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Archive for the 'TSR' Tag

Fact check: Lorraine Williams destroyed, not created, TSR

March 18th, 2009, 10:45 pm by Jayson Peters

[UPDATED: The Web page in question has been corrected so that it no longer says Lorraine Williams created TSR.]

TSR logo

Lorraine Williams is a name reviled by many Dungeons & Dragons fans.

One reason is that she sold TSR, the original company that produced the tabletop roleplaying game, to Wizards of the Coast, the makers of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. Wizards still produces the game and last year launched its 4th Edition, but many people say D&D hasn’t been the same since the sale.

More than 10 years earlier, Williams had gained control of TSR through a hostile takeover that forced D&D creator Gary Gygax out of the company.

Another black mark against Williams: She supposedly looked down on gamers and even banned the playing of games withing the company’s walls, forcing designers to conduct underground playtests, if any, on products released under her tenure.

So, even though Williams was a financial planner who got TSR out of debt and generating profit, gamers have many reasons to hate her. And here’s another: Buck Rogers and gohero.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Zero hp: Gary Gygax, 1938-2008

March 4th, 2008, 10:35 pm by Jayson Peters

gary_gygax_gen_con_2007.jpgGamers everywhere should pause their endeavors for a moment of silence: AP is reporting that Gary Gygax, the co-creator (with Dave Arneson) of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, has died at age 69.

If you play any RPG, whether it be D&D at a kitchen table with pencils and paper, online with World or Warcraft or on a console such as the Xbox 360 with Mass Effect, you should know that none of it would have been possible without this man. He started it all with the miniatures wargame Chainmail in 1971, the foundation upon which D&D and all of modern roleplaying would rise three years later. Read the rest of this entry »

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