny. Not to put too fine a point on it, but female executives were not common in the 80s and 90s. And the gaming community could be rough. I'm not going to spell this out for you, I'm just going to say this- Lorraine was probably treated a lot worse than a comparable male executive would have been.

Having read Peterson's The Elusive Shift, it really makes it clear how important Gold's Alarums & Excursions was to the gamer discourse of the time. And that the magazine is still coming out is an unparalleled feat.

Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary

In 1976, after Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, the most important person in roleplaying games was a Los Angeles woman named Lee Gold. She still contributes to the hobby and still runs…

dmdavid.com

 

[Dausuul]

Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary

In 1976, after Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, the most important person in roleplaying games was a Los Angeles woman named Lee Gold. She still contributes to the hobby and still runs…

dmdavid.com

Incidentally, Lee Gold is still alive, and still to this day publishing "Alarums and Excursions."

Sounds to me she had better social morals than most of the gamers of her time.

I think that was Snarf's point: The subject of this "rant," which was held up at the time as an example of Williams's hatred for gamers and general unreasonableness, comes across rather differently today.