The Glen
Legend
I talked to quite a bit of the old guard about Jean Wells and the Palace of the Silver Princess, as well as TSR under Lorraine Williams when I was doing my review channel. There were a lot of things they talked about that weren't mentioned in most of the articles about the topic.
1. The S&M art wasn't the reason the module was recalled, it was the Errol Otis art, specifically the Ubues (pictured below). Those heads are the heads of TSR's upper management at the time. Gary was not thrilled with the art at all. Wells warned about the art but was told it was too late to change it. Only when Gygax saw the final product after it shipped did he recall the modules.
2. Wells main reason for leaving TSR was because of game design differences. She wanted to create modules like In Search of the Unknown, where the players filled in the blank. Gary wanted modules filled out like Keep on the Borderlands. The original Palace was along the fill in the blanks line, but when they rewrote the module they went with the fleshed out that Gary wanted. Wells didn't want to create modules like that so she stopped making modules.
3. Williams initially turned TSR around with 2nd edition. The game sold quite well and she started releasing more product to increase sales. Problem was with this approach she released too much and flooded the market. Books were released almost weekly, and the quality dropped precipitously. The mid 90s TSR was just releasing crap.
4. She killed profitable lines because of politics. She wanted TSR scrubbed of all things Gary related. Greyhawk and Mystara were phased out despite solid sales. (Spelljammer was never a big seller). Arneson was brought in to create the DA series (Blackmoor) and according to all accounts, sales of that line were massive. They were easily the best selling TSR supplements of the year, but Dave was forced out as it became obvious that he wasn't welcome in the new TSR.
5. Buck Rogers wasted a lot of money on a line nobody wanted. Williams' family had the rights to Buck Rogers, so she bought the rights from her own family to make the game. Total conflict of interest. Buck Rogers didn't sell, despite a relaunch and board and computer game tie ins.
6. Too much focus on secondary games that lost money was probably the biggest symptom of the mid 90's death spiral. They flooded the market with the poorly designed Spellfire game, as well as producing more Dragon Dice than they could ever possibly sell. Through in gimmicks like audio CDs in the boxed sets that raised the production costs sometimes over the sale price. They were losing money on their own products.
Williams was able to turn around TSR from the initial mismanagement, but her business decisions afterward reversed the upward trends and led to the company's demise. TSR flooded the market with games nobody was buying, drove out most of the original talent over both the spat with Gary and her disdain for the original employees. TSR couldn't adapt to the changing market in the 90's, and it became obvious in the years that followed.
1. The S&M art wasn't the reason the module was recalled, it was the Errol Otis art, specifically the Ubues (pictured below). Those heads are the heads of TSR's upper management at the time. Gary was not thrilled with the art at all. Wells warned about the art but was told it was too late to change it. Only when Gygax saw the final product after it shipped did he recall the modules.
2. Wells main reason for leaving TSR was because of game design differences. She wanted to create modules like In Search of the Unknown, where the players filled in the blank. Gary wanted modules filled out like Keep on the Borderlands. The original Palace was along the fill in the blanks line, but when they rewrote the module they went with the fleshed out that Gary wanted. Wells didn't want to create modules like that so she stopped making modules.
3. Williams initially turned TSR around with 2nd edition. The game sold quite well and she started releasing more product to increase sales. Problem was with this approach she released too much and flooded the market. Books were released almost weekly, and the quality dropped precipitously. The mid 90s TSR was just releasing crap.
4. She killed profitable lines because of politics. She wanted TSR scrubbed of all things Gary related. Greyhawk and Mystara were phased out despite solid sales. (Spelljammer was never a big seller). Arneson was brought in to create the DA series (Blackmoor) and according to all accounts, sales of that line were massive. They were easily the best selling TSR supplements of the year, but Dave was forced out as it became obvious that he wasn't welcome in the new TSR.
5. Buck Rogers wasted a lot of money on a line nobody wanted. Williams' family had the rights to Buck Rogers, so she bought the rights from her own family to make the game. Total conflict of interest. Buck Rogers didn't sell, despite a relaunch and board and computer game tie ins.
6. Too much focus on secondary games that lost money was probably the biggest symptom of the mid 90's death spiral. They flooded the market with the poorly designed Spellfire game, as well as producing more Dragon Dice than they could ever possibly sell. Through in gimmicks like audio CDs in the boxed sets that raised the production costs sometimes over the sale price. They were losing money on their own products.
Williams was able to turn around TSR from the initial mismanagement, but her business decisions afterward reversed the upward trends and led to the company's demise. TSR flooded the market with games nobody was buying, drove out most of the original talent over both the spat with Gary and her disdain for the original employees. TSR couldn't adapt to the changing market in the 90's, and it became obvious in the years that followed.
