TSR Lorraine Williams, unfairly lambasted?

[Nagol]

There are business decisions that are terrible in hindsight. I don't blame her for those. Good faith judgements that turn out to be wrong just spotlight we all operate with limited information and biases.

Self-dealing and business decisions that are terrible on their face though I do blame her for.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

I was talking about the DMG and MM.

Again, those were printed before the Egbert case and before people started associating D&D with witchcraft and satanism in the national news. That's important context, and is what drove the aforementioned policy by TSRs management to make the game more kid friendly (a mandate that happened immediately after the Egbert case and before B3 was published). The timeline is important.

 

[Parmandur]

One thing I'd like to add is that one of the reasons it's easy to lay the blame at Lorraine Williams' feet, is that, as far as I'm aware, she's never been interviewed or spoken about her time at TSR. We're left with a one-sided narrative, which makes it easy to ascribe all sorts of faults to her.

I mean, what would be her motivation for engaging a community ready to pounce on her and lambast her?

There were some telling quotes from her in Art & Arcana, interestingly enough, about what a cluster TSR was when she came in.

 

[darjr]

Again, those were printed before the Egbert case and before people started associating D&D with witchcraft and satanism in the national news. That's important context, and is what drove the aforementioned policy by TSRs management to make the game more kid friendly (a mandate that happened immediately after the Egbert case and before B3 was published). The timeline is important.

It is, and what’s also important is that through the callback of that adventure those very same DMG and MM books were STILL being printed as is. And I don’t believe thier was any movement to “fix” them at that time, not like they “fixed” that mod.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Remember how I said we are done? Do not message me or reply to me again. Thanks!

Sorry, you don't get to call someone immoral and then tell them they aren't allowed to respond back.

 

[darjr]

I do recall an interview she did when she was living in Europe. But I also remember it wasn’t about TSR and that subject was specifically off the table.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It is, and what’s also important is that through the callback of that adventure those very same DMG and MM books were STILL being printed as is. And I don’t believe thier was any movement to “fix” them at that time, not like they “fixed” that mod.

I imagine that had to do with costs. I don't recall any image in the MM or DMG that depicted a torture ritual, but even if they did, it would probably cost way more to rewrite those than to make adjustments to a module.

Again, nudity isn't the issue, it appears. It appears the issue was the depiction of an S&M torture ritual (and the other Otus image that the management didn't like for other reasons).

 

[Parmandur]

One of my sources is this. Which happens to be written by a woman named Cecilia D'Anastasio. Are you now going to accuse her of being misogynist because parts of that source don't fit your narrative?

No, but D'Anastasio is rightly drawing attention to the prime role misogyny played in this incident, so I'm not sure why you would cite her to claim the opposite?

 

[Sacrosanct]

One thing I'd like to add is that one of the reasons it's easy to lay the blame at Lorraine Williams' feet, is that, as far as I'm aware, she's never been interviewed or spoken about her time at TSR. We're left with a one-sided narrative, which makes it easy to ascribe all sorts of faults to her.

That is probably a really big reason.