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

[Parmandur]

Luke, Tim Kask, and Frank Mentzer are a few I've been a little surprised not to hear from. Nothing from Erol Otus so far either (I'm on Ring of Delusion now).

My have asked, and they said no?

 

[Mannahnin]

My have asked, and they said no?

Well, yeah, sure. It's entirely possible and even likely.

 

[Clint_L]

Two quick points. The Dragonsfoot argument looks a lot more lukewarm when put in that context, if you judge Gary for that level of conflict, you'd have to put the same judgements on half the posters here.

Secondly, I think the context of the insult is not Gary drudging up the memory to be petty but referencing the specific dragonsfoot conflict they just had the previous day. So looking from that specific perspective.

In terms of the work ethic -- well, Rob Kuntz proved to miss a lot of deadlines and as others have reported elsewhere, he pretty much lost clout with other publishers because of lateness. So that's not coming out of nowhere.


This was an email to me specifically, not something on the forums. I only shared it because I feel it provides more context than the quick blurb on the podcast.

But then again, a lot of you will believe what you want to believe... in the 16 years since his death I've seen him be transformed from a real person people interacted with to a figure who will get analyzed and criticized by folks who didn't even know him or who weren't even alive or in this hobby at the time.

This is why I hope there will never be a movie about him, since it will increase the distortion. At the very least, the most comforting thing I think will happen is eventually, he and D&D will be forgotten after a few hundred years...as is the fate of most things in the world. And people will find new petty things to argue and critique. Such is the way of life.

Gygax is generally lionized for his great accomplishment in being the driving force behind D&D. There’s Gary Con, there’s the super-deluxe 50th anniversary re-release. There are innumerable other accolades. I support all of them, deserved because of the magnitude of his contribution (see my earlier posts).

At the same, though, recent years have started to see serious scholarship about the history of the game and his role in it. Because the game is important enough to warrant it. Inevitably, myths are getting shattered. Gygax was a complicated and, according to witness after witness and a whole lot of documentation, frequently difficult person on a professional level. On a private level, he did things that are hard for someone who once idolized him to learn about.

That’s not unusual - he was a flawed human being. Celebrating what he accomplished doesn’t mean ignoring the truth.

 

[Iosue]

Two quick points. The Dragonsfoot argument looks a lot more lukewarm when put in that context, if you judge Gary for that level of conflict, you'd have to put the same judgements on half the posters here.

My point is, half the posters here are not responding to friends and collaborators about conflicting mutual memories. If you treat the people who are ostensibly important to you like Joe Rando on the Internet, I would submit that they are not really important to you.

Secondly, I think the context of the insult is not Gary drudging up the memory to be petty but referencing the specific dragonsfoot conflict they just had the previous day. So looking from that specific perspective.

There is no context in which drudging up a 30 year insult is fair game.

In terms of the work ethic -- well, Rob Kuntz proved to miss a lot of deadlines and as others have reported elsewhere, he pretty much lost clout with other publishers because of lateness. So that's not coming out of nowhere.

Which, if it was a problem, should have been addressed before Kuntz left the project (or even before he joined!), not hurled after him as he was leaving by someone who was supposed to be a friend, mentor, and one-time father figure. Hell, even someone who didn't have that kind of history would deserve a modicum of respect.

See, the problem is, you're treating this as if Gygax and Kuntz didn't have all this history, and deep personal connections. As if Kuntz was just some guy disagreeing on the Internet, and just some project member with tardiness issues. And what we are saying (if I may be so bold as to speak for others who have commented on this episode) is that treating someone you've known for 30+ years, whom you've mentored and at one point even considered adopting, as just some guy on the Internet, and as just some unreliable writer, is a problem.

This was the point of the episode being mentioned in the podcast. Not that Gary Gygax, designer and writer, insulted Rob Kuntz, designer and writer. But that ultimately, after the success of D&D, Gary, the man, unfortunately drove away or burned bridges to the people who were closest to him before D&D was ever thought of.

But then again, a lot of you will believe what you want to believe... in the 16 years since his death I've seen him be transformed from a real person people interacted with to a figure who will get analyzed and criticized by folks who didn't even know him or who weren't even alive or in this hobby at the time.

This would have more force if this whole discussion had not been inspired by a podcast filled with nothing but the actual testimony of real people who knew Gygax, and his various flaws.

I have no doubt that Gygax had some wonderful qualities. The same people who pointed out all his flaws in the podcast also universally spoke highly of him. But for 40 years, all that we heard about Gygax were the wonderful qualities. Often at the expense of others, be that the minimizing of Arneson's contribution, or the demonizing of Lorraine Williams. It does not take away from Gygax to recalibrate our measures of him and those other people. Understanding that (by the accounts of people who were there!) Gygax could be petty, or selfish, or short-sighted does not erase his acts of kindness and generosity, let alone his essential genius as someone who could see what Arneson had done and turn it into something tangible that could be spread around the world.

 

[billd91]

Luke, Tim Kask, and Frank Mentzer are a few I've been a little surprised not to hear from. Nothing from Erol Otus so far either (I'm on Ring of Delusion now).

My guess is Kask and Mentzer turned them down, though I don’t even recall Mentzer being mentioned.
As far as Luke goes, since they had Ernie and Elise on record, along with Mary Jo, they had a strong family perspective from the members most able to remember the early days of TSR. Luke would probably be a better source for later days and legacy considering his age for the early TSR years vs his involvement in legacy issues now. So, he’s a pretty dispensable source for this particular project.

 

[michaeljpastor]

If those lawsuits had not happened, the OGL would not have needed to exist as an olive branch, nor would the suspension of the OGl by Hasbro been cause for such distress.

Open Source as a concept was very big at the time, and given the similarity of software to RPG systems, I would think the idealism of the movement also contributed to the creation of the OGL. Not denying the olive branch aspect, but I posit it wasn't the sole reason

 

[ElminstersApprentice]

We Were Wizards left out the part where Lorraine ordered a gazillion campaign settings that split the player base and fatigued the market. I remember being in college, and just going vanilla D&D because I had product overload. Ironically, I used that money to buy MTG cards, and WotC would later buy TSR. I digress. Lorraine probably saved the company from immediate ruin, only to steer it towards new troubled waters.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We Were Wizards left out the part where Lorraine ordered a gazillion campaign settings that split the player base and fatigued the market. I remember being in college, and just going vanilla D&D because I had product overload. Ironically, I used that money to buy MTG cards, and WotC would later buy TSR. I digress. Lorraine probably saved the company from immediate ruin, only to steer it towards new troubled waters.

We have to grade on a curve when it comes to being a "good" business person at TSR.

 

[Zardnaar]

We Were Wizards left out the part where Lorraine ordered a gazillion campaign settings that split the player base and fatigued the market. I remember being in college, and just going vanilla D&D because I had product overload. Ironically, I used that money to buy MTG cards, and WotC would later buy TSR. I digress. Lorraine probably saved the company from immediate ruin, only to steer it towards new troubled waters.

I dint think anyone's claiming she's good at business. Just not the hellcow Gary painted her as.

He sold out to the Blooms on the 70s. Always s problem with other people's money.

If he didn't do that no Golden age and D&D bust in the 70s.

 

[billd91]

We Were Wizards left out the part where Lorraine ordered a gazillion campaign settings that split the player base and fatigued the market. I remember being in college, and just going vanilla D&D because I had product overload. Ironically, I used that money to buy MTG cards, and WotC would later buy TSR. I digress. Lorraine probably saved the company from immediate ruin, only to steer it towards new troubled waters.

To be fair, We Were Wizards only runs up to the Ambush at Sheridan Springs. Covering the rest of TSR’s history isn’t their goal.