What's up with the Zeb Cook hatred?

[T. Foster]

Please don't append things like "coke-filled ramblings" when summarizing what I said. That's just not called for. I said nothing like that, did I? Of course, I heard rumors about that while Gary was out in CA, but I had no first-hand experience of that and consider it not worthy of repeating. The way you stuck that in there, someone just reading your post would assume I said that and this thread would get a whole lot nastier.

Sorry about that. I absolutely didn't mean to imply that you were repeating those slanders, and the fact that you haven't does a credit to you. Would everybody who worked with you in that period (or who worked with those people later on) were so classy and circumspect...

EDIT: There's a definite "type" of Gygax-hating TSR employee that I had some unpleasant first-hand experience with while attending GenCon in the late 80s, and that I still see hints of bubbling under the surface when those folks occasionally resurface online. I had you, unfairly, caught up in that dragnet as I was conflating what you are saying with a lot of what they have said (or, more often, smirkingly implied). Going forward, I'll try to be more careful about distinguishing what you're actually saying here from what some of your less-scrupulous former colleagues have said in the past.

[Flambeaux]

That's worthy of respect, at least, even though I still think you and your associates did the wrong thing back in the 80s.

The "wrong thing" being what? Their jobs? From what I understand, upper management assigned writing projects, and these writers and editors tackled those assignments to the best of their abilities. Maybe we Hindsight Heroes would like to think that, had we been in Mike's position, we could have won back TSR, realigned its course, and steered it in a "better" way, but the truth is, we too would've been paycheck-needing and rather powerless employees who did the best with what we were given.

Yeah, pretty much. The environment of mid-80s TSR was that the folks working there apparently looked on it as nothing more or less than a way to earn a paycheck -- churning out text to meet deadlines for products pre-sold on the basis of a title and pagecount. The element of "art" or "mission" of the 70s-era had devolved into, essentially, a faceless assembly line and these guys, in order to help guarantee steady positions for themselves on that assembly line, were complicit in removing the one "dangerous" element -- the guy who threatened to overturn the status quo and perhaps get the company back to producing something more like art.

From what Tim Kask said at NTRPG Con a couple of months ago, this notion that early 1970s TSR was some kind of dream factory of guys with a devotion to "art" or "mission" is nonsense. They were a bunch of guys taking a stab at turning their passion into a paycheck that would allow them to have fun while paying the bills. Anything more is romantic nonsense. Several of the other early TSR guys in the room confirmed this.

[francisca]

Well, there is the story about how I edited and developed all four of the character-based box supplements but only two of them were ever released. (I think MB pulled the plug on HQ after the second one was released.) I can't recall which two came out, but I have the only versions of the other two in existence.

They're just pre-production versions -- the rule booklet edited, map sheets, a four-color mockup of what they planned to do for the cardboard sheets, etc. Did you know that Tom Wham did the design for one of the two HQ hero sets that never came out?

Every now and then, I see them sitting in a box in my attic and think about selling them. MB let the trademark expire on HQ a while ago, and when the plug was pulled, I asked what they wanted me to do with the materials and they said keep 'em. So I did.

I will start a Lorraine Williams thread soon. I think I'd like to start it by hearing what everyone already knows about her. Some of the things about her (e.g., the Buck Rogers connection) might already be well-known to everyone and I'd just be wasting folks' time posting it.

Nope, didn't know that about Wham. Interesting!

RE: Williams
I know about the Buck Rogers connection. Gary is quoted as saying she was very haughty, and claimed that gamers were "beneath her". Let's see, she also apparently gave herself a $10K/year raise before taking over the company. Oh, and SHE RUINED AD&D. Other than that, not much.

[JCBoney]

Roleplaying Game Credits:

Heh. Thanks for that list, Gene. Where did you get that from, if I can ask? There are some missing credits but it's not worth correcting at this time. I think some of the ones missing are wargames (under the SPI brand) and mass market games I worked on. So they wouldn't be on an RPG list anyway.

And yeah, I get the point that a lot of you folks hate everything on that list.

I suspect he got it from here: http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=s ... atorid=920

[Zotster]

Imagine for a moment that you want to start up a game company where ten full-time game designers (and editors and layout folks and artist and everything else within those ten people) were going to make about $50K each per year. That's $500,000 worth of profit you need to generate in order to "break even." Not just sales, but profit.

It's even a little worse than that. Most companies pay an additional 40-50% of an employee's salary in benefits (medical, unemployment, FICA, etc.), so those $50K folks may cost up to $75K each from the company's perspective.

Just to add a random tidbit here, back in the late 80s, TSR had set rates and paces for work. For every 32 pages of a product (regardless of type, line, or size), designers were given two months and writer/editors were given one. If it was being done freelance, designers got $2,000 per 32 pages and editors got $1,000 (so everyone got $1K per month of assumed work). A lot of times, these paces were compressed, so we got maybe half the "official" time to work on a product.

Those weren't the pay rates we received for our in-house work, it worked out that we got paid better than that in salary. But one of the cool things about TSR was that once you were assigned products to fill up your coming year (e.g., I would get products totalling 384 pages [12 months x 32 pages per month], that was all they loaded on you. You could take on additional products that you'd work on after hours, at home or at work, at the rates given above. Some people took nothing, I always took quite a bit. Anything not assigned to full-time employees was then parceled out to freelancers. I am not certain that feelancers were paid the same rates, but I think they were.

I was always grateful that, instead of just piling products all over us and expecting us to just get them done, which they could have done to salaried employees, they stuck to a strict allotment and then you could freelance for them. I always liked that. Of course, when push came to shove and something got added to the schedule or a product had a problem, work got piled on and you just had to deal with it. But those were the breaks.

[geneweigel]

It was from Pen and Paper games.

I don't know about anybody else here but I read all of that. I think that is what got me fired up in the first place but you'd have to add a lot of FR and PS as well. Plus Jim Ward's sudden inability to do anything while still on board and yes a lot more Ravenloft and that kingdom game thing "Birthright" and wait maybe that trading card crap and the DC comics. And don't forget SJ, yeah don't let that slide and then...

Seriously, I'm probably the most experienced person here with your work!

[francisca]

Just to add a random tidbit here, back in the late 80s, TSR had set rates and paces for work. For every 32 pages of a product (regardless of type, line, or size), designers were given two months and writer/editors were given one.

Huh. That might explain the huge freakin' borders on a lot of the 2e era modules and supplements?

[Zotster]

I suspect he got it from here: http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=s ... atorid=920

Thanks for that link. It does look like where he got it from. I think I have that bookmarked on my home computer but not here at work.

[Nagora]

That's worthy of respect, at least, even though I still think you and your associates did the wrong thing back in the 80s.

The "wrong thing" being what? Their jobs? From what I understand, upper management assigned writing projects, and these writers and editors tackled those assignments to the best of their abilities. Maybe we Hindsight Heroes would like to think that, had we been in Mike's position, we could have won back TSR, realigned its course, and steered it in a "better" way, but the truth is, we too would've been paycheck-needing and rather powerless employees who did the best with what we were given.

The creative people in a company that sells imaginative product are rarely that powerless, just as a practical point. Equally practically, it is easier said than done to excert that power when there's kids at home and a mortgage. But ultimately, anyone who was any good/had pride in their work could have found or created employment somewhere else. Hindsight suggests that they'd have been no worse off, and if they'd done it en-masse, perhaps things might have been different for the whole industry.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda... I know. But if a company's being run by morons who can't actually do anything well - not management, not production, not PR, not marketing, nothing - is it really all their fault if everyone below them let them get on with steering the bus over the cliff? That sounds a bit like Gordon Brown's claim that the Credit Crunch was something a big boy did and ran away to me.

[TRP]

... what strikes me is that the facts don't really seem to be that much in dispute, but rather the interpretation and moral judgment of them.

Zot, I don't think you truly catch what Foster is saying in the quoted text. I don't see anywhere in Foster's post where he addresses any legalities. Surely, you're not equating "morality" with "legality". I'm sure anyone here, including yourself, could cite many examples where a thing may be be legal, but not moral.

Also, I'm not sure that you Grok just how dismissive you're coming off when it comes to EGG. To repeatedly dismiss a creator, or co-creator if you like, as legally "just another employee" comes across as .. well.. bad taste. I hold the same respect for a Wozniak. I'd also cheer on any creator that I respected that attempted to regain control of his vision. If I caught the same "error" as you did, my first stop would have been EGG, not the legal department.

I brought the page to the legal dept., said that someone had changed the copyright and did they know of and OK it? They freaked out and there was a confrontation with Gary. The copyright was changed and that was the end of it.

Really? The legal dept first? You didn't even attempt to approach Gary about it first? I suppose you could argue that you didn't *have* to go that route, and you'd be right. However, in the environment where I work, if somebody has a problem with something they usually (not always grant you, because some people just plain have ill-feelings towards some other people) bring the issue to that person first, and then maybe they'll take a more official route if they are not satisfied. The legal dept thing comes across as a "gotcha Gary!" rather than an honest attempt to clear up something with which you disagreed.

Your opinion seems weak for the man that created the job you held then, and, assuming that you're involved in any way now with CRPGs, likely even the job(s) you hold today. Sorry, I know you're in computer gaming now, I'm just not up on exactly what. I play computer games, but not CRPGs as a rule.

If you tell me that TSR created your job, and not Gary's creation of the '70s, I'll only be able to stare utterly dumbfounded at my computer monitor.

I'm going to put you on the spot. Maybe it's fair, but likely it's not. When you worked at TSR, did you:

1) Respect Gary as a person?
2) Respect Gary as a game creator/designer?

By "respect", I don't mean starry-eyed adulation, but just a basic, mature "esteem for or a sense of the worth" for what he had done, and probably more importantly what he was doing, or attempting to do, while you worked there.

I'd also like to add that I do respect the fact that you're taking the heat here and not going ape-shit or running away with the bat, ball and glove. You also seem quite sincere, if completely dead-wrong, in your perspective of the moral relationship triangle of Gary, D&D and TSR.

[Mythmere]

It might be a good idea to start a new thread about the creative atmosphere at TSR during the late/post 1e era rather than continue this thread onto that topic.

Although I anticipate that turning into another "I hate Lorraine Williams" rantfest .....

Opinions about Zeb are mild compared to opinions about Lorraine.

[T. Foster]

From what Tim Kask said at NTRPG Con a couple of months ago, this notion that early 1970s TSR was some kind of dream factory of guys with a devotion to "art" or "mission" is nonsense. They were a bunch of guys taking a stab at turning their passion into a paycheck that would allow them to have fun while paying the bills. Anything more is romantic nonsense. Several of the other early TSR guys in the room confirmed this.

That's what artists working in commercial venues almost always say -- all of the great Golden Age Hollywood movie directors (John Ford, Howard Hawks, Hitchcock, etc.) always insisted that it was all about craftsmanship and scoffed at the idealistic French kids claiming that what they were doing was art, I know Stephen King and Heinlein and other "popular" authors have said similar things, the same with a lot of the early rock 'n roll pioneers, etc. -- Shakespeare was probably saying the same thing back in his day as well. It creates a conundrum for those in the "second generation" looking back at their work and seeing the obvious signs of inspiration/art/genius -- are these guys lying? are they just being overly modest? was their art really created unconsciously and accidentally?

Kask, Jaquays, etc. can claim they weren't setting out to make art back in the 70s -- and Gary, when he was alive, 100% agreed with that assessment and was openly hostile to any claims of any resemblance between rpgs and "art" -- but whether it's what they were setting out to do or not, they did it nonetheless.

[Flambeaux]

From what Tim Kask said at NTRPG Con a couple of months ago, this notion that early 1970s TSR was some kind of dream factory of guys with a devotion to "art" or "mission" is nonsense. They were a bunch of guys taking a stab at turning their passion into a paycheck that would allow them to have fun while paying the bills. Anything more is romantic nonsense. Several of the other early TSR guys in the room confirmed this.

That's what artists working in commercial venues almost always say -- all of the great Golden Age Hollywood movie directors (John Ford, Howard Hawks, Hitchcock, etc.) always insisted that it was all about craftsmanship and scoffed at the idealistic French kids claiming that what they were doing was art, I know Stephen King and Heinlein and other "popular" authors have said similar things, the same with a lot of the early rock 'n roll pioneers, etc. -- Shakespeare was probably saying the same thing back in his day as well. It creates a conundrum for those in the "second generation" looking back at their work and seeing the obvious signs of inspiration/art/genius -- are these guys lying? are they just being overly modest? was their art really created unconsciously and accidentally?

Kask, Jaquays, etc. can claim they weren't setting out to make art back in the 70s -- and Gary, when he was alive, 100% agreed with that assessment and was openly hostile to any claims of any resemblance between rpgs and "art" -- but whether it's what they were setting out to do or not, they did it nonetheless.

Perhaps its the sort of thing you only find/create if you're not trying or, even better, wholly unaware that it's happening. Certainly my experience in live theater would confirm that. But now we're way off-topic.

[Zotster]

That's worthy of respect, at least, even though I still think you and your associates did the wrong thing back in the 80s.

The "wrong thing" being what? Their jobs? From what I understand, upper management assigned writing projects, and these writers and editors tackled those assignments to the best of their abilities. Maybe we Hindsight Heroes would like to think that, had we been in Mike's position, we could have won back TSR, realigned its course, and steered it in a "better" way, but the truth is, we too would've been paycheck-needing and rather powerless employees who did the best with what we were given.

The creative people in a company that sells imaginative product are rarely that powerless, just as a practical point. Equally practically, it is easier said than done to excert that power when there's kids at home and a mortgage. But ultimately, anyone who was any good/had pride in their work could have found or created employment somewhere else. Hindsight suggests that they'd have been no worse off, and if they'd done it en-masse, perhaps things might have been different for the whole industry.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda... I know. But if a company's being run by morons who can't actually do anything well - not management, not production, not PR, not marketing, nothing - is it really all their fault if everyone below them let them get on with steering the bus over the cliff? That sounds a bit like Gordon Brown's claim that the Credit Crunch was something a big boy did and ran away to me.

I think you had to be there to know the full extent of the psychology involved here. Sorry if that sounds like a cop-out. When I started at TSR in Sept. 1984, we were at about (IIRC) 250 employees. That was down from a high of about 350 6-12 months prior to my hiring. They'd had a round of layoffs where they chopped out a lot of people. Over the next year or so, we had some more layoffs and eventually got down to approximately 80 people.

It got so bad that at one point, virtually everyone in the design department, plus art, typesetting, and graphics/layout had a meeting at someone's house and discussed leaving en masse and forming our own company. It was a very depressing meeting. We all decided to hold on and see what happened. Soon after was when Lorraine took over and it was a huge relief. As you and other have noted, you've got kids, cars, mortgages, etc. There's a real tendency to just hang on as long as you can.

It was something of a gradual slide and when you're inside it, it's really hard to notice. Things changed incrementally as far as we were concerned, with stuff veering off a little bit each month. Again, hard to pinpoint and declare that some line had been crossed. I grew increasingly dissatisfied (as did others) and in mid-1988 I decided to leave. I talked with Jim Ward and told him, mostly concentrating on how we'd been offered a lake lot in Indiana by a relative and we wanted to build a house there (rather than dwelling on unhappiness with TSR). Jim was great -- he was always a great boss -- and told me that he wanted me to give them as much notice as I could and he would do everything he could to load me with as much freelance work as I was willing to take.

I gave them 9 months' notice, telling them in about Sept of 1988 that I'd be leaving in May of 1989. It was a big leap and it took me quite a while to work up the courage. I had a two-year old son, my wife was five months pregnant, we were building a house in IN, and I was leaving to no full-time job, just freelance work. True to his word, Jim loaded me up with an entire year's worth of work before I left. He even wrote a letter to the bank stating that I would have all the freelance work I wanted for as long as I wanted. That's how we were able to get a mortgage with neither my wife nor I having a job, basically.

I had a plan when I left -- to get into computer and video games. I'd gotten the bug as a co-designer on Pool of Radiance in 1988 and I felt I could do writing and design for those games while living anywhere in the country. So with the cushion of TSR freelance work over the next few years, I was able to build up to freelancing full-time in computer games.

So I eventually left, but it took a lot of planning and a lot of carefully not burning bridges for me to do it successfully. When you really want to work in the games industry and you're out in Lake Geneva, WI, there's a strong tendency to stick with TSR as long as you could. I don't blame anyone for staying with TSR, as they were still working on games, the people you worked directly with were good and fun people, and it wasn't all bad.

[blackprinceofmuncie]

If I caught the same "error" as you did, my first stop would have been EGG, not the legal department.

Why? By all accounts, Gary was not the supervisor on this project, was not involved in writing any of the final content and I very much doubt that Gary was in the habit of drafting the copyright statements of the books that TSR published (even the ones he was lead author for). It seems perfectly reasonable to me that, if an editor finds a potential mistake in the legal statements of a book, he would take that issue to the people responsible for drafting the legal statements.

Given Gary's lack of involvement with the OA project, it seems extremely UNreasonable for an editor to take that particular mistake to him as a first step (or any step for that matter).