D&D General Not the Wicked Witch: Revisiting the Legacy of Lorraine Williams

[Parmandur]

It might have been Polybius (the historian not the mythical video game) who said something like, "As a historian, I must praise my enemies when they do right and castigate my friends when they do wrong." Gygax is always going to have a special place in my heart because of his contributions to D&D. There's room for him in my heart while I simultaneously recognize the bad things he said and did. Likewise I can appreciate Williams for what she did while recognizing what she did wrong. If I had to work for someone, I'd rather work for Williams than Gygax.

Honestly, it seems he may have been doing much better in his personal life after he was fully off of center stage.

 

[damiller]

I have a love for the old D&D materials, and, yes, for Gygax's purplish verbiage (I know, shocker) that will never abate. I may write about this in a longer post, but I will always be thankful to him for the hours upon hours of joy that the materials he made gave me. That will never go away. Heck, I would argue that Gygax's D&D- the overly verbose passages that used every word in the dictionary (and sometimes invented some) and the arcane rules- likely influenced me in terms of my life and career.

But it is also clear that Gygax did not take well to fame, and that from his move to Hollywood on, he truly lost himself for a while.

I agree , he was certainly the guy who made the concept of RPG understandable, at least beyond immediate oral communication. He took it all and put it in a transmittable form that required little "teaching" to understand and replicate. And the sense I get is that at the time, while there was a lot of RPGish going on, it was largely insular due to it having to be communicated directly rather than indirectly (via a Manual of Some Sort)

 

[Staffan]

I agree , he was certainly the guy who made the concept of RPG understandable, at least beyond immediate oral communication.

For certain values of "understandable". He certainly was no master of pedagogy.

 

[Zardnaar]

Gary and Lorraine were both terrible at TSR.

She's not the wicked witch but mostly plain ol incompetent.

I do like the TSR products during her tenure more though. Dungeon Magazine, 2E, Darksun etc.

And she did save D&D 1985.

I only had about 3 years of TSR as TSR and was oblivious to everything (small town, no net, no reliable access to Dragon magazine)

 

[damiller]

For certain values of "understandable". He certainly was no master of pedagogy.

alright, I'll define "understandable"

his seemed to be the first attempt to put down in writing, technical writing i might add, how to role play. I don't think he knew how to technically write, and really, as an instruction manual, it needed that kind of writing, not the purple prose he used. (something i think RPGs still struggle with due to the word count payment system)

 

[Mannahnin]

Has Williams ever agreed to some sort of interview to tell her story?

David Ewalt managed to talk to her for Of Dice and Men, but no one else has managed to get her on the record in years, to my recollection.

 

[Dausuul]

Looking back, the one time in D&D's entire history where I generally approve of the folks in charge was the period between Wizards acquiring TSR and Peter Adkison leaving -- the time when 3E was made and the OGL implemented.

Even then, I have to equivocate a bit. WotC's early culture under Peter Adkison was... shall we say... colorful. And the business model that generated the money they used to save D&D has always been a little predatory, although they weren't aggressively and cold-bloodedly exploiting it back then the way they do now.

Still, Adkison was basically a good guy, and from what I've read, he also learned to be a pretty good businessman and boss. D&D flourished under his stewardship, and the OGL provided a vital safety mechanism when Hasbro began trying to squeeze more money out of the game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

his seemed to be the first attempt to put down in writing, technical writing i might add, how to role play. I don't think he knew how to technically write, and really, as an instruction manual, it needed that kind of writing, not the purple prose he used. (something i think RPGs still struggle with due to the word count payment system)

This is definitely a place where many indie books by a single auteur shine, since that incentive isn't there.

 

[jolt]

The Blunes were businessmen, but they didn't really understand the gaming aspect of the business. They were already sick of Gary before Advanced had even finished coming out; that's why they spun off the businesses and shipped him off to California. Gary didn't get rid of the Blunes - he didn't have the authority. He argued to the Board of Directors that spending money to raise pirate ships from the ocean floor was not a good investment for the company, and the Board agreed.

As for why Lorraine gets so much spite compared to Gary, is because people had access to more information in the 90's than they did in the 70's to mid 80's. I didn't even know what Gygax looked like until long after he left the company and I wouldn't have known the Blumes from a hole in the ground. In the 90's people were still smarting over the satanic panic (we can't call them demons and devils in 2E remember) and gaming as a whole was looked down upon. When Lorraine made her infamous comment, it was all over the nascent Internet and Usegroups and it touched a very unpleasant nerve.

 

[Croesus]

I just want to say I really enjoyed the first Buck Rogers SSI game, Countdown to Doomsday when it came out. I'm glad they made it, whatever self-dealing was involved. Curse of the Azure Bonds and Countdown to Doomsday were the best of the Gold Box games, IMO.