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.