TSR The Dreams in Gary's Basement

[Clint_L]

It's too bad. I would love to hear more about what those early family games were like. I mean, those were likely the first family D&D games ever played. Imagine it! That's actually the part of "Gary's basement" I would especially love to know more about, as most of his kids haven't talked about it much, that I am aware of. I don't recall ever reading anything from his daughters.

And Gygax takes heat for some of his contentious interactions with business associates, but as a dad, I think it's pretty cool that one of the first things he did with the game was play it with his kids.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Heidi is involved in Gaxland, which is gaming. But this is a documentary, and both Heidi and Elise were involved in those early days so I’d think they would be suitable for interviews. Maybe they declined.

Oh, you're right, Heidi has reentered the industry after retiring from her job in the jewellery industry, didn't realise that.

We know that the very first Gygax session was Gary, Ernie and Elise, so I wonder how much Elise played after that first session. I only suppose it wasn't much because we don't know of any of her named PCs. (Unlike Ernies Tenser, Erac, Erac's Cousin, etc). I don't know to what extent Heidi and Cindy played (if at all).

 

[Alzrius]

We know that the very first Gygax session was Gary, Ernie and Elise, so I wonder how much Elise played after that first session.

Gary says in this thread (toward the bottom) that she stayed with it for a few months, then lost interest.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Gary says in this thread (toward the bottom) that she stayed with it for a few months, then lost interest.

Cheers @Alzrius.

For those interested:

As a matter of fact, back in 73-78 not many gamers were so constrained. Rob Kuntz DMed for me all the time, and severa; others were ready todo so when I was available and they were around to do so.

My eldest daughter was one of the two original play-testers of the original, pre-published version of the D&D game, Her older brother Ernie was the other. Elise played for several months before losing interest. Her two younger sisters, Heidi and Cindy, player a few years later, a few adventures with me as the DM, and then with their younger brother Luke in that role.

When Luke, then about age 7, came to me and asked if his sisters oculd dictate to him what monsters were encountered and what treasure they had, I set him straight on the role of the DM. His sisters quit playing soom thereafter.

I think Luke was born around 1970, so I'm assuming we can say that his sisters didn't play much post '77.

 

[JLowder]

Lorraine Williams did some very good things for TSR and certainly for individual people. She also did some destructive things and oversaw a VP and middle management level at the company that, by the 1990s, was notoriously vindictive both within the company and outside the company. As much as she could be generous with individuals--and she was--she could be quite vengenful. I saw that firsthand. Was she the target of unfair disdain from Gamer Dudes because she was a woman and heavyset? Yes. Absolutely. But she also did some destructive things and, in my direct experience, oversaw a management culture that actively treated staff--especially women--quite badly. So some of the animosity from former staff originates there.

By the by, the number of women at TSR in the late 80s and 90s is under-reported. The person who hired me and the best boss I had at TSR was a women. TSR owes its fiction program, which saved the company many times over, to several women (Estes, Weis, Blashfield Black, and Kirchoff). Much of the art direction, graphic design, and typesetting departments were women. (It's notable that those women were largely left out of the recent WotC-sponsored histories of D&D art.)

As far as the documentary's approach goes, I think Pat was trying to be fair. I wouldn't have participated otherwise.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Lorraine Williams did some very good things for TSR and certainly for individual people. She also did some destructive things and oversaw a VP and middle management level at the company that, by the 1990s, was notoriously vindictive both within the company and outside the company. As much as she could be generous with individuals--and she was--she could be quite vengenful. I saw that firsthand. Was she the target of unfair disdain from Gamer Dudes because she was a woman and heavyset? Yes. Absolutely. But she also did some destructive things and, in my direct experience, oversaw a management culture that actively treated staff--especially women--quite badly. So some of the animosity from former staff originates there.

By the by, the number of women at TSR in the late 80s and 90s is under-reported. The person who hired me and the best boss I had at TSR was a women. TSR owes its fiction program, which saved the company many times over, to several women (Estes, Weis, Blashfield Black, and Kirchoff). Much of the art direction, graphic design, and typesetting departments were women. (It's notable that those women were largely left out of the recent WotC-sponsored histories of D&D art.)

As far as the documentary's approach goes, I think Pat was trying to be fair. I wouldn't have participated otherwise.

Thanks James. I think it's very underappreciated how much novels were keeping late-era TSR alive.

 

[JLowder]

Thanks James. I think it's very underappreciated how much novels were keeping late-era TSR alive.

TSR was around for 24 years. What eventually became known as the Book Department played a significant role in keeping the lights on for 15 of those 24. Before the novels it was the Endless Quest books, championed by Rose Estes. From 1982 to 1987, with the department run by Jean Blashfield Black, those EQ books and the initial Dragonlance novels made the company a lot of money. From 1985/1986 to the end of TSR, the novels were a massive revenue source, exploding in number and overall sales after 1988. TSR dominated the chain store and genre bestseller lists for five or six years, starting in 88. In 1990, the Book Department, led by Mary Kirchoff, was doing so well it was moved out from under Games and made a separate division within the company organizational chart. For the next few years, many of the book lines outsold the related game products many times over. Fiction sales got shakier by 1995--partly due to the market overall and the general company dysfunction, but also, in my opinion, to bad book line and department management post-Kirchoff--but the older novels and some of the new fiction sold pretty well right up to the end of the Random House distribution deal. So it's fair to say the Book Department was a major revenue source for TSR from 1982 through the sale to WotC, much of the company's lifespan. Had TSR not had that revenue, they never would have been able to weather the Satanic Panic downturn of the 1980s and then the loss of entertainment dollars to computer games in the early 1990s as long as they did.

 

[GreyOne]

By the way, Eye of the Beholder and Secrets of Blackmoor are both available on Amazon Prime Video. Dreams in Gary's Basement isn't yet, but I expect it eventually will be. Eventually, you should be able to also buy Dreams in Gary's Basement on rpghistory.net, but I'm guessing they are going to wait for a little while until all the backers get their DVDs.

BTW, if you were a backer and didn't get your rpghistory.net code/password yet, contact Dukes of York through Kickstarter.

Ooh, Sweet. Just watched the Eye of the Beholder. So good, though they undervalued Jim Holloway.

 

[M.T. Black]

I ended up buying it from the website and enjoyed it thoroughly. Not much new information, but it was nice to hear from so many of Gary's friends, and also lots of historical footage I hadn't seen before.

 

[Marc Radle]

Can you post the site?
I’d love to pick the DVD up