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

[Iosue]

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

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

The Egbert case in 1979 drove tremendous growth in 1980 and 1981.

The Satanic Panic is a later phenomenon that continued to dog TSR through the mid-80s. As mentioned in the latest episode, Gygax's appearance on 60 Minutes with Pat Pulling of BADD (founded in 1983) was in 1985, a month before he was ousted from TSR.

Edit: This graph provided by Ben Riggs is instructive. AD&D hits a high peak in 1983 and then craters. There's no gradual decline: 1,031,200 in 1983, to about 430,000 units in 1984, holds steady at about 350,000 units in 1985, and then less than 200,000 units in 1986.

 

[Mannahnin]

The Egbert case in 1979 drove tremendous growth in 1980 and 1981.

The Satanic Panic is a later phenomenon that continued to dog TSR through the mid-80s. As mentioned in the latest episode, Gygax's appearance on 60 Minutes with Pat Pulling of BADD (founded in 1983) was in 1985, a month before he was ousted from TSR.

Edit: This graph provided by Ben Riggs is instructive. AD&D hits a high peak in 1983 and then craters. There's no gradual decline: 1,031,200 in 1983, to about 430,000 units in 1984, holds steady at about 350,000 units in 1985, and then less than 200,000 units in 1986.

Exactly. The Egbert case (second half of '79, with sales rocketing in the fourth quarter) put D&D into headlines across the country and gave it incredible publicity.

The Satanic Panic didn't really get going until a bit later, BADD until '83, and D&D didn't get dropped from the big department store chains until '84 or '85.

@TiQuinn That's the gap you're missing.

 

[TiQuinn]

Exactly. The Egbert case (late '79) put D&D into headlines across the country and gave it incredible publicity.

The Satanic Panic didn't really get going until a bit later, BADD until '83, and D&D didn't get dropped from the big department store chains until '84 or '85.

@TiQuinn That's the gap you're missing.

Thank you!

 

[Iosue]

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. At some point, I will start a new thread with a review of the completed podcast, but at this point I have to say that in terms of Gygax ...

He was consistently able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

(With that in mind, I do think that the podcast does not do a good job of emphasizing the work he did in the '70s, and I will again recommend Game Wizards for a full accounting. But yeesh.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Also?

Preview of the upcoming full review:

Stock Up: Lorraine Williams. Say what you will about the 1990s, but this definitely helps put the record straight in terms of the '80s.

 

[Iosue]

Yeah. At some point, I will start a new thread with a review of the completed podcast, but at this point I have to say that in terms of Gygax ...

He was consistently able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

(With that in mind, I do think that the podcast does not do a good job of emphasizing the work he did in the '70s, and I will again recommend Game Wizards for a full accounting. But yeesh.)

My impression of the podcast, and I think this is even mentioned by the hosts, is that it is less a comprehensive history of Gygax, or even TSR, but rather the Tragedy of Gary Gygax the Wise. A man so creatively powerful he could bring forth a completely new kind of gaming, with tropes that still resonate throughout pop culture today, but could not keep that game, the company it built, nor indeed many of the friends and compatriots who joined him at the beginning.

 

[Parmandur]

My impression of the podcast, and I think this is even mentioned by the hosts, is that it is less a comprehensive history of Gygax, or even TSR, but rather the Tragedy of Gary Gygax the Wise. A man so creatively powerful he could bring forth a completely new kind of gaming, with tropes that still resonate throughout pop culture today, but could not keep that game, the company it built, nor indeed many of the friends and compatriots who joined him at the beginning.

I think the Podcaster have openly said theyvare shopping the idea of a Gygax biopic...and it ia certainly a tragedy as drawn out.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

My impression of the podcast, and I think this is even mentioned by the hosts, is that it is less a comprehensive history of Gygax, or even TSR, but rather the Tragedy of Gary Gygax the Wise. A man so creatively powerful he could bring forth a completely new kind of gaming, with tropes that still resonate throughout pop culture today, but could not keep that game, the company it built, nor indeed many of the friends and compatriots who joined him at the beginning.

Weird, I hadn't heard that.

But I have been thinking for the full review that this was the angle. This was far more focused on Gygax. Kind of like a Greek tragedy.

Hubris is what comes to mind.

 

[Iosue]

Weird, I hadn't heard that.

But I have been thinking for the full review that this was the angle. This was far more focused on Gygax. Kind of like a Greek tragedy.

Hubris is what comes to mind.

Indeed. I recommend listening again to the introduction of the first episode. It pretty clearly lays out the theme of the podcast.