D&D General When We Were Wizards: Trailer for the Podcast

[el-remmen]

I have one more episode to go and have been really enjoying it. I have esp. appreciated hearing from Mary Jo Gygax and Rose Estes.

 

[TiQuinn]

So, I've listened to all the episodes, including the latest (and last) one, and nothing, nothing in the whole series has been more of a gut-punch than to hear Lorraine Williams' first offer to buy-out Gygax, in an effort to stave off his lawsuit:

• She would buy all his shares at $3,000 a share. Gygax had roughly a little over 1,600 shares, so this would be about $4.8 million in total ($14 million in 2024 dollars).
• $500,000 in royalties for the next five years.
• Gygax would get the trademark to D&D, AD&D, Greyhawk, and Gencon.
• Right to produce a D&D movie, if it is made.

I mean, I get it. If Gygax had won his lawsuit, he'd have all that and control of TSR. But, in the end, he loses the lawsuit, and decides to settle rather than appeal. In the settlement he only gets $1,000 a share, a renegotiated royalty deal, and his loans to the company are repaid.

But if he had taken the deal...it seems he surely would have had enough money to start a new company, and possibly even put out a new edition of (A)D&D. I don't know what exactly Williams planned to do after giving up the trademarks. License them from Gygax? Continue to publish a revised version of D&D under a new name? Make TSR the Buck Rogers Game Company?

Gygax being ousted from his company was rough. But hearing, for the first time, that he might have even gotten away from it with the rights to D&D? And he turned the deal down? Oof. That might have been even rougher.

What was crazy to me was how insistent Gygax was on his royalties when together with the Blumes they shut out employees from being able to start projects that would lead to them collecting their own royalties. For as litigious as Gygax was, had any of his employees had the money to afford an attorney of their own, there’d have been several causes for them to file against the company, such as making them turn in copies of contracts and handbooks.

Meanwhile, everyone seemed like they were dragging Williams for not being a “gamer” at the end, forgetting her job was to be the CEO and that she knew licensing - the exact thing that Gygax was trying to get into in California and largely failing at.

Truly some signs of personality cult thinking going on there.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hey everyone!

I can't make anyone do anything, but I am about to write the review of the full series. If I can make a request, if you have a comment about the full series, if you can save it for a short while, I will have it up shortly. As quick as I can write it!

When I am finished, I will post a link to it in this comment.

 

[el-remmen]

if you have a comment about the full series, if you can save it for a short while

Sorry but I have to make one more . . . the wordcount of the episode transcripts of the full series would still be less than the average Snarf post.

 

[damiller]

i am about 1/2 way through, looking forward to the review, and will same more then

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Review finished. Tried to get it out as quickly as possible-

D&D General - When We Were Wizards: Review of the Completed Podcast!

Four years ago, screenwriter, Adam Turner and Dungeons & Dragons® historian, Paul Stormberg, embarked on a project about Gary Gygax, D&D®, and TSR Hobbies, the company he founded to publish the game. During the course of this project they recorded their ongoing conversations, not only about the...

www.enworld.org

 

[MNblockhead]

Fantastic show so far - I’m up to Chapter 7 The Snake Pit now.

There are a few things that I wish I could ask based on interviews I’ve heard from folks like Jim Ward. Ward swore up and down that the Satanic Panic had companies like JC Penney ready to pull their account with TSR which was his defense for why devils and demons in the book went away and were replaced with baatezu and tanarii. However, Episode 6 makes it sound like sales went gangbusters due to the Satanic Panic and the Penney’s account was gained in the midst or even after most of the Egbert and BADD stuff had occurred.

I suspect both are true. The controversy led to interest and sales, but also made many mainstream venues avoid carrying the game at a time when TSR was trying to push further into the mainstream and become the next Parker Brothers or Hasbro. The controversy may have boosted game sales among teen agers and college kids, but if it wasn't sold in Toys R Us, Target, etc., it limits growth potential. And it is hard to sell toys and lunch boxes for a "satanic" game. It may have hurt TV and movie negotiations, though I think TSR was mismanaging that from even before the Satanic Panic.