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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mr. Lahey" data-source="post: 9433558" data-attributes="member: 7046249">Having finished the podcast and read a number of sources recently and in the past, I have come to two conclusions:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Gary definitely had been crafting a story where he was the hero and Williams was the villain, after he had dispatched the incorrigible Blumes.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Gary really wasn’t a nice person.</li> </ol>Firstly, the book Empire of Imagination gives a great account of things from Gary’s perspective. It also expands on things I had read in other interviews Gary had given. Basically, in this version, Gary wrote D&D with modest input from Dave Arneson. In building this company, he needed money so he ends up taking investment from the Blumes. After the initial success, he heads to LA to expand into TV and film. At this time, the Blumes mismanagement almost destroys the company. He returns to Lake Geneva to oust the Blumes with their rampant nepotism and bad management, only to be betrayed by the manipulative and underhanded Lorraine Williams.Having since read Jon Peterson’s the Game Wizards and listened to the various people on the podcast, I would say that hubris is absolutely the right word to describe Gary, particularly in the aftermath of the initial success. He, along with the Blumes are equally responsible for the poor management, the poor treatment of staff and the arrogant attitude they displayed. As far as how to view Gary today, certainly we see him as “the guy” who co-created a game that became a cultural phenomenon. However, I get the impression from the various accounts that, while the mechanics and rules of D&D may come largely from Gary, many of the core concepts that make an RPG were actually pioneered by Dave in his Blackmoor campaign and earlier “medieval Braunsteins”. All of Gary’s claims of how D&D should all be his and his alone really smacks on hypocrisy in that light.As far as Gary personally, there was a comment on the Rose Estes thread suggesting that he was great as long as you went along with him, but would turn on you if you opposed him. I think that is spot-on, from the description of him being a domineering father with a “my way or the highway” attitude, to his behaviour towards colleagues and others at TSR. I’d love to have been a player in one of his campaigns, but I wouldn’t want to work with someone like that.Additionally, his whole suggestion that when he signed the document giving TSR ownership of his works, it wasn’t intended to apply to him is just awful. What he’s saying is that he signed it as a way of lying to the other creatives at TSR, to manipulate and trick them into giving away their IP rights. Turning to Lorraine, certainly she was sneaky in how she outmanoeuvred him, but based on his other demonstrated behaviour, including various other places where he proudly displays his chauvinism, I’m genuinely curious about how Gary had begun to treat her as soon as he realized she would be neither a sycophant nor a silent partner.Clearly, under Lorraine’s leadership they overextended to the point they had to sell to WotC, but one thing I am not clear on is whether, after her takeover in the mid 80s, was TSR ever truly healthy, or were they always running on borrowed time. I guess we’ll have to wait for that story to come out.</blockquote>

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