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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 9427481" data-attributes="member: 5948">Methinks you've made this thread before [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] ![URL unfurl="true"]https://www.enworld.org/threads/lorraine-williams-is-it-time-for-a-reevaluation.683454/[/URL]But I think you're perhaps bending over a little too far backwards to be fair to her here.Let's be clear, Williams certainly saved TSR from being destroyed by Gygax's excess in the 80s.  His disregard of business realities and enthusiam for spending TSRs money on himself or on cosy deals with his relatives' companies is very much a matter of record.  However, didn't Williams then, progressively, proceed to do exactly the same thing?  No, she didn't move to Hollywood and spend up big on white powder and blonde ladies, but once the Gygaxian cash haemorrhage was stopped, she certainly wasn't shy about feeding her family members and friends on TSRs bread.  You can't really condemn it in Gygax, and paint it as the reason he deservedly lost control of TSR, then just brush aside the exact same behaviour in Williams.As for the 'not a gamer' thing - well, certainly she wasn't a gamer, and she seems to have had some dislike for them (which may or may not have stemmed from her experiences with Gygax and the undoubted tidal wave of abuse she copped from fans after his ouster).  But if you're not a gamer, and you're running a games company, it behooves you to be damn good at business.  Williams ... doesn't seem to have been.  Many sources, from Riggs to Dancey, have talked about how the Random House deal hung over TSR like a guillotine over a neck, and how many of the glorious boxed sets that were the trademark of TSRs post-Gygax creative heyday actually lost money per unit.  These are situations that Williams created, persisted with, neglected addressing, and allowed to go on - and they would inevitably kill TSR in the end.  What sort of CEO just casually whistles and collects a paycheque while their company blithely sells stuff at a loss?  For years?  Over a decade, even?  That is, 100%, completely her responsibility, and I think you're brushing over that more than a bit.I think it's undeniable that Williams presided over some of TSRs best creative output, from the FR grey box to Dark Sun and Ravenloft.  How much she directly had to do with that, I'm not really sure (as a non-gamer, I suspect not much), but if you're the boss, I guess you get to take some of the credit for at least knowing who to delegate the creative decisions to.  But was she good at CEO-ing?  In the end, I think evidence points to no.</blockquote>

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