# lorraine williams (includes opinions from Gygax et al)



## Spell

maybe it's the lingering christmas spirit, but... i've always found a bit sad that lorraine williams's name is *so* reviled by the general D&D community. if there is one thing that unites D&D gamers of all editions is that lorraine williams is a hag, a bitch, an evil person.

gygax said less than nice things about her. other people commented on her disdain on gamers and game designers. there are simply too many hints about a bad side of her personality to wonder for even a minute whether or not she's a kind of mother theresa of the RPG community, who somewhat was a victim of the circumstances leading to the fall of TSR.

on the other hand, i can't remember which game designer told the tale of how he was still getting money from TSR when he was doing no work because of his wife illness.

... and then ... well, i'm sorry, but i loved TSR. i loved the 2nd edition of the game. i loved having dozens of published settings. sure, many mistakes were done. sure, especially after the mid 90s the stuff i bought increasingly seemed somewhat less exciting.

for all the shortcomings of mrs. williams's personality, her TSR hosted some of the most talented designers in the industry. everyone has their favourites, but few companies out there can boast names like David Cook, Monte Cook, Bill Slaviscek, Skip Williams, Aaron Allston, just to cite a few.

the sheer amount of ideas that were put out for the D&D and AD&D game during that time are simply incredible: you have dark sun, ravenloft, mystara, planescape, al qadim, and many more different takes on what a fantasy role playing game might be.

of course, some of the business choices of TSR were just stupid and hostile (a couple of lawsuits come to mind...). of course, her nasty side is what people like to remember, because it's easy to say: "that moneygrabber bitch ran the company into oblivion" and because history is made by the winners. and, of course, many were angered because the company was not going far enough with changes and with allowing an internet community to develop.

but don't you think that all the aggro attatched to her figure is a bit too much?

if she really was the horrible person and short sighted manager that everyone likes to spit on, how comes that LOADS of gamers were thrilled and excited about the games produced by her company?


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## Robbastard

Spell said:
			
		

> there are simply too many hints about a bad side of her personality to wonder for even a minute whether or not she's a kind of mother theresa of the RPG community, who somewhat was a victim of the circumstances leading to the fall of TSR.




Comparing Williams to Mother Theresa is far too kind--to Mother Theresa. AFAIK, Williams never let anyone suffer miserably just so she could feel enlightened. . . .


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## prosfilaes

Spell said:
			
		

> if she really was the horrible person and short sighted manager that everyone likes to spit on, how comes that LOADS of gamers were thrilled and excited about the games produced by her company?




For one, it's her company, not her. For another, "horrible person" and even "short sighted manager" rarely have much connection one way or another with "interesting thing producer"; in fact, the various settings cited as part of the shortsightedness are one of the exciting things about 2ed for many people.


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## Spell

sure, but... i hate to do this, but i have to cite it: palladium.

kevin siembieda seems to be at least as difficult as lorraine williams. and there have been recounts of game designers leaving the company because they couldn't cope with mr. siembieda anymore, with fans stopping buying because the systems are in need of a revamp that palladium is not prepared to do, and so on.

tsr never seemed to have such a bad name. sure, some people moaned about the moneymaking attitude... but there are people moaning today about Wotc for that same reason! you get them all the time!

to put it in another way: i don't think that a company that many people were so fond off could have been run by someone that was really just a bad person.


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## DragonLancer

She doesn't bother me at all. I'm sure a lot of the decisions that D&D players hated back then stem from her but its all water under the bridge. D&D is still going strong, perhaps stronger than back then (Ok, so its a direction that I don't agree with, but...) so why worry about it. Theres no need to hate and despise someone who hasn't been on the scene for so many many years.


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## Delta

She forced Gygax out of the D&D company. For many of us, that's like someone deporting George Washington from America. Or banning Babe Ruth from baseball. It's unforgiveable, and something of a historical tragedy.


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## Umbran

Robbastard said:
			
		

> Comparing Williams to Mother Theresa is far too kind--to Mother Theresa.





Welcome to the boards, *Robbastard*.  We have a "no politics, no religion" rule around here.  We ask you to abide by it, and such critique of Mother Teresa is over the line.

If you need to review, the rules are available in the FAQ


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## Henry

Spell said:
			
		

> if she really was the horrible person and short sighted manager that everyone likes to spit on, how comes that LOADS of gamers were thrilled and excited about the games produced by her company?




Nobody is all good or all bad, of course - but the outward perception is based on what people have been told that she thought of gamers in general, and of what the TSR lawyers did to the goodwill of the gaming community in the early and mid 1990's.

For a different take, I believe Monte Cook and several other of the designers working at TSR at the time said she was on a personal level a very nice person, and really cared about the employees at the company, and company policy really showed it. (I have no first-hand knowledge, myself, just what snippets in forum conversations I've heard over the years.)

The people working for TSR seemed very standoffish and non communicative with the gaming public, and the only people talking were the disgruntled ex-employees such as Gygax and others; in TSR's case its lawyers were downright hostile to the fan base, issuing cease and Desist orders to many people doing fan material, suing game companies for mechanics even the least bit derivative from D&D, and generally putting the proverbial foot in TSR's mouth and making _fauxes pas_ wherever possible. For all the cool flavorful products they were putting out, lack of customer research (from Ryan Dancey's little article in 2000) as well as cannibalizing their own market with multiple settings and game systems just wound up making the hole deeper for them.

TSR's policies, however, actually seemed to mirror some of what was going on from about 2004 to 2006 with WotC itself; From Monte Cook and Ryan Dancey leaving, and culimating in Anthony Valterra's departure, The voice of WotC employees on the various forums was getting quieter and quieter, to the point where it seemed they had stopped interacting much at all with the fan base. Charles Ryan had helped to bring some of that voice back, but after he left it seemed to stop completely. This year they've taken steps to ramp that vocal presence back up, which I'm glad for, because in a community as interactive as the RPG community, lack of interaction with the fan base seems to breed a certain amount of discontent with even the staunch supporters of D&D.

I will admit, from the versions I've heard from both Gary and outside observers, Gary was done pretty dirty in the mid-1980's, as well as up to the early 1990's -- but who the final blame lies with, I'm in no position to judge.


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## WizarDru

1.  Many of us left when AD&D 2e came out.  So we don't bear the nostalgia for that time.

2.  I don't doubt that Lorraine Williams had her positive side.  Most people have one and all but the most horrific of monsters among us have some redeeming qualities.  That doesn't translate into someone being excused from scorn for their unpleasant and vindictive behavior.  

3. Very few stories exist that cast Williams in a positive light, and virtually none of them depict her as an apt manager or employeer.  While there is almost certainly aspects of bitterness and anger from the later days of TSR, I find it hard to believe the vast majority of it is false.

4.  TSR's legal actions of the last '90s alienated a large portion of the company's core customers.  TSR acted in a very heavy-handed fashion, sometimes on shaky legal grounds.

5.  Smart, creative people can work under people who are nothing of the sort, and vice-versa. There is no implied relationship between them.

Testimonies like this, from David Wise, don't paint a very favorable picture:



			
				Monte and David Wise said:
			
		

> _*Monte:* Tell us about the last days of TSR, and your personal eventual transition to Wizards.
> 
> *David:* I was one of the victims of "Black Friday," December 20, 1996. In the months leading up to that major layoff, Jim Ward resigned from the company because he couldn't bring himself to participate in what he considered an unnecessary action. That left me essentially alone, with no buffer between me and [company owner] Lorraine Williams, who was not in a good mood about Jim's departure. And despite Jim's reservations about the necessity of downsizing, it was a terrible time for TSR, whose debt load had soared beyond its income. It was a cold and snowy day when Lorraine handed me my severance package and kicked me out of the building, but I took my dog hiking and felt better than I had in recent memory._




The tale of the employee with a sick wife is true, and comes from an interview Monte Cook had with William Connors.  You can read the interview here;  Williams helped Connors out when he sorely needed the help (though it should be noted other employees helped him out, as well).  But even with his praise, he says this:



			
				Bill Connors said:
			
		

> It's unique, because it makes [CEO] Lorraine Williams (the woman many people -- almost certainly correctly -- blame for running the company into the ground) out to be a hero. Because of that, a lot of people don't believe it.



In other words, he points out that while she unquestionably helped him out when he was at his wit's end (and should be commended for doing so), it has to be conceded that she killed the company.

Tales like these aren't just coming from some disgruntled artists who didn't get paid when TSR hit the lean times; these are heads of R&D, brand managers, authors who wrote many high-profile titles, developers of the comic-book line....folks who would have an idea.  I don't think that Williams was some evil madwoman.  The impression I get is a person with a very strong will who refused to see when she was in the wrong and who was prepared to ride the sinking ship to the ocean floor before admitting that she needed help or had misread the market.  Her fairly well-acknowledged disdain for gamers in general and her unwavering certainty that Buck Rogers was a far more popular property than it ever really was didn't help things.  Most accounts agree that Williams did do nice things, down to mortgaging her house to make payroll when things were truly going badly.

But the damage she did to the most successful RPG company in history (and by extension, to the entire hobby) is a hard thing to forget or ignore.  In the mid-90s, there was serious talk that D&D was going to out of print and disappear forever....and what was sadder was that many of us had stopped playing the game by that point and might not have even noticed.

Apparently, after selling the company in 1997, Lorraine Williams moved to Germany and has since disappeared from the gaming industry and public radar.


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## WizarDru

Spell said:
			
		

> kevin siembieda seems to be at least as difficult as lorraine williams. and there have been recounts of game designers leaving the company because they couldn't cope with mr. siembieda anymore, with fans stopping buying because the systems are in need of a revamp that palladium is not prepared to do, and so on.




I would argue that Palladium has NEVER been nearly as popular as D&D and that since Kevin Siembieda is the original creator of the RIFTS game and company and certainly a gamer, the situation is markedly different.  RIFTS, the most popular title that Palladium has ever released, has sold 250,000 copies or so in it's lifetime.  That sounds like a lot, until you consider that's the size of a single print-run of a single version of the PHB from a single-edition.  Had Lorraine Williams purchased Palladium instead of TSR, I sincerely doubt you'd see the same reaction.


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## jdrakeh

Spell said:
			
		

> if she really was the horrible person and short sighted manager that everyone likes to spit on, how comes that LOADS of gamers were thrilled and excited about the games produced by her company?




Not enough people were thrilled about them to keep TSR out of bankruptcy. Lorraine Williams bankrupted TSR. That speaks to the quality of her management.


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## Jim Hague

WizarDru said:
			
		

> I would argue that Palladium has NEVER been nearly as popular as D&D and that since Kevin Siembieda is the original creator of the RIFTS game and company and certainly a gamer, the situation is markedly different.  RIFTS, the most popular title that Palladium has ever released, has sold 250,000 copies or so in it's lifetime.  That sounds like a lot, until you consider that's the size of a single print-run of a single version of the PHB from a single-edition.  Had Lorraine Williams purchased Palladium instead of TSR, I sincerely doubt you'd see the same reaction.




Just as an aside and point of fact, Siembeda has stated he 'doesn't have time to play games' and hasn't for several years.  I think that pretty much qualifies him as an ex-gamer, and he has done things that show he's out of touch with the larger hobby market as a whole.  

So comparing him to Williams isn't so off - he's out of touch with the market, occasionally goes off on wild marketing schemes, and is, by some accounts, well on his way to driving Palladium out of business.


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## Steel_Wind

The nature of Lorraine Williams character and her place as a reviled figure in gaming has nothing to do with the financial success of TSR or otherwise.  

It arises from two main "legal actions" attributed to Lorraine Williams, both of which were perceived by the game's fans as being "evil".

The first stems from her legal maneuverings with Gygax in forcing him out of the company and later with the lawsuit against Gygax and GDW. 

To be fair to the fans and popular opinion, it is entirely legitimate to loathe Ms. Williams over her assumed stance and involvement in these legal issues. 

To this legendary perceived mistreatment of Gygax , the online D&D fan base had its own mistreatment at the hands of Williams to gripe about. TSR struggled with its own fans in the early and mid-90s as the Internet emerged as a real factor in gaming. We had "online marks" for fan websites to use and far too many cease and desist letters sent out from TSR aimed at fans and fan websites. There was no OGL back then - and TSR was quite aggressive in trying to stamp out free fan material.

That earned scorn and enmity for Lorraine Williams in the online world - a treatment which has never, ever, *ONCE* stopped since that time.

Anybody who has joined the online world since the early to mid-90s has had that view of Lorraine Williams presented to them as the existing "canon" reaction of  all gamers. That view has never changed. It existed before TSR's financial troubles were known - and it has persisted long since they were relevant. 

Put those two factors together - you have the _Wicked Witch of the Mid- West._

TSR's financial difficulties had nothing to do with it then - and I don't think it has anything to do with it now, either.  That's simply _objective icing on the cake_, as it were.


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## The Grumpy Celt

So, what is she doing today? Where is she?


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## jdrakeh

Steel_Wind said:
			
		

> The nature of Lorraine Williams character and her place as a reviled figure in gaming has nothing to do with the financial success of TSR or otherwise.




Sure it does. That's why I dislike her, for example. Her poor business accumen bankrupted a company that I rather liked. I hold that against her. As a person, she may be a great human being. I can't say, as I've never had any personal interaction with her. As a businesswoman, I know that she is not to be admired. I also know that I'm not alone in this line of thinking.

[Edit: Incidentally, since I'm not Mr. Gygax's keeper, I could care less about Williams' suits against him or GDW.]


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## The Grumpy Celt

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> As a person, she may be a great human being.




Becuase of the way she handled the business end of our hobby, a lot of people seem to assume she eats puppies for fun when really she is apparently just a poor manager.


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## jdrakeh

The Grumpy Celt said:
			
		

> Becuase of the way she handled the business end of our hobby, a lot of people seem to assume she eats puppies for fun when really he is apparently just a poor manager.




I get that impression, as well. A lot of that seems to be exactly as you call it -- the collective projected hate fantasies of disgruntled fans. Just like the Arneson apologists think that Gygax eats puppies, and the Greenwood apologists think that WoTC suits eat puppies, etc, etc, etc. This hobby has no shortage of purposefully directed venom (save or die, mother******!).


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## Spell

WizarDru said:
			
		

> 1.  Many of us left when AD&D 2e came out.  So we don't bear the nostalgia for that time.




do you mean "many of the people of this boards"? or "many people on the internet"?
i would think that at least half of the fanbase moved to the 2nd edition, if not more. and many more people started playing the game with that edition.

anyway, the nostalgia value has very little to do with what i meant in my original post.



			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> That doesn't translate into someone being excused from scorn for their unpleasant and vindictive behavior.




 this is exactly what i meant. "unpleasant and vindictive behaviour"?!? the only recounts i have read of that are made by gary gygax, and by fans (rightly) hangered by the stupid internet policy of TSR.
now, obviously she has something to do with the internet, and certainly she and gygax didn't exactly love each other, EVER.

but i don't see why, i, joe gamer, should take whatever gygax says as THE truth. yes, sure, he created the game. but then, so what? so did dave arneson, and i've read that he and gygax had a few disagreements, too, and that arneson claims (or has claimed) that gygax didn't give him credit where due.

your quote from monte cook's interview shows that williams was angry when ward left. meh! she (allergedly, and from what i can see from the internet thing and the lawsuits) had a nasty business attitude... no surprise that she was angry when it was clear that TSR had turned into titanic!

as for connors (thanks for digging out the quote! ) he is simply saying that the idea that mrs. williams is a monster is so ingrained in the gaming community that when he gives his story, people believe that it's not true.




			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> But the damage she did to the most successful RPG company in history (and by extension, to the entire hobby) is a hard thing to forget or ignore.  In the mid-90s, there was serious talk that D&D was going to out of print and disappear forever....and what was sadder was that many of us had stopped playing the game by that point and might not have even noticed.




but i have seen talks of D&D going out of print in these very forums. i remember them when 3.5 came out, and i've seen it in posts of people talking about 4e. and i think they are rather more serious than the talks (that i do remember well) in 1996: if hasbro had to decide that D&D is not valutable, they would stop publishing it without a second thought... and while when TSR went out of business the rights for D&D would have cost a penny or two, god luck with negotiating with hasbro. they would sit on the property and make computer games, or films, or miniatures with it. and very few publishers today would have the money to buy the D&D publishing rights.

horror!!!, however unlikely this scenario is (and, for the record, i don't think it's going to happen any soon). and yet, if you mention hasbro even to D&D haters, they don't react too badly, if at all.

to sum up: i pretty much agree with henry about lorraine williams.
what puzzles me, and what made me start the thread is understanding why people seem to hate her that much.

the good thing is that there is a lot less aggro than i expected.

the bad thing is that, for all i can see, the only faults of this woman were: 1. being bossy; 2. being a crappy CEO.

if that's enough to make people have strong feelings against someone that they don't even know, the world is a much more harsher place than i though!


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## Spell

Steel_Wind said:
			
		

> The earned scorn and enmity for Lorraine Williams in the online world - a treatment which has never, ever, *ONCE* stopped since that time.
> 
> Anybody who has joined the online world since the early to mid-90s has had that view of Lorraine Williams presented as the existing "canon" reaction of  all gamers. It has never changed. It existed before TSR's financial troubles were known - and it has persisted long since they were relevant.
> 
> Put those two factors together - you have the _Wicked Witch of the Mid- West._
> 
> TSR's financial difficulties had nothing to do with it then - and I don't think it has anything to do with it now, either.  That's simply _objective icing on the cake_, as it were.




that's actually a very good factual explanation. i dig it much better, than: "oh, but she sued gary!" or "she nearly killed the hobby". (*)



(*) if the RPG scene couldn't do without D&D, even if it suddently cease to exist for whatever reason (and its game designers were free to find new publishing outlets), there would be no scene at all. i agree that D&D has a name outside hobbists, too, and that a lot of gamers have at least a passing knowledge of its rules... but that's just because D&D is THE roleplaying game. if it disappeared, something(s) else would probably fill that niche.


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## Sanguinemetaldawn

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> I get that impression, as well. A lot of that seems to be exactly as you call it -- the collective projected hate fantasies of disgruntled fans. Just like the Arneson apologists think that Gygax eats puppies, and the Greenwood apologists think that WoTC suits eat puppies, etc, etc, etc. This hobby has no shortage of purposefully directed venom (save or die, mother******!).




There is significantly more to it than that.

First, think of your favorite RPG.  You have purchased the core rules, and a few expansions, and you are looking forward to two major setting releases (the city of Ascalon and the City of Ys).  Additionally, you just paid for a subscription to the new supplemental 'zine, and you are waiting for your first issue.  You are working on a campaign, and your players have designed characters. 

Then you find out your game is dead because the T$R has clubbed the creators into submission with relentless lawsuits and legal fees they can't hope to pay.

Even though the grounds for the suit (that it is a derivative of D&D) is pure garbage, and that fact is obvious to anyone with a brain.

And the sole purpose of the lawsuit was to crush Mythus.  The game didn't fail against the competition.  It didn't fail because it was managed badly.  It was crushed by the biggest and oldest player in the industry, purely to destroy it and end its existence.

And that cash you shelled out for that subscription: kiss it goodbye and eat the loss, fool.  That was Sean "Veggie boy" Reynolds answer, if couched in gentler diction.

When T$R became bankrupt only a few years later, it was very difficult to avoid feeling unadulterated and unrepentant schadenfreude.

As for the internet policy, there is something to it a lot of people may have missed.  T$R was claimed *they owned YOUR work*.  Period.  You had no rights whatsoever to it (they claimed).  They also employed their armies of lawyers to shut down fansites as part of their effort to exert total domination of thier IP.  

So lets be clear.  This board (ENworld) would not exist under TBL's T$R.  You would be posting to only the WotC boards, and subject to the decrees of their moderators, and even the idea of the OGL or d20 license would have been unthinkable.

T$R under Lorraine Williams really was the Evil Empire of the RPG world, and she was the Emperor.

Hate fantasies...?  
Only someone who didn't experience the effects of T$R's actions could believe that.  
I wish thats all it was.


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## Scurvy_Platypus

Spell said:
			
		

> but don't you think that all the aggro attatched to her figure is a bit too much?




Honestly?

There's a certain level of "group-think" that goes on. Nothing special. It happens to any group.

My wife for example was just talking about a graduate student in her field that's getting hired for some 6 figure salary. She does environmental science stuff at Princeton University.

The advisor (who's also her boss) went on this long half-rant basically implying that the student "owed" him for the time he's spent guiding and advising the student on his research, and how the student is throwing it all away. Almost everyone else in her group doesn't have nice things to say either, and it's all because he's joining some think-tank. And not a "conservative" one, or one that's opposed to environmental sciences. My wife thinks in this case that it's just a matter of people having believed that they've put in so much time and effort and make so little money, it's got to be worth _something_. Seeing someone walk out of the field like that and into a position earning 3 times more they they do, and he's fresh out of grad school, it's not hard to think that people might be a bit bitter about the last 10 years of their career.

Lorraine Williams, Kevin Siembieda, John Wick, Ron Edwards... they're easy punching bags. Lots of people seem to need a reason to dislike and rant about others.

Are they blameless? Nah.

Then again, I've read some of Gygax's editorials in early Dragon and can't say I really like a lot of what he had to say either. He worked pretty actively against his share of stuff back in the day. He certainly was no kindly Santa Claus like people seem to think sometimes.

Heck, looking at movies... Keanu Reeves is a popular punching bag.

But you know what? I find an awful lot of the criticism heaped on Keanu applies to Anthony Hopkins and Christopher Walken. But Hopkins and Walken get a pass. It's popular to bag on Keanu.

However people want to dress it up, it boils down to "some people are looking for a reason to hate someone else."

I've got better things to do with my time. People are people and some are nicer than others. Nobody is completely irredeemable, and nobody is above criticism.

If people object to the way that someone does business, you spend your money elsewhere and make sure the people know why the money is going where it is. Otherwise it's a bunch of pointless chest thumping and raising your blood pressure for no good reason. I refused to buy 2E stuff in part because I objected to TSR's business practices. I object to White Wolf's support of a game that I consider to be objectionable, and therefore refuse to give them or their subsidiaries (like Sword & Sorcery Studio) any of my money.

Simple stuff really, and doesn't require any of the drama that forums seem to love.


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## jdrakeh

Sanguinemetaldawn said:
			
		

> There is significantly more to it than that.
> 
> First, think of your favorite RPG.  You have purchased the core rules, and a few expansions, and you are looking forward to two major setting releases (the city of Ascalon and the City of Ys).  Additionally, you just paid for a subscription to the new supplemental 'zine, and you are waiting for your first issue.  You are working on a campaign, and your players have designed characters.
> 
> Then you find out your game is dead because the T$R has clubbed the creators into submission with relentless lawsuits and legal fees they can't hope to pay.
> 
> Even though the grounds for the suit (that it is a derivative of D&D) is pure garbage, and that fact is obvious to anyone with a brain.
> 
> And the sole purpose of the lawsuit was to crush Mythus.  The game didn't fail against the competition.  It didn't fail because it was managed badly.  It was crushed by the biggest and oldest player in the industry, purely to destroy it and end its existence.
> 
> And that cash you shelled out for that subscription: kiss it goodbye and eat the loss, fool.  That was Sean "Veggie boy" Reynolds answer, if couched in gentler diction.
> 
> When T$R became bankrupt only a few years later, it was very difficult to avoid feeling unadulterated and unrepentant schadenfreude.
> 
> As for the internet policy, there is something to it a lot of people may have missed.  T$R was claimed *they owned YOUR work*.  Period.  You had no rights whatsoever to it (they claimed).  They also employed their armies of lawyers to shut down fansites as part of their effort to exert total domination of thier IP.
> 
> So lets be clear.  This board (ENworld) would not exist under TBL's T$R.  You would be posting to only the WotC boards, and subject to the decrees of their moderators, and even the idea of the OGL or d20 license would have been unthinkable.
> 
> T$R under Lorraine Williams really was the Evil Empire of the RPG world, and she was the Emperor.
> 
> Hate fantasies...?
> Only someone who didn't experience the effects of T$R's actions could believe that.
> I wish thats all it was.




See, for me, none of this stuff applies. I simply didn't like her as a businesswoman due to her poor management decisions. I guess I'm grounded enough that I don't _need_ to carry around a personal grudge for decades on end. I think that you're mistaken when you say that the issue is this intensely personal for all gamers, everywhere. I think most gamers could care less about events that took place more than a decade ago.  

Clearly, your own resentment of Williams is a very personal thing for _you_ but I know very few gamers who actually share your sentiments. Not all other gamers _hate_ Williams or even care about what she did or didn't do anymore. That was a long time ago and many of the hypothetical situations that you mention -- such as the non-existence of ENworld -- never actually occurred (and, hence, are entirely moot points). 

Many gamers have moved on.


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## Sanguinemetaldawn

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> See, for me, none of this stuff applies. I simply didn't like her as a businesswoman due to her poor management decisions. I guess I'm grounded enough that I don't _need_ to carry around a personal grudge for decades on end.




Oh, and I guess I do?
Gimme a break.

I rarely think about it, but neither have I forgotten.  I'd like to see one hate-rant I have posted on this board (or any other) in the last 5 or 10 years on Lorraine Williams.  What I just wrote above is by far the most I have ever written on the topic, and if that is a hatred filled rant to you, well, you haven't been on the net very long.

T$R during Lorraine Williams' time was a spectacular extreme image of what a company could be, and it commited some very real abuses.  The decision to get rid of TSR as a brand by WotC was made as a calculated decision to rid itself of the legacy of Williams actions.  

This makes Williams' TSR an excellent example for purposes of discussion, and a critical part of the history of this hobby.  And said example and history is largely negative in character.  Thus, you can look forward to citations of Lorraine Williams' TSR when discussing the history of D&D...pretty much forever.



			
				jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Clearly, your own resentment of Williams is a very personal thing for _you_ but I know very few gamers who actually share your sentiments.
> ...<snip>...
> Many gamers have moved on.




Well, I'll report to counseling immediately, and perhaps I can achieve the nirvana of your enlightenment.

Pathetic.


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## The Grumpy Celt

I wonder what it would take to persuade Stephen Sondheim to do a musical about Lorraine Williams (Devil Manager of TSR)… You get some big choreographed numbers with designers, duets by people playing Hickman and Weis, arias by Ed Greenwood….


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## Hammerhead

Yeah, do you think we could call it "TSR" instead of so cleverly substituting a dollar sign for the S?


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## Arnwyn

Hammerhead said:
			
		

> Yeah, do you think we could call it "TSR" instead of so cleverly substituting a dollar sign for the S?



I suppose you can, but I don't think others are obligated to do so. ENWorld isn't part of TSR's/WotC's listserv groups.


----------



## jaerdaph

I loved her sister on_ Laverne and Shirley_.


----------



## jdrakeh

Sanguinemetaldawn said:
			
		

> Oh, and I guess I do?




Well, you've just written two huge posts about how the evil Lorraine Williams deliberately and intentionally crushed your childhood, trounced your heroes, and sued other companies for spite (or sport) -- complete with the ubiquitous "T$R" references and a bevy of other ad-hominems and hyperbole. I could be wrong, but that _sounds_ very resentful. 

The language of forgiving peace, it ain't. 

I'm merely saying that not everybody feels that way, despite claims to the contrary. Your feelings of hate and intense animosity toward Williams are not shared by all D&D fans. Again, I don't hate Williams. Bully for you if you do but your blanket statements about all gamers sharing your hatred are insulting. And, yes, _absolutely_ pathetic.


----------



## Delta

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Your feelings of hate and intense animosity toward Williams are not shared by all D&D fans...




Harsh criticism is not the same thing as "hate and animosity". It's pretty unfair to impugn saguine's post as merely a "personal grudge". At no point did he say that he "hated" her (in fact, he said the opposite). Assigning that kind of emotional rhetoric to him just serves to avoid the points of detail that he's bringing up.

I'm not a mod, but should both probably cool it a bit at this point.


----------



## Piratecat

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> I guess I'm grounded enough that I don't _need_ to carry around a personal grudge for decades on end. I think that you're mistaken when you say that the issue is this intensely personal for all gamers, everywhere. I think most gamers could care less about events that took place more than a decade ago.
> 
> Clearly, your own resentment of Williams is a very personal thing for _you_ but I know very few gamers who actually share your sentiments.



James, out of the thread, please. I'm pretty sure you could have expressed your point without telling another member how he feels, and without being rude and condescending in the process.

Sanguine, when something like this happens, don't call another person pathetic; please report the post instead. Folks squabbling isn't how I want to spend my New Years!


----------



## The Grumpy Celt

*Gygax * (Soprano Singing)

Attend the tale of Lorraine Williams.
Her skin was pale and her dress was odd.
She shoved game testing in a bin
and good ideas were thereafter never heard of again.
She trod a path that few have trod
did Lorraine Williams
the devil manager of game ing.
She throttled the Geneva con.
until most fan were long gone 
and what if church nearly had the game banned
by the end most everyone was canned.
By Lorraine,
by Lorraine Williams
the devil manager of game ing.

*TSR Employees * (Chorus Singing)

Swing your budget wide!
Lorraine, hold it to the skies.
Freely flows the blood of those who game-ize.
Her needswere few, her room was bare.
A silly-big desk and a fancy chair.
A mug of puppies-blood, and a leather strop,
an purse, a throw pillow, nail polish, and a can of pop.
For neatness she deserves a nod,
does Lorraine Williams,
the devil manager of Game Ing.
Inconspicuous Lorraine was,
quick, and quiet and clean she was.
Back of her smile, under her word,
Lorraine heard music that nobody heard.
Lorraine pondered and Lorraine planned,
like a crazy computer she planned,
Lorraine was smooth, Lorraine was subtle,
Lorraine would blink, and writers would scuttle
Lorraine was smooth, Lorraine was subtle
Lorraine would blink, and artists would scuttle
Lorraine was smooth, Lorraine was subtle,
Lorraine would blink, and customers would scuttle
Lorraine was smooth, Lorraine was subtle,
Lorraine would blink, and printers would scuttle
Lorraine! Lorraine! Lorraine! Lorraine!
Lorraine!

*Lorraine Williams * (Base Singing)

Attend the tale of Lorraine Williams!

*TSR Employees * (Chorus Singing)

Attend the tale of Lorraine Williams!

*Lorraine Williams*  (Base Singing)

She served a dark and incompetent God!

*TSR Employees*  (Chorus Singing)

She served a dark and incompetent God!

*Lorraine Williams * (Base Singing)

What happened then, well that's the play,
and she wouldn't want us to give it away...

*TSR Employees*  (Chorus Singing)

Not Lorraine
Not Lorraine Williams
The devil manager of Game...
Ing...


----------



## prosfilaes

Sanguinemetaldawn said:
			
		

> Even though the grounds for the suit (that it is a derivative of D&D) is pure garbage, and that fact is obvious to anyone with a brain.




I understood that there was a legally valid beef about how Gygax had spent TSR company time on the project, which made it TSR property. But of course, TSR ended up throwing away a lot of money attacking something that was never going to have a noticeable impact on their bottom line.


----------



## The Little Raven

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> I think most gamers could care less about events that took place more than a decade ago.




Unless it had a personal and significant impact, like, say, getting a cease-and-desist letter from your favorite RPG company one week before your 14th birthday because of a crappy little campaign site you posted about the game you and your friends were playing.


----------



## tenkar

I have no hate for Ms. Williams... but I do have a healthy dose of dislike for her. 

I remember the cease and desist period of TSR quite well thank you very much. 

I remember buying Mythus at the one and only GenCon I attended... I followed the death of the game fairly closely.

I remember wasting my money on the Buck Rogers in the XXV Century and wondering why TSR had published this trash.

So, like i said... i don't like the woman


----------



## Thurbane

I had (still have) much love for AD&D 2E, so add me to the names of those who revile Lorraine Williams name as the greatest blight on the history or RPGs. Strangely enough, she would probably be proud of the fact that she is so universally despised by the "unwashed masses" of D&Ders...

I hope Asmodeus is keeping a seat of honor for her warm on the most desolate layer of the Nine Hells!


----------



## Ranger REG

Spell said:
			
		

> if she really was the horrible person and short sighted manager that everyone likes to spit on, how comes that LOADS of gamers were thrilled and excited about the games produced by her company?



Because by her business actions, she killed the company created by Gygax, Kaye, and later Blume (who is the real bastard that sold his stocks to Ms. Williams and made her a major shareholder to control TSR). She let it be sold to WotC. TSR is just a memory.

But everything has to happen for a reason, right? Everyone have their roles to play, for goods or ills in history. She meant to owned TSR, who then later sold it to WotC.


----------



## TheAuldGrump

The Grumpy Celt said:
			
		

> Becuase of the way she handled the business end of our hobby, a lot of people seem to assume she eats puppies for fun when really she is apparently just a poor manager.



What a cruel thing to say! Puppies may be the world's most perfect food, and the thought that Ms. Williams might enjoy a _Broulet au Bowser_ half as as much as I do is _criminal,_ I say! _Criminal!_ 

In all honesty, I never really attached a name to what I thought of as 'TSR silliness', aside from the 'anti-dark gaming' crusade that Roger E. Moore indulged in.

When TSR started going after fan-sites I just chalked it up to the same forward thinking that led to them not allowing Spielberg to show the kids playing D&D in the movie E.T.. There was plenty of stupidity to spread around.

The Auld Grump


----------



## Spell

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> Because by her business actions, she killed the company created by Gygax, Kaye, and later Blume (who is the real bastard that sold his stocks to Ms. Williams and made her a major shareholder to control TSR). She let it be sold to WotC. TSR is just a memory.




you see, to me the blumes were much worse managers! sure, they didn't drive the company into nothingness, but only because they found someone to sell their stocks to, before it was too late. TSR was in dire financial straits, thanks to them... and that was when D&D could not fail.(*)

(sure, the market was smaller, but D&D was *the* fantasy game. warhammer was still to come. and runequest... come on, seriously! )


----------



## Spell

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> ... I just chalked it up to the same forward thinking that led to them not allowing Spielberg to show the kids playing D&D in the movie E.T...




you are kidding, right?!?
even the mickey mouse of management would have PAID for such an opportunity!!!!!


----------



## EATherrian

Spell said:
			
		

> you are kidding, right?!?
> even the mickey mouse of management would have PAID for such an opportunity!!!!!




Well, Mars Corporation sure is kicking themselves.


----------



## Sheyd

See, most of this I didn't learn till WELL after the fact.  A simple 'Thanks for making the game' email to Gary Gygax in '01 was the first I'd ever heard of him getting kicked out of TSR.  (Yeah no internet till '98 for me)  I knew the quality of the settings really took a nose dive and then abruptly I stopped receiving my monthly Dragon.  I gave it a couple months then called.  Jesse Decker  was answering the phones then and told me it would be a while.  That's when I started buying up all the stuff I could find...  then 6 months pass and BOOM  a new dragon magazine appeared in my mail box!  All was right with the world again!  What's this?  TSR was sold?  picked up by Wizards of the Coast??  Don't they make that card game?   These were my thoughts at the time  but ultimately I didn't care because I had my Dragon back and new products were hitting the shelves...   That was the sum total of my knowledge at the time.  I still think it's funny that Jesse Decker was answering phones in the subscription department then.


----------



## Orius

From what I've heard of the history behind events at TSR, Gary originally brought Williams on to counter the influence of the Blumes, who had a controlling share in the company and were driving things into the ground.  Then supposedly the Blumes cut a deal with Williams and left the company in her control, and that's what prompted Gary to leave.  His side of the story makes it seem like she stabbed him in the back, but I don't know what happened ans it's really not my place to judge anyway.

I'd say she did seem to manage things badly, there were no customer surveys, so they had no idea what was working beyond going by sales.  And she apparently felt gamers were stupid enough to buy anything.  The whole campaign setting stratey which propelled 2e was bad, but it might actually have been better than what the Blumes were doing, since they made some really bad decisions.  Essentially, I think they saw the game as a fad, and tried to milk it for all it was worth (and if that point about ET was true, that makes them even DUMBER). 

Then there's "T$R"'s infamous lawsuit threats with the internet.  I didn't get to to net until after WotC took over, so I missed that, but I can understand how some people would be pissed.

Anyway, it doesn't matter any more.  It's been almost 11 years now since TSR crashed and burned, and there's lots of new gamers these days who weren't even playing back then.  So I'd say she's largely been forgotten.  These days when we want to bitch about suits ruining the game, Hasbro makes a far better target.


----------



## Spell

Sheyd said:
			
		

> I still think it's funny that Jesse Decker was answering phones in the subscription department then.




totally OT, but i have to share this:

when Dave Gross was the editor of the magazine, i submitted an article on adding background music to AD&D games. i was 17, i think, and i wanted nothing but being published in the magazine (i managed, some time later... too bad it was only a letter in D-mail! ).

anyway, after eight weeks from my submissions, i still received no news from the magazine. i started freaking out because, you know, italian post service used to be pretty bad. if my article wasn't good enough, ok... but what if they never received it?

so i dug the magazine office phone number, and i called. the secretary was ultra nice, and told me that "Dave is in a meeting right now... maybe if you leave your number, he will call you back". 

maybe she was just being polite and thinking: "what a loser!", but she was ultra nice, did find out that they got my submission and they were thinking about it. to this day i am still amazed that she didn't just say: "are you joking, kid?!?! we have better things to do!!".

...
i still wonder if Dave Gross was seriously in a meeting, and what would have happened if he was in!


----------



## Steel_Wind

> I think most gamers could care less about events that took place more than a decade ago.




I don't disagree. I think you are right.

However, the answer as to how it was that the online world came to form this view about Lorraine Williams is entirely wrapped up in the Gygax lawsuits and the cease and desist letters of the mid-90s. As noted elsewhere in this thread, TSR became *T$R* to many  fans who were online back-in-the-day. The cease and desist letters were, in a sense, viewed as a RIAA style intimidation tactic used against the game's own fans. If you were online in the mid-90s and a gamer - she therefore became "the Enemy".

When you essentially declare war against your fans - that has consequences. I'm not saying that's what she, in fact, did. I'm saying that is how the cease and desist letters came to be viewed in the online world at the time - and that view of her, once formed in that crucible of online public opinion, has never changed at any time thereafter.

That cease and desist period cemented the view of Lorraine Williams vs. Gygax as the Uber-Hag. 

Because that attitude pervaded the online RPG community, it became a sort of "received knowledge", an "accepted canon" concerning Lorraine Williams that was passed on to the community as it grew over the years.  That attitude persists to this very day.  Someone posted that it was "group-think" to some degree - and I don't disagree with that  analysis very much either.

Mismanagement at TSR and its financial difficulties were not known to the online world when Lorraine Williams came to be reviled online amongst gamers, generally, and so I discount it as having any effect on how that view came to be. 

Add to it the later disclosure of mismanagement at TSR and the revelation that Lorraine Williams appeared to have thought very poorly of TSR's customer base (she thought gamers were not her social equals and reportedly held most of us in contempt)... well....

Not hard to see how and why that original "online view" of Lorraine Williams nurtured  in the mid-90s has been maintained over the years, is it?

The fact that your personal dislike may be motivated by other factors does not change the genesis of the "canon view", nor does it explain why that "canon view" has persisted for so long.

I think the above explanation comes a lot closer to a reasonable understanding of the legend of the _Wicked Witch of the Mid-West_


----------



## Spell

by the way, Grumpy Celt, that's a great posting... maybe i can talk my supervisor into making this musical my master project...


----------



## Spell

just a question... how exactly became known that williams had such a low opinion on gamers? all i know about the subject comes from hearsay, or from magazine articles dating 1996 or so, with very little attribution.


----------



## The Merciful

Spell said:
			
		

> just a question... how exactly became known that williams had such a low opinion on gamers? all i know about the subject comes from hearsay, or from magazine articles dating 1996 or so, with very little attribution.



I do know Gygax has mentioned this in his QA threads here on EN, but I can't recal if he stated that was something he heard Williams say, or if it was all hearsay to him too.  :\


----------



## roguerouge

Speaking as someone who's played every edition since the 1980s as a casual and intermittent gamer, I have to say that all of this history interests me. A history of the hobby produced by an independent author would find this stuff a gold mine. 

To answer the OP, based on the evidence of the thread, this manager's problems seemed to be in the areas of playing well with others, sharing, and demonstrating tolerance for creative autonomy. Those are pretty much the core values of this hobby, so it's understandable that the reaction is intense. 

As to the thread's implication that unacknowledged sexism might play a role in driving the vehemence towards this person, I have no knowledge of the history of women's roles in the gaming industry to be able to talk intelligibly about whether that's a factor. Perhaps someone else could talk about that issue?


----------



## Maggan

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Not all other gamers _hate_ Williams or even care about what she did or didn't do anymore.




My guess is that most other gamers don't even know who Lorraine Williams is/was. I've met many gamers who don't even know who Gary Gygax is or what part he played in creating D&D, so I think that the feeling most gamers have regarding Lorraine Williams is indifference.

/M


----------



## Silver Moon

I have a different take on the situation as my wife and I were the RPGA Co-ordinators for two large New England gaming conventions at the time that TSR was falling apart - with us only receiving around half of the modules ordered even though they took full payment - and nobody would return any of our phone calls.   

First we had do a lot of last minute scrambling to deal with the games canceled due to the modules they hadn't sent.   We were the ones on the front-line dealing with the public who were paying TSR annual dues to belong to the RPGA, and not getting their promised membership cards, module playing points, and Polyhedron Magazines.   Lastly, we had several authors whose modules were submitted and accepted by TSR but never paid.   

At one of these conventions TSR promised to send somebody out to explain the situation, but the representative sent (partially at the con's expense, as we had to provide him a hotel room and meals) claimed to know nothing and was only interested in teaching select people who he knew how to play 'Dragon Dice'.


----------



## rgard

Orius said:
			
		

> Then there's "T$R"'s infamous lawsuit threats with the internet.  I didn't get to to net until after WotC took over, so I missed that, but I can understand how some people would be pissed.




I remember in my early days of the internet (mid-90s) somebody had uploaded all the 1st and 2nd ed D&D rules.  Naughty by most standards, so I can understand the lawsuit threat if the threats were directed at those who uploaded the rules.

Thanks,
Rich


----------



## Vraille Darkfang

History takes a dim view of failure.

LW was the head of the 800lb gorilla of the industry when it suffered heart failure.

Regardless of how much of the incompetence was already present when she took over.  She was at the Helm when the Titanic sank.

Also, she was also very atagonisitc towards her own fans.

In short, she was driving the van while it went over the cliff, while smacking the kids in the back with a fly-swatter.

The highlights of her career are massive negatives (from a historical standpoint).  Any positives are hidden in the massive shadows of 'T$R' & Bankruptcy.

D&D (and RPG's) would be very different had she not been in control (or a better manager).


----------



## JohnRTroy

I'll have a response to this thread about LW a bit later, but I did want to let you know something.  D&D was not shown in E.T. because of Gary's review of the script--or the very short part they showed him.  Monte Cook wonder why TSR refused D&D.  I responded in his forum in the thread below, but I'll put the text here as well.

http://okayyourturn.yuku.com/topic/809/t/The-Scoop-on-why-ET-didn-t-have-D-amp-D.html



> It was in my hands, and I was sent partial information, that part of the script where the kids were playing the game--only that part of the script. There was money on the table, and thus the scene might suggest gambling was involved in D&D play. When I queried the studio for more information about the film they refused to give any. Thus, as did the people at M&Ms, I declined to have the game named in the movie. Of course it was not the proper call as things turned out, but it was the only one to make considering the information given to me. D&D had suffered too many attacks in the past, and having gambling associated with its play would have been like adding gasoline on those fires.




So, Gary made the call on that decision, not the Blumes.


----------



## Henry

rgard said:
			
		

> I remember in my early days of the internet (mid-90s) somebody had uploaded all the 1st and 2nd ed D&D rules.  Naughty by most standards, so I can understand the lawsuit threat if the threats were directed at those who uploaded the rules.
> 
> Thanks,
> Rich




There were cases like this, but I also recall cases of many BBS's (which were all the rage before the internet) who shut down because they were carrying fan-produced D&D modules, and alternate RPGs based on D&D mechanics, but carrying different info (or even those without any D&D mechanics, but carried terms like "hit points" and "armor"). TSR legal discovered they were running, and the BBS admins were given two choices: either cease and desist carrying all D&D "derivative" material, or port all of that material over to TSR's approved BBS site with a notice on all of it that it belonged to TSR because it was derivative material. Most of them shut down rather than cease and desist, because it was either a measure of defiance, or because without that material their reasons to exist practically vanished. I saw one do this firsthand (can't recall the name now), and a lot of sites on the internet who years later had the cease and desists as well as the shutdown "defiance" notices of the BBS'es, as sort of a "gone but not forgotten" monument.

Regarding the loss of Mythus and GDW's carrying of it -- If I recall Gary correctly, Mythus died not because TSR shut it down through a successful lawsuit, but instead they shut it down by offering to settle out of court for a substantial sum for ownership rights, which GDW accepted, and then TSR promptly buried the game, including pallets of gamebooks in its warehouses. So TSR and later WotC ended up with ownership of it, but interest 7 years later was pretty much zero.


----------



## Jack99

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Many gamers have moved on.





I would guess that most gamers don't have the faintest clue who Lorraine Williams is. 

When that is said, I must admit that I find it shocking that obviously intelligent adults can generate that amount of hate towards a person (they never met) because of some (really) poor business decisions back in the early 90'ies...

/shrug


----------



## Spell

roguerouge said:
			
		

> As to the thread's implication that unacknowledged sexism might play a role in driving the vehemence towards this person... [cut]




i don't think that sexism has anything to do with this story. maybe one or two of the main "players" (i'm talking about game designers, executives, and so on) might be sexists, albeit, to the best of my knowledge, this is not true. but surely the vast majority of the fans that have a bitter tooth against williams couldn't care much if she was male or female.


----------



## rgard

Henry said:
			
		

> There were cases like this, but I also recall cases of many BBS's (which were all the rage before the internet) who shut down because they were carrying fan-produced D&D modules, and alternate RPGs based on D&D mechanics, but carrying different info (or even those without any D&D mechanics, but carried terms like "hit points" and "armor"). TSR legal discovered they were running, and the BBS admins were given two choices: either cease and desist carrying all D&D "derivative" material, or port all of that material over to TSR's approved BBS site with a notice on all of it that it belonged to TSR because it was derivative material. Most of them shut down rather than cease and desist, because it was either a measure of defiance, or because without that material their reasons to exist practically vanished. I saw one do this firsthand (can't recall the name now), and a lot of sites on the internet who years later had the cease and desists as well as the shutdown "defiance" notices of the BBS'es, as sort of a "gone but not forgotten" monument.




Fair enough and I could see being extremely annoyed if I received a lawsuit threat, because of my derivative use material being on a BBS.

To be honest though, if TSR had decided to allow derivative use material, but disallowed IP being posted, how would they have policed that?  They would have had to employ an army of folks looking for the IP that was posted.

Their approach was similar to ADB's (Steve Cole and the folks who made Starfleet Battles) they decided that you could post your own ship designs on-line, but that you had to agree that what you posted belonged to ADB.  My interest in the game was waning at that point and the 'your stuff belongs to me' approach by ADB put the tin hat on it for me.  I dropped my support ($) for that company after that declaration.  Haven't purchased any of their stuff in 8 or 9 years.

Thanks,
Rich


----------



## francisca

Spell said:
			
		

> but don't you think that all the aggro attatched to her figure is a bit too much?



She said gamers were beneath her.  That's enough to earn my scorn.  Actually, if she would have said any group was beneath her, that would be enough for me.


> if she really was the horrible person and short sighted manager that everyone likes to spit on, how comes that LOADS of gamers were thrilled and excited about the games produced by her company?



Please elaborate on her creative contributions.

I think any success during her tenure was in spite of her, not because of her.


----------



## Wolfspider

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> When TSR started going after fan-sites I just chalked it up to the same forward thinking that led to them not allowing Spielberg to show the kids playing D&D in the movie E.T..
> 
> The Auld Grump




I could have sworn that the movie did depict the kids playing D&D at the beginning of the film.


----------



## zacharythefirst

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Just as an aside and point of fact, Siembeda has stated he 'doesn't have time to play games' and hasn't for several years.




I know Kevin S. is busy, but he's run at the Palladium Open House the last two years and at least the last 3 conventions he's attended, to include Gen Con Indy (further back than that, I think).  So that's not really true.

I didn't want to drive the thread off-tangent, but having sat in on one of his games before, he does in fact still run/play--though I'm sure not with the frequency he'd like.


----------



## Henry

rgard said:
			
		

> To be honest though, if TSR had decided to allow derivative use material, but disallowed IP being posted, how would they have policed that?  They would have had to employ an army of folks looking for the IP that was posted.




To be honest, I don't blame TSR for overreacting, because in the burgeoning days of the Internet Explosion, no one knew how to act because of a lack of strong precedent for much of this stuff. But goodwill would have been preserved had they acted in a similar way to the way WotC deals with fan material (which is to largely look the other way unless some gross violations are going on). Then again, thanks to the OGL, they don't have to look hard at a lot of it.


----------



## WayneLigon

rgard said:
			
		

> I remember in my early days of the internet (mid-90s) somebody had uploaded all the 1st and 2nd ed D&D rules.  Naughty by most standards, so I can understand the lawsuit threat if the threats were directed at those who uploaded the rules.




No, they're talking about campaign sites, sites that had original content using the D&D rules (such as new classes, spells, and monsters of their creation); stuff like that.


----------



## kenobi65

Wolfspider said:
			
		

> I could have sworn that the movie did depict the kids playing D&D at the beginning of the film.




They're playing a fantasy RPG.  There's no mention of the words "Dungeons and Dragons", and no display of any material that would be identifiable as a TSR product.  One assumes that, had Gary / TSR approved what they'd been approached with by the producers, you would have seen PHBs and the like on the table.


----------



## Melan

Also, we should not forget that when TSR allowed fan material on a carefully controlled site (named MPGENet, maybe?), they required creators to abide by a code of ethics - an uniquely stupid and restrictive license which would have excluded almost all serious works of fantasy, legends, folk tales or classical mythology from acceptance.
You can read the whole shameful nonsense here.


----------



## Spell

francisca said:
			
		

> Please elaborate on her creative contributions.
> I think any success during her tenure was in spite of her, not because of her.




i think that is a bit too harsh, francisca. first of all, she didn't have to have any creative contribution, because she was a manager, not a game developer (and if her managerial ineptitude is any hint of her creative skills, i'm very happy she had very little input on the creative work! )

on the other hand, i don't agree on the "in spite of her" part of your post.

first of all i'm a creative person myself. i am a musician, i play in various bands and i am a composer. sometimes i do my own thing, but at least 50% of the time, i have a boss of some sort that i have to please. in all of my years in the music business (11, this year), i've seen countless acts breaking up because people were resentful of each other, or because their motivation to do whatever they did had run dry.

i myself had such experience, in the past, and i can tell you that, at some point, i was close to move to another occupation, just because i felt that i was dealing with people i wouldn't have allowed in my house, and that believed that i was a big headed stupid. luckily i found new people and i moved on.

now, let's make this a bit more general. if mrs. williams was indeed spending her days eating puppies and reminding some of the best designers in the business that they were worth nothing, that RPGs are for losers, and that the avereage gamer would buy a book filled by a money, i doubt that TSR would have lasted for some 7-8 years under her tenure. people would have just packed up and moved to another business (david cook did, but i'm not sure that mrs. williams has anything to do with this), or to another publisher and system.

look at what happened to ICE and Palladium for examples of bad management. in case of palladium, you also have a big personality CEO who doesn't accept to listen to his fans (even though i never heard that he said that they are "inferior").

on the other hand, look at what happened to companies like WotC, or Malhavoc, or other companies that have (or had) a history of fostering a good attitude in the workplace.

it's just logical. even if you had to pay your bills, would _you_ really accept to work for someone who every now and then reminds you of how inferior you are? 

maybe, if we were talking about seven digit salaries, fame, or whatnot, maybe i would be convinced that people would have stuck to TSR anyway. but, by all the accounts i have, the RPG industry is like the unglamourous side of the music business: you're there because you are proud of what you do, not because you want the big bucks.


----------



## Spell

Henry said:
			
		

> To be honest, I don't blame TSR for overreacting, because in the burgeoning days of the Internet Explosion, no one knew how to act because of a lack of strong precedent for much of this stuff. But goodwill would have been preserved had they acted in a similar way to the way WotC deals with fan material (which is to largely look the other way unless some gross violations are going on). Then again, thanks to the OGL, they don't have to look hard at a lot of it.




i don't know... the OGL was a stroke of genius. otherwise, while many other companies without anything like the OGL "look the other way", i doubt everyone would act that way, especially if adviced by dumb lawyers that don't appreciate the importance of having raving fans that put on websites with optional rules, new classes, and so on.

their argument would be that once the company has "turned a blind eye" to serious challenges to the copyright (which, to a non-gamer, might be meaningless stuff like saying: "you can use this with D&D", or using terms like "DC", or "AC", "Character Classes", or even worse using parts of your IP like names out of your campaign settings), then they would have a hard time to fight in court even the blatant copyright infringments of people that upload an entire manual on the net.

nonsense to me, but i have heard this logic before, and i'm not that sure that people outside the gaming community would be able to appreciate the difference...
if i have to judge by other entertainment industries, the old TSR did nothing more than what the RIAA is doing now. no surprise that the cd market is going down, like TSR did, and that RIAA is the kind of boogeyman that mrs. williams was (is?) in some circles.

to bring this back on topic, i wonder how much the CCG phenomenon is important to understand the state of the RPG market in 1994-1996. personally, i remember many a company had a cash problem.

i also remember than when magic hit my hometown, it suddenly became pretty much IMPOSSIBLE finding someone in my gaming club willing to even sit in a one shot adventure. in the end, i just left the club out of sheer boredom, because i wouldn't play a collectible card game, and nobody else would "waste time" with a RPG when they could have a quick and fun magic game.



so far, it seems that lorraine williams is:
1. a bad manager who happened to be around when the whole RPG industry was about to have a big hit by other forms of entertainments aimed at the same niche market.
2. a person whose social skills could have used some improvement, especially when she didn't get her way.
3. a person who has at least a famous enemy (gygax), that every other person loves.
4. the head of the company who enraged a significant part of its online fans because of its narrow minded online policy.


----------



## Ranger REG

Orius said:
			
		

> Anyway, it doesn't matter any more.  It's been almost 11 years now since TSR crashed and burned, and there's lots of new gamers these days who weren't even playing back then.  So I'd say she's largely been forgotten.  These days when we want to bitch about suits ruining the game, Hasbro makes a far better target.



I dunno. Hasbro pretty much let WotC run autonomously. All Hasbro has to do is sit back and watch the money WotC is making for them. The only two times they did meddle are assigning a former Coke ad prez to WotC and put Avalon Hill under WotC operation but that is it.

More importantly, their products don't contain lead (not like that OTHER US-owned toy maker).


----------



## rgard

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> No, they're talking about campaign sites, sites that had original content using the D&D rules (such as new classes, spells, and monsters of their creation); stuff like that.




I think Henry and I already covered that.  

Thanks,
Rich


----------



## Steel_Wind

Spell said:
			
		

> to bring this back on topic, i wonder how much the CCG phenomenon is important to understand the state of the RPG market in 1994-1996. personally, i remember many a company had a cash problem.
> 
> i also remember than when magic hit my hometown, it suddenly became pretty much IMPOSSIBLE finding someone in my gaming club willing to even sit in a one shot adventure. in the end, i just left the club out of sheer boredom, because i wouldn't play a collectible card game, and nobody else would "waste time" with a RPG when they could have a quick and fun magic game.




I'm not sure that's "on topic"; actually, I'd say it was the proverbial left-turn at Alburquerque. 

FWIW, I agree that the player acquisition model and churn rates for RPGs was greatly disrupted by _Magic:TG_ in the 1994-97 period, and that this had a significant effect on TSR's fortunes. Dancey has generally argued otherwise and suggested it was all about too many product lines - production costs that were too high and sales that were too low == insolvency.

He's right on the production costs side, but the role _Magic:TG _played in that "declining sales" side of the ledger has never been adequately publicly stated, imo, or at least not _credibly explained_ to my satisfaction.

Forgive me for saying so, but I do not think that the brand manager for WotC's new D&D line would ever be the most credible source of information in terms of the effect of _M:TG_ on RPG sales. And that's not a knock on Ryan Dancey. That's just a statement that ANYBODY who held that position would not be putting that spin on the death of the product line they now owned.

_"Yes. The success of our M:TG product line essentially destroyed the player acquisition model for AD&D for four years and played a big part in sending the whole RPG ship down into the depths of the sea. We ended up buying the company at a fire sale price as a consequence. But hey! Love us now and buy our new D&D products please and thank you."_

That was not the sort of statement I would have expected to read from the D&D brand manager at WotC. More importantly, that was not an avenue of analysis that they would have been very motivated to pursue.  

Whether the CCG effect was critical or not - I don't know. But either way, I would never have expected them to say it - _*if it was true.*_

[Edit: Yes I know that the role dead inventory, Dragon Dice, and the returns from the book trade played a significant role in the insolvency of TSR by 96-97. But a significant issue that has never been adequately explained to me is my perception that player churn disruption brought about by _M:TG_ played a large role in declining sales for TSR's AD&D products. 

The financial chicanery by the time TSR tottered on the brink was brought about by declining sales earlier in the decade - not just by run-away production costs.]


----------



## The Little Raven

Henry said:
			
		

> To be honest, I don't blame TSR for overreacting, because in the burgeoning days of the Internet Explosion, no one knew how to act because of a lack of strong precedent for much of this stuff.




I do. I blame TSR for targeting the websites of teenagers that contained zero game mechanical content, but merely contained a long detailed summary of game sessions along with references to certain products. Nothing even remotely close to lawsuit-worthy. I almost asked for a lawyer for my 14th birthday because of that cease-and-desist letter.


----------



## Steel_Wind

TSR received ultra conservative legal advice in a new era where the rules were uncertain. I expect that the ultra conservative advice is not the only advice they received, instead, it was the advice they chose to act upon.

As a lawyer, I can easily confirm that providing very conservative advice scenarios to clients is standard operating procedure and an easy out. The reason is simple: no lawyer ever gets sued by his own client for giving very conservative legal advice. 

And so lawyers do it - all the time - because it's the safe way to practice law.  That's what the defensive practice of law is all about.

So that explains why TSR received advice regarding its trademarks in the way that it did as BBS's and the Internet exploded on to the scene in the early 90s. But clients are not automatons nor are they blameless in how they choose to act on the conservative advice they receive. I give conservative advice to my clients all the time - some of which they follow and some of which they scoff and say "hell no, we're not doing that".

It's a matter of business experience in how clients choose to act. Unsophisticated clients tend to rely on advice blindly. Sophisticated clients are far more choosy and understand the ground rules which surrounds the advice they receive. TSR was a sophisticated client. Blaming one's own lawyers is not a valid excuse for crappy public relations - or for acting in a deliberately antagonistic manner.

So yes, I blame TSR of that era for their actions. They over-reacted - and not just by a little - they over-reacted by a lot.


----------



## the Jester

Wolfspider said:
			
		

> I could have sworn that the movie did depict the kids playing D&D at the beginning of the film.




Yep, it does. One of them even says that he could cast a _death spell_.


----------



## Henry

Mourn said:
			
		

> I do. I blame TSR for targeting the websites of teenagers that contained zero game mechanical content, but merely contained a long detailed summary of game sessions along with references to certain products. Nothing even remotely close to lawsuit-worthy. I almost asked for a lawyer for my 14th birthday because of that cease-and-desist letter.




I figured if this thread went long enough we'd find somebody hit first-hand by the TSR online fiasco.  As an example of attitudes of present-day companies, look how much product identity is thrown around even on this board, when doing everything from discussing Forgotten Realms developments, to the Plots and Places and Character forums, etc. If WotC had jumped on every fan discussing Elminster or Bigby like they used to, I seriously doubt 3E would have been as popular as it was (and is), because the word of mouth would have been much smaller.


----------



## Orius

Spell said:
			
		

> i don't know... the OGL was a stroke of genius. otherwise, while many other companies without anything like the OGL "look the other way", i doubt everyone would act that way, especially if adviced by dumb lawyers that don't appreciate the importance of having raving fans that put on websites with optional rules, new classes, and so on.




The OGL was probably a result of the lawsuits.  When it was introduced, WotC was run by people who were gamers, who understood gaming, and knew how the sharing of creativity is generally good for gaming.  Ok, it did produce some crappy d20 products, but it's not like there've never been crappy RPGs published before.  

Besides, there was also the potential of the OGL producing something fan-based that could end up revolutionising the game.


----------



## coyote6

Henry said:
			
		

> If WotC had jumped on every fan discussing Elminster or Bigby like they used to, I seriously doubt 3E would have been as popular as it was (and is), because the word of mouth would have been much smaller.




Heck, I doubt WotC would've had the resources to _make_ much of 3e if they tried to jump on every such discussion or mention. The Internet's bigger than it used to be -- heck, there are 1759 users on ENWorld right now, and Google returns 4.7 million hits for "Forgotten Realm", excluding the wizards.com and gleemax.com domains. Most of the budget of this hypothetical "Evil Wot¢" would go to dragging the Internet for references and paying lawyers to send C&Ds.


----------



## Orius

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> I dunno. Hasbro pretty much let WotC run autonomously. All Hasbro has to do is sit back and watch the money WotC is making for them. The only two times they did meddle are assigning a former Coke ad prez to WotC and put Avalon Hill under WotC operation but that is it.
> 
> More importantly, their products don't contain lead (not like that OTHER US-owned toy maker).




I didn't say the comments on Hasbro were intelligent OR fair.  

In the long run, I think Hasbro is far more interested in making money from licensing (like video games based on D&D) and simply owning the property than actively meddling with it.  Basically, they're running the show, and there'll always be people who complain about Hasbro if they dislike the smallest thing about the game.


----------



## Ranger REG

Mourn said:
			
		

> I do. I blame TSR for targeting the websites of teenagers that contained zero game mechanical content, but merely contained a long detailed summary of game sessions along with references to certain products. Nothing even remotely close to lawsuit-worthy. I almost asked for a lawyer for my 14th birthday because of that cease-and-desist letter.



At least you got a letter of warning. They could just skipped that part and send a court summon.


----------



## Ranger REG

Orius said:
			
		

> I didn't say the comments on Hasbro were intelligent OR fair.
> 
> In the long run, I think Hasbro is far more interested in making money from licensing (like video games based on D&D) and simply owning the property than actively meddling with it.  Basically, they're running the show...



How are they running the show?


----------



## WizarDru

Steel_Wind said:
			
		

> Forgive me for saying so, but I do not think that the brand manager for WotC's new D&D line would ever be the most credible source of information in terms of the effect of _M:TG_ on RPG sales. And that's not a knock on Ryan Dancey. That's just a statement that ANYBODY who held that position would not be putting that spin on the death of the product line they now owned.




But that line of thinking immediately invalidates anyone from making any sort of testimony about that time as evidence.  Bill Slavicsek was working for TSR at the time, and said this: 


			
				Gamespy's History of D&D said:
			
		

> "Picture it this way," Slavicsek says, "it's raining money outside and you want to catch as much of it as you can. You can either make a really big bucket or waste your time and attention by creating a lot really small buckets -- either way, you're never going to make more rain." In plain English, TSR, by putting out a lot of product lines instead of supporting the main Dungeons & Dragons line, fragmented the marketplace. The same audience was giving the same amount of money to TSR every year, which had taken on the additional financial burden of creating, producing, and supporting hundreds of products. It needed to grow the marketplace, and these brand extensions weren't doing that.




I don't think anyone underestimates the impact of CCGs on the overall market picture...but TSR's financial strategy was already damaged by 1993...so much so that WotC's sudden rise was another brick in the wall and possibly the final straw.  If TSR had been healthy, they would have survived.  Companies like White Wolf, Alderac, Mayfair Games, FASA and Steve Jackson Games weathered that storm and continued operation.  Weaker companies like TSR and West End Games, who had financial mis-management issues, did not.  

Consider that companies have also since weather the arrival of games like Mage Knight, Warhammer, HeroClix and other heavy cash sinks.  In the same way, many companies survived the d20 glut, but many did not.  This owes more to management issue than otherwise.  

To the issue of EGG and other personal accounts: I think many fans are well aware that Gygax is no teddy-bear nor a saint (just ask Dave Arneson, Judges Guild or Mayfair Games)...but he has admitted some mistakes he made.  Is his version of history colored by his personal interpretations?  Almost certainly, as is true for anyone involved in these affairs, particularly if they involved often contentious events.  But the issue stands that there are many former-employees willing to share negative stories of Lorraine Williams, and only one or two that paint a picture of her as a decent person (while at the same time painting an image of her as a terrible manager and CEO).  The implication that ALL of these former employees are venting sour grapes seems unlikely, especially as some of them appear to demonstrate no ill will.  The most neutral account came from Monte Cook, but his account only covers two years of work at TSR, versus some accounts of folks like Jim Ward (who'd been with TSR since virtually the beginning).  Heck, even EGG, after 5 lawsuits, still hired Arneson to write a series of D&D Blackmoor modules...it was Williams who prevented the last one from being published.  I think that says something right there.

I also think that most fans who are aware of Lorraine Williams don't particularly harbor any great hate of her, but certainly enjoy a negative view of her based on history, popular perception and her total lack of defenders.  Kevin Siembeda, by contrast, has many detractors but also a fiercely loyal fan-base in some quarters.  And again, Siembeda has the history as a game designer, artist and creative person...even his worst detractor has to admit that he has successfully created product; Williams has no such credentials.  She was a financial planner brought on to the company by Gygax who bought out his partner's shares.  Given that Willaims chosen profession prior to becoming TSR's CEO was that of a financial planner, her failure to actually manage TSR's finances becomes a more glaring error.  Folks like Gygax, Jackson and Siembeda are creatives first and businessmen second....it's one of the reasons that so many game companies fail.  Even WotC, who was making money hand over fist (as TSR did in the early 80s) was at risk of failure during the big CCG rush and then again after the d20 glut.



			
				Spell said:
			
		

> so far, it seems that lorraine williams is:
> 1. a bad manager who happened to be around when the whole RPG industry was about to have a big hit by other forms of entertainments aimed at the same niche market.
> 2. a person whose social skills could have used some improvement, especially when she didn't get her way.
> 3. a person who has at least a famous enemy (gygax), that every other person loves.
> 4. the head of the company who enraged a significant part of its online fans because of its narrow minded online policy.




I'd agree with 1 to some degree.  #2 we don't really have a lot of data on...being a bad manager is not equivalent of having poor social skills.  This was a professional situation, not a social one.  In fact, we have some evidence to the contrary.  Her management style, however, is generally regarded as inflexible.  Number 3 is true for the first half, but certainly not true for the latter half.  EGG has quite a few detractors, too.  But unlike Lorraine Williams, he is active in the community and always has been.  Number 4 is true, though I think it tries to make it sound like Williams was somehow distanced from the policy, as opposed to one of its architects.  I would further add:

5. was directly influential in a lengthy series of legal actions against competitors, customers and former employees in an attempt to control their market
6.  Made a series of decisions that paid rewards in the short-term but ulitmately damaged the company in the long-term (individualized software licensing rights, Spellfire, Dragon Dice, etc.)
6. Endangered the existence of the D&D brand by endangering the company the created and printed it.

Is the level of vinegar directed at LW justified or over-done?  I couldn't say, especially as the only time I even hear of it is when I read histories of D&D and such.  I personally have no impression of the woman either way, but I find the lion's share of public opinion is certainly against her, at least in a general sense.


----------



## TerraDave

Ahh, the good old days, when we would put our home-brew webpage on a university server, and then wonder if that university would get sued. 

Lets summarize:

*Gygax:* pushed him out, sued him, and he has had not much nice to say about her since. He likes to point out the disdain she felt for gamers and how she would never lower herself to playing an RPG. 

*AOL or nothing: * as noted, they sued fansites and their servers. They didn't have a webpage. They had a presence on AOL. 

*Mismanagement at TSR:* Was so bad it made Ryan Dancy cry. This goes back to the Blume brothers...but I will just say that nothing has confirmed that LW was a good manager. For a time D&D was actually "mainstream popular", then it had an incredibly devoted core of fans (far bigger then anyone elses) who would buy so much of what they released...it was basically a license to print money. Which was squandered in so many ways. 

*Buck Rogers: * an example of the above. Williams was somehow connected to the property, and they churned out one Buck Rogers item after another. There is no way they made money on it.   

*2nd ed product volume and product quality:* They released so much that some of it had to be good. But between the many products that weren't good, to the DM's that (felt they) had to deal with bladesingers and similar problems, to players that had to deal with DMs bringing in some radically new official rule once a month, to the frustrated completists...the shear volume of 2nd ed alienated a lot of people. 

And then there are all the personal anecdotes floating around. 

A lot of things are hard to peg on LW. Who knows who made the decision on various products, the website, etc. But there is a pattern of: being clueless about what would drive the game forward or who their (potential) customers really where, trying to squeze those customers for as much as they could get, then blowing it, when she was in charge.


----------



## Son_of_Thunder

Melan said:
			
		

> Also, we should not forget that when TSR allowed fan material on a carefully controlled site (named MPGENet, maybe?), they required creators to abide by a code of ethics - an uniquely stupid and restrictive license which would have excluded almost all serious works of fantasy, legends, folk tales or classical mythology from acceptance.
> You can read the whole shameful nonsense here.




I actually liked TSR's Code of Ethics. It was and is a big draw to earlier editions for me. Hmmm, tastes and all.

As for Ms. Williams. Hmmm Yaa, well lets just say she's on my top ten list of people I've never met but know I don't like.


----------



## The Grumpy Celt

Everything I’ve read indicates she was simply a bad manager who got a hold of the company mostly by chance. The antipathy people feel towards her is just in reaction to sensitivity over the hobby. A bit like Ken Lay, only with fewer people hurt.

I still wonder where she is now.


----------



## Robbastard

Umbran said:
			
		

> Welcome to the boards, *Robbastard*.  We have a "no politics, no religion" rule around here.  We ask you to abide by it, and such critique of Mother Teresa is over the line.
> 
> If you need to review, the rules are available in the FAQ




Sorry you took it personally, but if you'll note, I'm not the one who brought her up in the first place.


----------



## kenobi65

TerraDave said:
			
		

> *Buck Rogers: * an example of the above. Williams was somehow connected to the property




To say the least.  The Buck Rogers property was (and still is) owned by the Dille Family Trust.  My understanding is that Lorraine is a member of that family.  (If you look at the Buck Rogers entry on Wikipedia, Lorraine is referred to as "Lorraine Dille".)



			
				TerraDave said:
			
		

> There is no way they made money on it.




If "they" = TSR, undoubtedly not.  One suspects that the Dille family made a few bucks, however.


----------



## Wolfspider

Robbastard said:
			
		

> Sorry you took it personally, but if you'll note, I'm not the one who brought her up in the first place.




Dude, he's one of the moderators of this forum.  He's just trying to keep order for all our benefit.  You might want to take any private little comments or complaints like this to email.


----------



## Robbastard

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> To say the least.  The Buck Rogers property was (and still is) owned by the Dille Family Trust.  My understanding is that Lorraine is a member of that family.  (If you look at the Buck Rogers entry on Wikipedia, Lorraine is referred to as "Lorraine Dille".)




According to http://www.acaeum.com/forum/about3485-20.html, she's the granddaughter of John Flint Dille, co-creator of Buck Rogers.

Here's the full post:

This is from the "Buck Rogers-The First 60 Years in the 25th Century" book that was published by TSR in 1988. 

"Lorraine Dille Williams- 
Lorraine Dille Williams's association with Buck Rogers is rich in heritage. Her grandfather, John Flint Dille, was founder of the National Newspaper Syndicate of America and co-creator of the comic strip Buck Rogers in the 25th Century with Dick Calkins and Phil Nowlan. Her father, Robert Crabtree Dille, was president of the National Newspaper Syndicate. In every way, she grew up with Buck. 

  After receiving a B.A. degree in History from the University of California at Berkeley, she worked at the National Newspaper Synicate, as an assistant administrator at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, and held various administrative positions with the National Easter Seal Society. She joined the TSR staff as executive vice president, administration, in 1985 and became TSR's president and chief executive officer in that same year. 

  In addition to her other duties, she has taken up the task left her by her father-"protecting the integrity of Buck and maintaining the vision of John Flint Dille, Dick Calkins, and Phil Nowlan. "

There's also a pic of her on Monte Cook's site: http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mc_los_141


----------



## kenobi65

Robbastard said:
			
		

> According to http://www.acaeum.com/forum/about3485-20.html, she's the granddaughter of John Flint Dille, co-creator of Buck Rogers.




That's what I thought I'd remembered, but I wasn't sure.

Nice little conflict of interest there, huh?


----------



## Ulrick

I think it'd be great if Lorraine Williams heard about this thread, joined ENWorld, and posted her side of the story.


----------



## kenobi65

Ulrick said:
			
		

> I think it'd be great if Lorraine Williams heard about this thread, joined ENWorld, and posted her side of the story.




It's be interesting, no doubt, though, if the stories about her opinions of gamers are anything close to true, I'd imagine she wouldn't come within a mile of EN World.


----------



## Mistwell

Anybody know where she went to work after leaving TSR?


----------



## Arnwyn

The Grumpy Celt said:
			
		

> I still wonder where she is now.





			
				Mistwell said:
			
		

> Anybody know where she went to work after leaving TSR?





From WizarDru's post (#9):


			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> Apparently, after selling the company in 1997, Lorraine Williams moved to Germany and has since disappeared from the gaming industry and public radar.



This is what I remember as well.


----------



## The Grumpy Celt

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Apparently, after selling the company in 1997, Lorraine Williams moved to Germany and has since disappeared from the gaming industry and public radar.




(Grumpy starts trembling and he clenches his teeth)

Will… not… trigger…Godwin’s law…

(Grumpy lets out a long breath)

Well, I hope things are well for her as she goose-steps down to the beer hall… I mean… uh… I hope things are going well for her in her adopted home.


----------



## Umbran

Robbastard said:
			
		

> Sorry you took it personally, but if you'll note, I'm not the one who brought her up in the first place.





Dude, I didn't take it personally.  As a moderator, it is part of my job.

You apparently did not read The Rules, as I suggested, or you'd know that you're not supposed to discuss things like this in-thread.  Go, read the rules, and if you have further questions or comments, take them to e-mail with one of the mods.  Our addresses are available in a post stickied to the top of the Meta forum.


----------



## Robbastard

Mistwell said:
			
		

> Anybody know where she went to work after leaving TSR?




Don't know, but I was able to find her home address online a few years back--I think she lives in Chicago.


----------



## rvalle

Robbastard said:
			
		

> Don't know, but I was able to find her home address online a few years back--I think she lives in Chicago.




Wow... has Chicago moved to Germany?   


>I< live in Chicago(ish). I can state that, so far, I've not run into her. 

rv


----------



## Mistwell

Well, her brother is Flint Dille.  Flint is still a fairly public figure, and shouldn't be too difficult to contact.  In fact, he's on LinedIn.com, though I do not have paid access so I cannot email him directly there.



> About Flint Dille
> 
> Flint Dille is one of the most experienced and respected creators in the video game business today. Flint's career includes extensive animation writing, editing, and/or producing for hit television animation programs including G.I. Joe, Inhumanoids, The Transformers animated feature, and American Tail II: Fievel Goes West. Flint is also active in the live-action feature film business, having co-created and co-executive produced Dimension's 2005 cult horror film, Venom (aka Backwater). Flint is consistently the game publisher's "go-to" writer for major franchise properties, including Fantastic Four 2, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Teen Titans, Dead to Rights, Superman Returns, James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies, Soviet Strike, Nuclear Strike, and two upcoming projects official announcements for which are pending. In addition to his full slate of video game work, Flint has an original game/multimedia property in development and a book about video game writing (co-written with his frequent writing partner John Zuur Platten) that is expected to be published within the year. Flint, grandson of the creator of Buck Rogers, has also written for comics and worked for game company, TSR.


----------



## Ranger REG

Mistwell said:
			
		

> Well, her brother is Flint Dille.  Flint is still a fairly public figure, and shouldn't be too difficult to contact.  In fact, he's on LinedIn.com, though I do not have paid access so I cannot email him directly there.



I wonder if he conspired with his sister on the running (or converting) of TSR business.


----------



## T. Foster

Flint Dille was a friend of Gary Gygax's during his Hollywood exile and they co-wrote the "Sagard the Barbarian" series of Choose Your Own Adventure books and an unproduced D&D Movie screenplay. The story, as I understand it, is that when Gygax returned to Lake Geneva in mid-1985 and was trying to save TSR from the brothers Blume's mismanagement, he was looking for an outside person to bring in to help get the company's finances back into shape and his friend Flint recommended his sister...


----------



## prosfilaes

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> At least you got a letter of warning. They could just skipped that part and send a court summon.




Not if I understand civil law right. The first obligation in civil law is that the two parties make an attempt to resolve the issue. TSR had to send him a letter first. They could have demanded money, but going to court would have cost TSR money and taken time and energy, whereas a C&D is pretty cheap to draft and send. TSR would have had to have been pretty actively stupid, not just foolish, to do more than send him a C&D; heck, even most cut and dried copyright infringements are handled with a C&D.


----------



## The Little Raven

Henry said:
			
		

> I figured if this thread went long enough we'd find somebody hit first-hand by the TSR online fiasco.  As an example of attitudes of present-day companies, look how much product identity is thrown around even on this board, when doing everything from discussing Forgotten Realms developments, to the Plots and Places and Character forums, etc. If WotC had jumped on every fan discussing Elminster or Bigby like they used to, I seriously doubt 3E would have been as popular as it was (and is), because the word of mouth would have been much smaller.




Yeah. TSR punked me at 13, and the IRS punked me at 17 (apparently, I had been evading taxes since before my birth; it turned out to be simply because of clerical errors with my SSN).

I think WotC really understands that you can't control this kind of dialogue between fans, and it serves your best interests to allow it, because discussion breeds interest.



			
				Ranger REG said:
			
		

> At least you got a letter of warning. They could just skipped that part and send a court summon.




Giving me a warning that you're considering stabbing me doesn't make me dread the potential stabbing any less... especially at 13.


----------



## Fifth Element

The Merciful said:
			
		

> I do know Gygax has mentioned this in his QA threads here on EN, but I can't recal if he stated that was something he heard Williams say, or if it was all hearsay to him too.  :\



Of course, if all we have is Mr. Grgax's claims of what she said, that's still hearsay itself.


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## Ranger REG

Mourn said:
			
		

> Giving me a warning that you're considering stabbing me doesn't make me dread the potential stabbing any less... especially at 13.



Sorry, you had to learn it at 13 about IP law.


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## Orius

Ranger REG said:
			
		

> How are they running the show?




They own WotC, ergo, there will always be those who will blame them, regardless of how misplaced that blame will be.


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## Storm Raven

prosfilaes said:
			
		

> Not if I understand civil law right. The first obligation in civil law is that the two parties make an attempt to resolve the issue. TSR had to send him a letter first.




This is wrong, at least in every jurisdiction in the U.S. with which I am familiar. A cease and desist letter is a courtesy, but not mandatory.



> _They could have demanded money, but going to court would have cost TSR money and taken time and energy, whereas a C&D is pretty cheap to draft and send. TSR would have had to have been pretty actively stupid, not just foolish, to do more than send him a C&D; heck, even most cut and dried copyright infringements are handled with a C&D._




This is why cease and desist letters are used - they are cheap. Much cheaper than actual litigation. In some cases, an IP holder will send a C&D letter with no intent on following up even if the target doesn't comply, because litigation would be more expensive than it is worth to pursue, but sending the letter is cheap enough to be worthwhile.


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## JoseFreitas

I remember those years reasonably well, as I was involved with D&D. I met Ms. Williams a few times, my company was publishing OD&D in Portugal back in the late 80's early 90's, and so this sort of makes me an insider, also because I was a good friend of Andre Moullin (and still am, after all these years he's been away from the hobby) who used to be licensing and foreign sales VP at the time at TSR.

No one comes clean out of that story, as is usual, but some people behaved worse than others. Gary Gygax wasn't the greatest manager in the world, and he has admitted that. Few people may remember that the first great wave of layoffs was in the early 80's and orchestrated by EGG, since they had pretty much let the company grow too fast, hired too many people, let expenses loose and so on. The Blumes seem to have been reasonable managers, but worrying mostly about their money. The company had grown too much, and those that were creative couldn't run a company that had grown from 3 or 4 to 100 plus, and those  that could were too blinded by their new found wealth to actually care too much. Plus, there were enough problems between the two parties to insure that it would be hard to run TSR under any circumstances. A "sanitized" version of this can be read in the 25th Anniversary Box.

Mr. Moullin and Ms. Williams were two of the various people EGG brought over into TSR to help restructure it. She used then a bunch of legal, but (IMO) not so morally justifiable ways to wrest control of the company from EGG, and the fact she was a well-known public figure from a well-known family seems to have helped her in the lawsuits and legal proceedings (in Wisconsin). Most of this is stuff I heard from Andre Moullin, and as usual there are sides to every story, so take with the usual grain of salt. There seems to have been serious and real issues with EGG's time when he was in California, ie. re. whether he should have been paid for all of it and whether it was all company time, and so on. Probably this was only used as excuse, but it was real.

But I am quite convinced that Ms. Williams really ran the company to the best of her abilities, which were very good, but this meant that she ran it to benefit herself to the exclusion of anyone else, employees included. There are some very fine lines re. ethical issues, but one might very well question the continued release and overprinting of a game that was really selling close to zero, while paying yourself royalties advances based on 60% of the printruns. And since I was a partner of a company that distributes RPGs and MtG and WotC products in general in Spain, Portugal and Brasil, and I was there when WotC bought TSR, and talked to pretty much everyone, including Peter Adkinson, I was told there were TONS of unsold Buck Rogers in the 25th Century RPG in the warehouses.... And at the same time that Ms. Williams got paid a really good salary, employees were underpaid, given bad equipment to work on things, etc.... Just read Ryan Dancey's accounts of what he found when he went and audited TSR for WotC before they bought it.

So, in the end Ms. Williams made money throughout the entire period, as the best paid employee there, got tons of royalties and eventually sold the company for cash in hand and no debts to her (for millions of $). I would say she managed the company just as she wanted to and accomplished most of her goals. Also, she was independently wealthy before this entire episode of her life.

These are my opinions based on stuff I heard from a lot of the insiders, they may not be entirely true and as usual one's perception of reality is skewed by the people we know, those we call friends and so on. To me, Ms. Williams was always unfailingly nice and polite, even though the 2000 or 3000$ royalties per year my company was sending her were probably close to insignificant. But she did despise gamers in general and made no secret of this. I remember her throwing a fit at GenCon (92 or 93, can't remember) because some girls were in a bikini chain mail suit, and she was on a roll and badmouthed and cursed gamers (loudly!) for at least ten minutes.

I think, because I was there, that gamers and fans already hated her long before any news of TSRs mismanagement were known. And to most of us, unlike the new generation, Gygax was a sort of hero. Mind you, I was under no illusions about his qualities as a manager, but I know for a fact that you can run a company efficiently and still be nice to the creators, as WotC (under the original shareholders) proved in the way they treated Dave Arneson, for instance.

Best


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## Piratecat

Jose, that's fascinating. Thank you.


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## JoseFreitas

Thanks, Piratecat.

On the other hand, now that I think of it (over lkunch, I just had veal scallopini at the local Italian, yummy), I have to concede the fact that TSR was probably managed OK through 93 or 94. Before that, it was in good cash flow, had clear, good lines of production and releases, etc... CCGs seem to have unbalanced the whole hooby field, BUT I have to say that Spellfire seems to have been quite successful initially, and perhaps also Dragon Dice. The thing, though, is that from that point on, TSR just wasn't the industry "leader" in the sense of initiator of ideas and trends. It had to run after the competition and probably did just too much stuff spreading itself too thin. I am not 100% sure that the final mismanagement can be attributed solely to Ms. Williams. Perhaps any other manager might have had difficulties.

She once joked (in front of me) that the gaming industry was actually much worse than the entertainment licensing industry, because in licensing you could always credibly "pretend" that you knew what the fans wanted without ever speaking to one of them, whereas in the gaming industry you actually had to go and actually speak with "the disgusting little idiots". (almost sure these were the actual words)


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## Darkwolf71

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> Of course, if all we have is Mr. Grgax's claims of what she said, that's still hearsay itself.



Things like this spark my need to nit-pick. If he heard her say something, then his passing it on would be a first-hand account. If he heard from 'someone else' that she said it _then_ you would call it hearsay.

Jose,

Nice tale. It's interesting to read something from someone who witnessed parts of this, yet is still an 'outsider' to the events themselves.


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## Delta

Mistwell said:
			
		

> ... grandson of the creator of Buck Rogers ...




Hey, I didn't know that. Guess that explains the mania for Buck Rogers in those days. I wonder if they were additionally incented by some kind of licensing fee back to the family.


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## kenobi65

Delta said:
			
		

> I wonder if they were additionally incented by some kind of licensing fee back to the family.




JoseFreitas's post certainly suggests that this was the case.


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## Col_Pladoh

To the best of my knowledge and belief Lorraine Williams has no redeeming qualities.

Here are a few choice examples of her conduct:

She set out to get me because I said aloud in her presence that when the financial difficulties of 1984 were finally cleared up I intended to give employees shares fo stock and eventually make the corporation employee owned. She was overheard to mutter: "Over my dead body. This company is going to be my retirement."

CBS dropped the D&D Cartoon Show spinnoff that was in pre-production with three approved scripts, and Edgar Gross dropped negotiations for having John Boorman direct a D&D-game-based major motion picture when Williams took over the company because her reputation in the entertainment industry is what it is.

She sued her own brother, Flint Dille.

Her srep-daughter emailed me stating what a witch Lorraine wasm how she had ruined her life, and comisserating with me. Yes. I have kept that email.

Happy New Year,
Gary


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## The Grumpy Celt

JoseFreitas said:
			
		

> ...but this meant that she ran it to benefit herself to the exclusion of anyone else, employees included...






			
				Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> ...She was overheard to mutter: "Over my dead body. This company is going to be my retirement."...




She increasingly sounds like a dime-store take on Jeffrey Skilling, minus the large scale public scrutiny and trial. Both are apparently unpleasant people who ran a company like a sociopath, had contempt for customer and employees and investors and walked away with a lot of money.



			
				Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> Her step-daughter...




Wait, wait, wait, wait... you mean some one married her? Was it willingly?


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## Fifth Element

Darkwolf71 said:
			
		

> Things like this spark my need to nit-pick. If he heard her say something, then his passing it on would be a first-hand account. If he heard from 'someone else' that she said it then you would call it hearsay.



I don't think that's accurate. But then there's really two things going on. Whether Ms. Williams said something, and whether what she said was accurate. A comment from Mr. Gygax could provide evidence of one, but not the other. It would be hearsay with respect to establishing the truth of what was said.


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## TerraDave

Col Pladoh and Mr. Freitas: I would also like to add my thanks.

I think the OP has the answer to his original question...

One thing about this thread is that it is one of the few (or only?) on ENWorld to touch on my area of profesional expertise (though I should note I am not a lawyer per se). 

No only was Buck Rogers just a bad idea, it was a related party transaction used to "tunnel" money out of TSR. On top of other salary and benefits that may have been excessive given her "contribution" to the bottom line of the company. These could have certainly violated her legal duties to other shareholders.

But where there any? Did she just hurt the Blume brothers (there is an irony here)? I should note that this kind of behavior, taking to extreme, will also hurt other contractual parties, and in theory she could be personally liable (but this is hard to show in practice). 

Anyways, that is just a little profesional speculation. 

But whether or not we should hate Lorraine Williams, it is now pretty clear she hated us.


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## Fifth Element

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> Her srep-daughter emailed me stating what a witch Lorraine wasm how she had ruined her life, and comisserating with me. Yes. I have kept that email.



For example, this is hearsay with respect to accuracy. The assertion that the step-daughter made this claim is supported. But simply having such an email does nothing to support whether Ms. Williams actually ruined her step-daughter's life. No first-hand knowledge is gained by receiving an email about it.


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## frankthedm

Thank you Gary.


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## Fifth Element

TerraDave said:
			
		

> No only was Buck Rogers just a bad idea, it was a related party transaction used to "tunnel" money out of TSR. On top of other salary and benefits that may have been excessive given her "contribution" to the bottom line of the company. These could have certainly violated her legal duties to other shareholders.



True, but since we don't have any information as to the quantum of any of these things, it's certainly hard to say if they were excessive.


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## Darkwolf71

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> For example, this is hearsay with respect to accuracy.



[Inago]I do not think that word means what you think it means.[/Inago]

Hearsay is information from an unknown or uncertain source. It has nothing to do with the accuracy of the information in question. While hearsay is far more likely to be innaccurate, it is also quite possible for it to be true.

You can question the accuracy of Gary's statement for many reasons, time since occurrence, age (nothing personal Gary ), or even pre-existing animosity. That's all fine. You cannot, however question the source. We all see that it was in fact Col_Playdoh who said that he recieved this email. The only thing you could question is the existence of said email. In which case you are not calling it hearsay, you are calling it a lie.


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## Piratecat

Since the original poster has their answer, including opinions from several folks who knew her personally, I'm going to close this thread. It makes us a little uncomfortable because it treads closely on EN World's "don't insult people" policy -- although some of this is important D&D history that's worth knowing.

I'll be placing a copy of this thread in our archives.


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