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TSR, Inc.

January 28, 2023

TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for D&D, a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing, so founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products. Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner. Dungeons & Dragons is generally considered the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the popular D&D as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin, making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies.

TSR, Inc.
IndustryRole-playing game publisher
Founded1973
Defunct1997
FateAcquired and discontinued
SuccessorWizards of the Coast
HeadquartersLake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States
Key people
Gary Gygax, Brian Blume, Lorraine Williams
ProductsDungeons & Dragons

TSR Hobbies ran into financial difficulties in the spring of 1983, prompting the company to split into four independent businesses, with game publishing and development continuing as TSR, Inc. (TSR). After losing their executive positions, the Blume brothers subsequently sold their shares to TSR Vice President Lorraine Williams, who in turn engineered Gygax's ouster from the company in October 1985. TSR saw prosperity under Williams, but encountered financial trouble in the mid-1990s. While their overall sales and revenue were healthy, TSR's high costs meant the company nevertheless became unprofitable and saddled by debt. TSR was left unable to cover its publishing costs due to a variety of factors. Facing insolvency, TSR was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast (WotC). WotC initially retained use of the TSR name for D&D products, but by 2000, the TSR moniker was dropped, coinciding with the release of the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

WotC allowed the TSR trademark to expire in the early 2000s. Two new companies have since utilized the TSR trademark commercially.

History

Tactical Studies Rules (1973–1975)

Tactical Studies Rules
 
Original logo of Tactical Studies Rules: the entwined initials of founders Gary Gygax and Don Kaye.
IndustryRole-playing game publisher
Founded1973
Defunct1975
Fatedissolved
SuccessorTSR Hobbies, Inc.
HeadquartersLake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States
Key people
Gary Gygax, Don Kaye, Brian Blume
ProductsDungeons & Dragons

Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) was formed in 1973 as a partnership between Gary Gygax and Don Kaye, who collected together $2,400 for startup costs, to formally publish and sell the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, the creation of Gygax and Dave Arneson and the first modern role-playing game (RPG).[1] The first TSR release, however, was Cavaliers and Roundheads, a miniature game, to start generating income for TSR. The partnership was subsequently joined by Brian Blume in December 1973. Blume was admitted to the partnership to fund further publishing of D&D, as Cavaliers and Roundheads was not a commercial success.[2][3] In the original configuration of the partnership, Kaye served as president, Blume as vice-president, and Gygax as editor.[4]

In January 1974, TSR—with Gygax's basement as a headquarters—produced 1,000 copies of D&D, selling them for $10 each (and the extra dice needed for another $3.50). This first print sold out in 10 months.[1] In January 1975, TSR printed a second 1,000 copies of D&D, which took only another five or six months to sell out.[5] Also in 1974, TSR published Warriors of Mars, a miniatures rules book set in the fantasy world of Barsoom, originally imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his series of novels about John Carter of Mars, to which Gygax paid homage in the preface of the first edition of D&D. However, Gygax and TSR published the Mars book without permission from (or payment to) the Burroughs estate, and soon after, a cease and desist order was issued, and Warriors was pulled from distribution.

When Don Kaye died of a heart attack on January 31, 1975, his role was taken over by his wife Donna Kaye, who remained responsible for accounting, shipping, and the records of the partnership through the summer.[6] By the summer of 1975, those duties became complex enough that Gygax himself became a full-time employee of the partnership in order to take them over from Donna Kaye. Arneson also entered the partnership in order to coordinate research and design with his circle in the Twin Cities.[6]

TSR Hobbies, Inc. (1975–1983)

TSR Hobbies, Inc.
 
IndustryRole-playing game publisher
Founded1975
Defunct1983
FateSplit up
SuccessorTSR, Inc., TSR Ventures, TSR International and TSR Entertainment Corporation
HeadquartersLake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States
Key people
Gary Gygax, Brian Blume, Kevin Blume
ProductsDungeons & Dragons
SubsidiariesGreenfield Needlewomen

Brian Blume and Gary Gygax reorganized the business from a partnership to a corporation called TSR Hobbies, Inc. At first, it was a separate company to market miniatures and games from other companies, an enterprise which was also connected to the opening of the Dungeon hobby shop in Lake Geneva.[6] TSR Hobbies then moved to buy out the old TSR partnership's assets. Brian's father, Melvin Blume, invested $20,000 in the nascent company which enabled it to buy out Donna Kaye's share of the original TSR partnership. On September 26, 1975, the assets of the former partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies.[7] Brian Blume became the largest shareholder, Melvin Blume the second-largest, and Gary Gygax the third-largest.[8][9] Gygax served as president of TSR Hobbies, and Blume as vice president and secretary. The Dungeon hobby shop would become the effective headquarters of the company, including the offices of Blume and Gygax. TSR Hobbies subcontracted the printing and assembly work in October 1975, and the third printing of 2,000 copies of D&D sold out in five months.[5] Tim Kask was hired in the autumn of 1975 as Periodicals Editor, and the company's first full-time employee.[8]

Empire of the Petal Throne became the first game product published by TSR Hobbies, followed by two supplements to D&D, Greyhawk and Blackmoor.[9] Also released in 1975 were the board game Dungeon! and the Wild West RPG Boot Hill.[9] The company took $300,000 in revenues for the fiscal year of 1976.[10] TSR began hosting the Gen Con Game Fair in 1976, and featured the first ever D&D open tournament that year.[9][11] D&D supplements Eldritch Wizardry and Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes were released in 1976.[9]

TSR also began to branch the Dungeons & Dragons product into two: Dungeons & Dragons as a general audience product intended for novices, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) for a more complicated product aimed at hardcore fans. In 1977, the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set was released for D&D, and the Monster Manual was released as the initial product for AD&D, the first hardbound book ever published by a game company. The next year, the AD&D Players Handbook was published, followed by a series of six adventure modules.[9] Due to the inclusion of the word "Advanced" in the title, TSR did not pay Dave Arneson any royalties on AD&D products, saying his co-creation rights extended to the base D&D name only.[12] Also in 1978, TSR Hobbies moved out of Gygax's home and into downtown Lake Geneva, above the Dungeon Hobby Shop.[9] In 1979, the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide was published, and radio ads featuring "Morley the Wizard" were broadcast.[9] All of these core books would go on to be major hits; the D&D Basic Set sold well in 1977 and 1978, would sell over 100,000 copies in 1979, and would continue to be updated and re-released for years.[12]

During this era, there were a number of competitors and unofficial supplements to D&D published, arguably in violation of TSR's copyright, which many D&D players used alongside the TSR books. Among these were the Arduin Grimoire, the Manual of Aurenia, and variants such as Warlock and Tunnels & Trolls. TSR regarded these very warily, and in cases where they felt their trademarks were being misused, they issued cease-and-desist letters. More often than not, this legal posturing resulted in only slight changes to competitors' works, but caused significant animosity in the community.[13]

In 1979, TSR signed a contract with Random House with unusual terms. In most deals between publishers and distributors, publishers are paid directly based on books sold downstream by the distributor to bookstores. In TSR's contract, however, Random House would loan money to TSR as an advance upon shipment of product from TSR to Random House, a loan equivalent to 27.3% of the suggested retail price. The arrangement was mutually beneficial at first: TSR could acquire money up front to fund their work, and not have to worry about immediate sales. Many of TSR's products had consistent sales over time, and the loans allowed the company to recoup the investment immediately and use the funds to make more books. Returns were generally low, leading to Random House's confidence in TSR. The arrangement would cause trouble later in the 1990s, however.[14]

Gygax granted exclusive rights to Games Workshop to distribute TSR products in the United Kingdom, after meeting with Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. Games Workshop printed some original material and also printed their own versions of various D&D and AD&D titles in order to avoid high import costs. When TSR could not reach an agreement with Games Workshop regarding a possible merger, TSR created a subsidiary operation in the UK, TSR Hobbies UK Ltd, in 1980.[9] Gygax hired Don Turnbull to head up the operation, which would expand into continental Europe during the 1980s. TSR UK published a series of modules and the original Fiend Folio. TSR UK also produced Imagine magazine for 31 issues.

The first published campaign setting for AD&D, the World of Greyhawk, was introduced in 1980. The espionage role-playing game Top Secret came out in 1980; reportedly, a note written on TSR stationery about a fictitious assassination plot, part of the playtesting of the new game, brought the FBI to TSR's offices.[9] That same year, the Role Playing Game Association was formed to promote quality roleplaying and unite gamers around the country.[9] In 1981, Inc. magazine listed TSR Hobbies as one of the hundred fastest-growing privately held companies in the US.[10] That same year, TSR Hobbies moved its offices again, this time to a former medical supply building with an attached warehouse. In 1982, TSR Hobbies broke the 20 million mark in sales.[9]

In 1982, TSR Hobbies decided to terminate Grenadier Miniatures's license and started producing its own AD&D miniatures line, followed by a line of toys. Part of the licensing of the AD&D toy line went to LJN. Also that year, TSR introduced two new roleplaying games, Gangbusters and Star Frontiers.[9] Exclusive distribution of the D&D game was established in 22 countries, with the game being translated first into French, followed by many other languages. In 1982, an educational department was established to develop curriculum programs for reading, math, history, and problem solving, with the most successful program being the Endless Quest book series.[9]

Melvin Blume's shares were later transferred to his son Kevin Blume. After this, the leadership of TSR consisted of Kevin Blume, Brian Blume, and Gary Gygax. In contemporary articles from the early 1980s, Gygax said that the three worked as a team, and only proceeded with unanimous consent and buy-in. In interviews years later, Gygax downplayed his role, and described his position as primarily a powerless figurehead CEO, with Brian Blume as president of creative affairs and Kevin Blume as president of operations.[15][16][10] In 1981, TSR Hobbies had revenues of $12.9 million and a payroll of 130.[10]

TSR Hobbies sought diversification, acquiring or starting several new business ventures. These included miniatures manufacturing, toy and gift ventures, and an entertainment division to pursue motion picture and television opportunities.[9] Many parts of this expansion were later criticized as bad investments and over-extension. Greenfield Needlewomen, a needle craft business, was one particularly criticized acquisition; it was owned by a cousin of the Blumes. Sales of D&D-themed needlecraft were abysmal, and the acquisition was criticized as nepotism. The company was similarly accused of favoring friends and relatives of the Blumes and Gygax in hiring. The management also used company funds to raise a shipwreck from Geneva Lake for no clear financial benefit. The company acquired the trademarks and copyrights of SPI and Amazing Stories magazine, despite Amazing Stories having only ten thousand subscribers.[9][17]

TSR (1983–1985)

In 1983, the company was split into four companies: TSR, Inc. (the primary successor), TSR International, TSR Ventures, and TSR Entertainment, Inc.[3]

Gygax left for Hollywood to found TSR Entertainment, Inc., later Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment Corp., which attempted to license D&D products to movie and television executives. His work would eventually lead to only a single license for what later became the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.[18] The series led its time slot for two years.[9]

TSR, Inc. released the Dragonlance saga in 1984 after two years of development, an entirely new game world. The series was both a set of modules and supplements designed for running campaigns, starting with Dragons of Despair, as well as a novel series. The novel series was written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The Dragonlance trilogy of novels was a colossal hit; Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first novel in the series, reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list, encouraging TSR to a launch a long series of paperback novels. TSR's Books Department would go on to launch novels on its other D&D settings as well, and be one of TSR's most profitable divisions.[19][9]

In 1984, TSR signed a license to publish the Marvel Super Heroes, Indiana Jones, and Conan role-playing games. In 1985, the Gen Con game convention moved out of Lake Geneva which had given it its name, and relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin due to a need for additional space. The Oriental Adventures hardback for AD&D was released that same year, becoming the biggest seller for 1985. TSR introduced the All My Children game, based on the ABC daytime drama, with more than 150,000 copies sold. In 1986, TSR introduced the Dungeon Adventures magazine, a bi-monthly magazine featuring only adventure scenarios for D&D.[9]

Management turmoil

Sales of the core rule books and boxed sets crested in 1983 and fell in 1984 and 1985, largely due to market saturation; customers who wanted rulebooks largely already had them. There were bright spots in 1983–1985 such as Dragonlance novel sales, Unearthed Arcana, and Oriental Adventures, but TSR's finances were in bad shape due to high expenses and costs that had assumed rule book sales would remain strong. The result was a cycle of layoffs and contractions in 1983–1985, as well as the Blumes negotiating a $4 million loan from American National Bank.[17]

The struggle for financing led to board room shake-ups at the top level. TSR's line of credit was stopped by its bank, and the company was in debt to over US$1.5 million. Gygax would later say that he was in the dark as to the extent of the financial difficulties due to being in Hollywood; Ben Riggs, an author who studied TSR's history, is skeptical Gygax was truly unaware, however.[20] Gygax returned to Wisconsin from Hollywood. In the spring of 1985, Gygax exercised an option to buy seven hundred shares of TSR stock, which combined with shares given to his son Ernie gave him 51.1% of all stock, up from around 30% before.[20] Gygax also says he had a confrontation with the board of directors, and had the Blumes removed.[21][22]: 4  Gygax now controlled TSR. Financial difficulties continued, however.[20] Within a year of the departure of the Blumes, the company posted a net loss of US$1.5 million, resulting in layoffs of approximately 75% of the staff. Some of these staff members went on to form other prominent game companies, such as Pacesetter Ltd and Mayfair Games, or to work with Coleco's video game division.

Gygax searched for financing. Flint Dille, one of his contacts he made in his time in Hollywood, suggested his sister Lorraine Williams might be interested in investing money into TSR. Williams was given a position of general manager at TSR and attempted to fix TSR's precarious financial situation. This led to clashes between Williams and Gygax, who resisted some of Williams' suggestions. Meanwhile, the Blumes, out of power at the company and worried about its financial strength in the long-term, sought to cash-out their shares. They offered to sell their shares to Gygax, but he refused. They exercised their own options to buy seven hundred more shares, then sold their entire holdings to Lorraine Williams instead. Williams herself bought fifty shares. With these purchases, Williams became the majority shareholder of TSR, and used her voting power to depose Gygax as CEO and president on October 22, 1985. Gygax unsuccessfully challenged the sale in court; Gygax's supporters considered the Blumes' sale an act of retaliation.[22] Gygax eventually sold his remaining stock to Williams and used the capital to form New Infinities Productions. On TSR's side, they would pepper Gygax with legal threats long after he left in an attempt to deter him from competing with his old company in the area of role-playing games.[20][23]

Lorraine Williams era (1985–1997)

Williams was a financial planner who saved TSR from financial disaster, and by extension saved Dungeons & Dragons. She saw potential for rebuilding the debt-plagued company into a highly profitable one. However, she also acquired a reputation as a non-gamer who played the "villain" in retrospectives of TSR. Gary Gygax grew particularly disdainful of her; Williams' habit of threatening lawsuits and legal action against perceived foes was criticized as unwise and turning potential allies into enemies.[24][25][26][23] However, her tenure has also been defended. John D. Rateliff said that "Every single person I talked to who worked under Gary [Gygax] and the Blumes and then worked under Lorraine preferred working under Lorraine... I never met a single person who was under both who didn't prefer being under her."[26] Jeff Grubb said that she "pretty much saved the company," as the company was weeks away from total collapse when she took over.[26]

Tabletop and board gaming in the Williams era

TSR released the Forgotten Realms campaign setting in 1987, which would go on to become one of the most popular settings for D&D. TSR's settings would generally include a boxed set with multiple paperbacks and a map as their core product, and would produce tie-in supplements such as pre-made adventures (usually called "modules"), guides to regions within the world, and novels. Also in 1987, a small team of designers began work on the second edition of the AD&D game. In 1988, TSR released a Bullwinkle & Rocky RPG, complete with a spinner and hand puppets. That same year, TSR released the wargame The Hunt for Red October based on Tom Clancy's novel The Hunt for Red October, which became one of the biggest selling wargames of all time. In 1989, AD&D 2nd edition was released. The release saw a new Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook, and the first three volumes of the new Monstrous Compendium. A new campaign setting, Spelljammer, was also released in 1989, which allowed characters from one D&D world to travel to other worlds via space galleons in an Age of Sail themed setting. TSR would go on to produce many expansions for 2nd edition, such as a series of class handbooks that began with The Complete Fighter's Handbook.[9]

In 1990, the Ravenloft setting was released, a horror-themed setting for AD&D. Ravenloft had been introduced in an acclaimed 1983 adventure module, and was now expanded into an entire setting. In 1991, TSR released the Dark Sun campaign setting, which was more dark fantasy in genre, and set on a post-apocalyptic desert world threatened by evil life-draining wizards and psionicists. In 1992, TSR released the Al-Qadim setting with a Middle Eastern flavor similar to a fantasy version of the Arabian Nights, although its world was also connected to the Forgotten Realms. In 1993, a revised version of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting for 2nd edition was released; TSR had published a sourcebook on upgrading the 1st edition material to 2nd edition in 1990 earlier. In 1993, DragonStrike was released as an introductory product aimed to recruit new players, including a 30-minute video which explained the concepts of role-playing; a similar introductory product, First Quest, was released in 1994. Also in 1994, the Planescape campaign setting was released, featuring the city of Sigil as the "City of Doors" that connected to the various planes of existence in AD&D.[9] Spelljammer had not been considered a success by TSR as players perceived it as mainly a way to move characters from one world to another rather than its own setting; Planescape attempted to remedy this by focusing on Sigil as a place to set an entire campaign, rather than a place to pass through.[27] TSR also released Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure in 1994, which detailed one of the kingdoms in the setting of Mystara.[28] As an innovation, it included an audio CD with tracks of dialogue and sound effects. In 1995, TSR released Birthright, a campaign setting that mixed D&D with strategy games. The intent was for players to play noble characters empowered by divine blood which gave them the power to rule domains; players could expand their domains and divine powers with a mixture of war and diplomacy.[9] In 1996, Dragonlance: Fifth Age was released, a "diceless" role-playing game that departed from the roots of Dragonlance in AD&D.[9]

Other products

Under Williams' direction, TSR solidified its expansion into other fields, such as magazines, paperback fiction, comic books, and collectible games.

TSR's book division was a traditional powerhouse for the company, especially due to the comparatively low costs in producing novels compared to role-playing supplements which required commissioning art and play-testing. The most notably successful novel series of the era was R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt series, set in the Forgotten Realms. Starting with The Crystal Shard in 1988, many of Salvatore's books would go on to reach the paperback bestseller lists.[29] TSR eventually moved into publishing hardcover novels as well with Salvatore's The Legacy, published in 1992. It made the top of the New York Times bestseller list within weeks.[9][better source needed]

The Dille Family Trust, of which Lorraine Williams was a part, held the rights to the Buck Rogers license. Williams personally encouraged TSR to produce Buck Rogers tie-in material. TSR would end up publishing a Buck Rogers board games, novels, a comic book, and a role-playing game based on the AD&D 2nd Edition rules.[22] TSR's Buck Rogers projects were commercial failures.[30]

In the late 1980s, TSR opened a new West Coast division in Southern California to develop various entertainment projects, similar to how Gygax had sought deals in Hollywood in the early 1980s. However, the efforts of the division would come to "less than nothing" according to TSR historian Ben Riggs, despite initial promise.[31] TSR had an arrangement with DC Comics to produce the comics Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Forgotten Realms, which sold well and were profitable for both DC and TSR. Sensing an opportunity, TSR decided to produce comics themselves as a stepping stool to television and film, as comics were cheaper to produce and start with. However, they had already sold the rights to their own A-list product in AD&D. TSR attempted to not enrage DC Comics by calling their new product "comics modules" and including game-related material at the end of each issue; additionally, TSR largely sold the comics modules through bookshops rather than comic shops. The compromise failed in both directions: DC, feeling betrayed that their partner was moving to become a competitor, immediately stopped production of both the AD&D and Forgotten Realms comics, and canceled an in-production Ravenloft work. However, the changes to present the product as not a comic book caused the potential audience to either not know of its existence at all, or to be confused as to its nature. TSR West eventually published four comics modules: a Buck Rogers comic, a sci-fi comic Intruder, a time travel comic Warhawks, and a horror comic called R.I.P. They were not commercially successful.[31] TSR West closed around 1991, although TSR would continue to work with Flint Dille on film-adjacent products made in California such as the introductory video for Dragonstrike[14] and a 1995 interactive video game series called Terror T.R.A.X.

TSR continued to own and operate the Gen Con role-playing game convention. Gen Con grew beyond its initial focus on D&D and wargames to role-playing fans in general. Gen Con was a growing and successful convention; in 1992, it broke all previous attendance records for any U.S gaming convention, with more than 18,000 people.[9][better source needed]

In 1993, Wizards of the Coast released the game Magic: The Gathering at Gen Con, which was an immediate smash hit that established the collectible card game (CCG) genre. TSR's Jim Ward led a development effort to create a Dungeons & Dragons-themed CCG competitor that would be a response to Magic. The result would be Spellfire, released in April 1994. Spellfire was produced on a shoestring budget, and re-used art that TSR had already commissioned for other projects; Lorraine Williams was not a fan of the project. Its financial results are contested; some TSR insiders say that Spellfire sold well considering the constraints on it, while others indicate it sold poorly.[32][33] Spellfire was discontinued in 1996, although one final release occurred in late 1997. Another collectible competitor to Wizards of the Coast that TSR produced was Dragon Dice, which was released in 1995. Dragon Dice was a collectible dice game where each player started with a random assortment of basic dice, and could improve their assortment by purchasing booster packs of more powerful dice. Sales of Dragon Dice through the games trade started strongly, so TSR quickly produced several expansion packs. In addition, TSR tried to aggressively market Dragon Dice in mass-market book stores through Random House. However, the game did not catch on through the book trade, and sales of the expansion sets through traditional games stores were poor.[citation needed]

In 1994, TSR signed an agreement with Sweetpea Entertainment for rights to make a D&D movie. This would eventually result in the 2000 Dungeons & Dragons movie.[34]

TSR's book division ran into troubles in the mid-1990s. TSR engaged in disputes with some of its most successful authors over terms and remuneration. Weis & Hickman had been driven off in the mid-80s; a new dispute with R. A. Salvatore happened in 1994–1995.[35] TSR ramped up the number of novels published, but the expanded roster saw disappointing sales. TSR decided to publish twelve hardcover novels in 1996, despite a previous history of publishing only one or two hardcover novels each year, but they did not sell as well as expected.[citation needed]

Final years: Financial trouble and sale (1995–1997)

By 1996, TSR was experiencing numerous problems, as outlined by various historians of the company. Shannon Appelcline wrote: "Distributors were going out of business. TSR had unbalanced their AD&D game through a series of lucrative supplements that ultimately hurt the long-time viability of the game. Meanwhile, they had developed so many settings—many of them popular and well-received—that they were both cannibalizing their only sales and discouraging players from picking up settings that might be gone in a few years. They may have been cannibalizing their own sales through excessive production of books or supplements too."[36] Ben Riggs agreed that TSR was factionalizing the AD&D audience by continually releasing competing new settings (Forgotten Realms, Al-Qadim, Dragonlance, Planescape, Dark Sun, Birthright, Karameikos, etc.), a strategy intended to lure in new customers, but that actually divided its own core customers.[37] TSR's products essentially competed with themselves, requiring more development effort to reach the same number of total customers. Ryan Dancey and Lisa Stevens, who examined TSR's finances for Wizards of the Coast, found that many of the AD&D settings products were never profitable, and more worryingly never could have been profitable—the cost of production was simply too high compared to the price they sold for.[37] David M. Ewalt writes that Spellfire and Dragon Dice "were both expensive to produce, and neither sold very well".[33]

Another factor that hobbled TSR in the long-term was a financial arrangement known as "factoring." Factoring worked like this: TSR first arranged contracts with retailers in the hobby trade (gaming stores, comics stores, and so on) to preorder their products and offered a discounted rate for contracts signed in January. TSR then took these contracts to investment banks, and was advanced money immediately by the banks, with the banks to be paid off from the eventual sales of the product. This financial innovation allowed TSR to be essentially "paid in advance", less fees from the banks and from discounts given to suppliers, which worked out to keeping about 82% of the revenue. Getting all of the money in January allowed TSR to budget with more certainty and potentially fund projects with a long lead time immediately, rather than waiting on sales. Other than the direct cost of losing 18 pennies on every dollar of revenue, factoring had the other downside of not being flexible to changing market conditions, however, as TSR was essentially locked into its budgeting from January. It was partially why Spellfire was made on a tiny budget, as TSR was attempting to take on a new initiative in the middle of the year, and led to a fiasco with its Advanced Dungeons & Dragons CD-ROM Core Rules product where a preorder arrangement with Babbage's was continued despite Babbage's becoming financially insolvent.[38]

TSR's old deal with Random House, which had been mutually beneficial in the 1980s, began to be used by TSR in ways that would paper over short-term financial problems. Since TSR was paid up front on the assumption that shipped goods would ultimately sell, TSR began shipping overstock to Random House to generate loans on demand. This caused people in the know at TSR to call it the "Banco de Random House".[14] It also dulled TSR's internal sense of which products were selling, leading to overprinting of niche products. Ben Riggs cites the introductory product DragonStrike as an example, which sold well but was vastly overprinted.[14] The extra copies were still sent to Random House to generate loans, however. The result was a steadily expanding "debt bubble" with Random House as returns of product soared. Random House eventually noticed something was amiss, and began demanding TSR shrink its debt load with them—around $11.8 million in June 1995. Random House sued TSR in April 1996 for repayment.[39]

Despite total sales of around $40 million in 1995,[39] TSR ended 1996 with little in cash reserves, and the company was deep in debt.[36] Random House returned an unexpectedly high percentage of unsold stock, including the year's inventory of unsold novels and sets of Dragon Dice, and charged a fee of several million dollars. Random House returned around $14 million of product between 1995–1997.[40] TSR found itself in a cash crunch. With no cash, TSR was unable to pay their printing and shipping bills. J. B. Kenehan, the logistics company that handled TSR's pre-press, printing, warehousing, and shipping, refused to do any more work.[40] Since the logistics company had the production plates for key products such as core D&D books, there was no means of printing or shipping core products to generate income or secure short-term financing.[41] Thirty staff members were laid off in December 1996, and other staff left over disagreements about how the crisis was handled, including James M. Ward.[36][40] In large part due to the need to refund Random House, TSR entered 1997 over $30 million in debt.[33] TSR was threatened by lawsuits due to unpaid freelancers and missing royalties, but TSR made enough money from products already on the shelves to pay remaining staff through the first half of 1997.[36] With no viable financial plan for TSR's survival, Lorraine Williams sold the company to Wizards of the Coast in 1997 in a deal brokered by Five Rings Publishing Group (FRPG).[24][42]

After acquisition (1997–2000)

Wizards of the Coast settled TSR's debts as part of the acquisition. This included unwinding TSR's deal with its printer, enabling the products TSR had worked on in the first half of 1997 to be printed and distributed, such as the space opera game Alternity. More generally, Wizards was cash-rich, which solved some of the problems TSR had faced that had caused it to resort to the rolling loans and financial trickery that had cut into TSR's profits, such as factoring. Wizards also moved to mend relations with some of TSR's former employees and contractors who had been alienated. Notably, this included allowing artists to take back personal ownership of the original versions of art they had made for TSR.[43]

Wizards eventually closed the TSR corporate offices in Lake Geneva. Some TSR employees accepted the offer of transferring to Wizards of the Coast's offices in Washington, and a few others continued to work remotely from Wisconsin. Wizards of the Coast continued to use the TSR name for D&D products for three years. Wizards also set about the creation of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It was released in 2000 under the Wizards of the Coast brand only. In 1999, Wizards of the Coast was itself purchased by Hasbro, Inc.[44] In 2002, the Gen Con convention was sold to Peter Adkison.[45]

Business disputes

See also: Dungeons & Dragons controversies § Business disputes at TSR

After its initial success faded, the company turned to legal defenses of what it regarded as its intellectual property. In addition, there were several legal cases brought regarding who had invented what within the company and the division of royalties, including several lawsuits against Gygax.[42] This included the company threatening to sue individuals supplying game material on websites.[46]

In 1984, there was an incident involving Lucasfilm that led to a legend that TSR had trademarked the term "Nazi". TSR published a supplement for the Indiana Jones RPG, Raiders of the Lost Ark Adventure Pack, in which some figures were marked with "Nazi™". This trademark notation was because of a list of trademarked character names supplied by Lucasfilm's legal department; they had indiscriminately marked all figures with a trademark symbol, and the Nazi figures were likewise marked accidentally.[47][48]

Subsequent trademark usage

In 2011, a new company taking the name TSR was founded by Jayson Elliot, who co-founded the Roll for Initiative podcast. Elliot found that the TSR trademark had expired around 2004 so he registered it himself. He then decided to launch the new company with assistance from early TSR/D&D contributors including Luke and Ernie Gygax, sons of the deceased D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and Tim Kask, former editor of Dragon magazine.[49][50] Their first product was Gygax Magazine, announced along with the TSR company revival in December 2012.[51] Wired reported that "Elliot stressed that his 'TSR is a new company'."[49] Both Gygax brothers left the company in 2016 when the magazine ended.[52] The company operated as TSR Games, producing the Top Secret: New World Order role-playing game.[53][50]

In June 2021, a new, separate TSR company was launched by a group including Ernie Gygax, Justin LaNasa and Stephen Dinehart.[53][50][54][55] The company is based out of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; they announced plans to release tabletop games and operate the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, which is located in the first office building of the original TSR.[53][56] Elliot's TSR Games then announced on social media that while they have owned the trademark since 2011, they missed a filing date in 2020 and were considering various options.[50][54][57][58] However, after Ernie Gygax's "troubling comments about race, gender identity, and gun violence, as well as his company's reaction",[54] Elliot announced that his company[50][59] would not have "any form of working relationship" with Ernie Gygax's TSR.[54] Ultimately, Elliot's TSR Games was rebranded as Solarian Games in July 2021.[60][59] Dinehart then rebranded as Wonderfilled Games.[61][62] Dicebreaker reported that "TSR Games never officially announced its rebranding as Wonderfilled Games" and most of its "Twitter accounts had been locked down or nuked, and the company's old website simply redirected to a new page that – interestingly – listed Dinehart's GiantLands as an in-development title. [...] How much of TSR Games exists in Wonderfilled Games isn't clear".[55]

LaNasa's TSR Games then launched a crowdfunding campaign in December 2021 to raise money to sue Wizards of the Coast for "Trademark Declaratory Judgement of Ownership"; the company then filed and voluntarily dismissed the complaint that month.[63][64][65] Wizards of the Coast, also in December 2021, sued LaNasa's TSR for trademark fraud over the use of the TSR logo which is owned by Wizards of the Coast.[65] In July 2022, TechRaptor reported on a leaked Star Frontiers: New Genesis (a reboot of the 1982 Star Frontiers role-playing game) playtest created by LaNasa's TSR; the content contains "blatantly racist" descriptions of character races and the race design "plays into Nazi eugenics".[66] The content also contains "homophobic, transphobic, and anti-semitic content, as well as additional material of a discriminatory nature".[66] IGN Southeast Asia highlighted that in this playtest game a black "race is classified as a 'Subrace' and having 'average' intellect with a maximum intelligence rating of 9, whereas the 'norse' race has a minimum intelligence rating of 13".[67][68]

In September 2022, Wizards of the Coast sued TSR Games – helmed by Ernie Gygax and LaNasa – and the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum to enjoin these companies from publishing games under the "Star Frontiers" and "TSR" trademarks.[69][70][71] In its motion for a preliminary injunction, Wizards of the Coast wrote that TSR's Star Frontiers: New Genesis game is "despicable" and "blatantly racist and transphobic",[69] and that the publication of such content would inflict reputational harm on Wizards of the Coast.[69][70][71] Charlie Hall, for Polygon, commented that "Wizards' filing also seeks to undermine LaNasa's most powerful argument — that Wizards abandoned TSR and other related trademarks, thus opening the door to his usurping of the brand and its games. [...] Here's where things get complicated. Wizards admitted that it failed to file paperwork for the registration of TSR, Star Frontiers, and other related marks in a timely fashion as required under federal law. But through continued sales of related products and use of the related IP, the company claims ownership via 'common law trademark rights.' It will be up to a jury to determine if that is, in fact, the case".[69] In December 2022, a federal magistrate judge denied the preliminary injunction Wizards of the Coast filed. The judge said that Wizards had not yet shown enough evidence to demonstrate continuous use of the TSR brand; she also noted that the defendants disclaimed the racist version of the game and had promised not to release any version of Star Frontiers at all until the court case concludes, hence there was no need for a preliminary injunction.[72][verification needed][73]

Products

TSR's main products were role-playing games, the most successful of which was D&D. However, they also produced other games such as card games, board games, and dice games, and published both magazines and books.

Role-playing games

Wargames

Other games

Magazines

Fiction

See also: Dungeons & Dragons novels and List of Dungeons & Dragons comic books

In 1984, TSR started publishing novels based on their games. Most D&D campaign settings had their own novel line, the most successful of which were the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms lines, with dozens of novels each.

TSR also published the 1995 novel Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future by Martin Caidin, a standalone re-imagining of the Buck Rogers universe and unrelated to TSR's Buck Rogers XXVC game.

TSR published a large number of fantasy and science fiction novels unconnected with their gaming products, such as L. Dean James' "Red Kings of Wynnamyr" novels, Sorcerer's Stone (1991) and Kingslayer (1992); Mary H. Herbert's five "Gabria" novels (Valorian, Dark Horse, Lightning's Daughter, City of the Sorcerers, and Winged Magic); and humorous fantasy fiction, including Roy V. Young's "Count Yor" novels Captains Outrageous (1994) and Yor's Revenge(1995). However, such projects never represented more than a fraction of the company's fiction output, which retained a strong emphasis on game-derived works.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Kushner, David (2008-03-10). "Dungeon Master: The Life and Legacy of Gary Gygax". Wired.com. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
  2. ^ Witwer 2015, +21: The Art of Making Art
  3. ^ a b c Sacco, Ciro Alessandro (February 2007). "An Interview with Gary Gygax, Part I" (PDF). OD&Dities issue 9. Richard Tongue. p. 7. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
  4. ^ Peterson 2012, pp. 78–79
  5. ^ a b Peterson 2012, p. 496
  6. ^ a b c Peterson 2012, pp. 522–523
  7. ^ Peterson 2012, p. 535
  8. ^ a b Witwer 2015, +23: A Makeshift Solution
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y . Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2000-08-18. Retrieved 2005-08-20.
  10. ^ a b c d Stewart Alsop II (1982-02-01). "TSR Hobbies Mixes Fact and Fantasy".
  11. ^ . Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on 2008-10-02. Retrieved 2021-06-30.
  12. ^ a b Riggs 2022, pp. 19–22, 99
  13. ^ Peterson 2012, p. 555
  14. ^ a b c d Riggs 2022, pp. 164–170
  15. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 36–37
  16. ^ Sacco, Ciro Alessandro. "The Ultimate Interview with Gary Gygax". thekyngdoms.com. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
  17. ^ a b Riggs 2022, pp. 45–48
  18. ^ Rausch, Allen (2004-08-16). "Gary Gygax Interview - Part 2". GameSpy. IGN. Retrieved 2006-07-05.
  19. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 48–52
  20. ^ a b c d Riggs 2022, pp. 56–61
  21. ^ Gygax: "I was alerted to a problem: Kevin Blume was shopping TSR on the street in New York City. I flew back from the West Coast, and discovered the corporation was in debt to the bank the tune of circa US$1.5 million." "Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part XII, Page 28)". EN World. 2007-01-21. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
  22. ^ a b c Rausch, Allen (16 August 2004). "Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons - Part II". GameSpy. IGN. Retrieved 2008-12-20.
  23. ^ a b Witwer 2015, pp. 171–197
  24. ^ a b . gygax.com. Archived from the original on 1999-01-28. Retrieved 2006-07-04.
  25. ^ "Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons – Part III: Tyrants & Wizards". Gamespy. 2004-08-17. p. 1. Retrieved 2006-07-04.
  26. ^ a b c Riggs 2022, pp. 61, 65–70
  27. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 185–191
  28. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 208–209
  29. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 83–90
  30. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 69–70, 108
  31. ^ a b Riggs 2022, pp. 103–123
  32. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 211–214
  33. ^ a b c Ewalt, David M. (2013). Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It. Scribner. p. 174. ISBN 978-1-4516-4052-6.
  34. ^ Gardner, Eriq (May 14, 2013). "Hasbro Sues to Stop Warner Bros. 'Dungeons and Dragons' Film". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 8, 2015.
  35. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 71–76, 177–184
  36. ^ a b c d Appelcline 2011, p. 30
  37. ^ a b Riggs 2022, pp. 272–275
  38. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 204–209, 212
  39. ^ a b Riggs 2022, pp. 196–202
  40. ^ a b c Riggs 2022, pp. 215, 220–223, 231
  41. ^ 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons. Renton WA: Wizards of the Coast. 2004. p. 55. ISBN 0-7869-3498-0.
  42. ^ a b La Farge, Paul (September 2006). "Destroy All Monsters". The Believer Magazine. from the original on 2008-09-20.
  43. ^ Riggs 2022, pp. 263–278
  44. ^ "A Brief History of Game #1: Wizards of the Coast: 1990-Present". RPGnet. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  45. ^ Appelcline 2011, p. 291
  46. ^ Complang.tuwien.ac.at
  47. ^ Laws, Robin D. (August 2007). 40 Years of Gen Con. Atlas Games. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-58978-097-2. MATT FORBECK: ... the last copy of the Indiana Jones roleplaying games. ... It actually has one of the legendary counters in it that reads 'Nazi™.' Which apparently was not TSR's idea, but Lucasfilm insisted that everything that appeared in the game have a "TM" next to it.
  48. ^ Appelcline, Shannon (February 2, 2021). "Advanced Designers & Dragons #44: The Top 10 Infamous RPGs". RPGnet. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  49. ^ a b Gilsdorf, Ethan (January 25, 2013). "A New TSR to Launch Gygax Magazine Saturday". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved September 27, 2018.
  50. ^ a b c d e "TSR Games cuts business ties with Ernest G. Gygax, Jr. and second RPG publisher calling itself TSR". Dicebreaker. 2021-06-29. Retrieved 2021-06-30.
  51. ^ Bricken, Rob (December 4, 2012). "The company that created Dungeons & Dragons is back with Gygax magazine (updated)". io9. Retrieved September 27, 2018.
  52. ^ @TSRgames (June 27, 2021). "We no longer have any Gygaxes in our company, since 2016 when Gygax magazine ended. We are definitely pro-LGBT, and love the whole rainbow of gamers and kind humans" (Tweet). Retrieved 2021-06-28 – via Twitter.
  53. ^ a b c "TSR, the Original Maker of Dungeons & Dragons, Has Re-Launched as New Company". ComicBook.com. June 24, 2021. Retrieved 2021-06-27.
  54. ^ a b c d "TSR Games Distances Itself From Ernie G. Gygax Jr., Owner of Another TSR Games". Gizmodo. July 1, 2021. Retrieved 2021-07-06.
  55. ^ a b "Both RPG publishers once known as TSR change their name". Dicebreaker. 2021-07-22. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
  56. ^ Hines, Dennis (July 11, 2021). "Lake Geneva Dungeons & Dragons museum receives city approval". Kenosha News. Retrieved 2021-07-11.
  57. ^ @TSRgames (June 24, 2021). "We have owned the TSR trademark since 2011. Last year, we missed a filing date, and another company registered it, though we are still using it in commerce. While we could win a lawsuit, we frankly don't have the money to litigate. So, we're licensing it back from them. (thread)" (Tweet). Retrieved 2021-06-27 – via Twitter.
  58. ^ @TSRgames (June 27, 2021). "We are not abandoning the name, just not working with them or licensing anything. More to come" (Tweet). Retrieved June 28, 2021 – via Twitter.
  59. ^ a b "TSR Games (2) rebrands to Solarian Games". Geek Native. 2021-07-04. Retrieved 2021-07-06.
  60. ^ @TSRgames (July 2, 2021). "We have rebranded officially as SOLARIAN" (Tweet). Retrieved July 3, 2021 – via Twitter.
  61. ^ Zambrano, J.R. (July 8, 2021). "RPG: The New TSR Saga Ends - No More TSR's". Bell of Lost Souls. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  62. ^ Sasso, Mabelle (February 13, 2022). "TSR Vs Wizard Of The Coast: la battaglia dei Gygax (alcuni)". Tom's Hardware (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  63. ^ Chancey, Tyler (2021-12-09). "TSR Crowdfunds Campaign To "Stop" Wizards of the Coast". TechRaptor. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  64. ^ Zambrano, J. R. (2021-12-13). "D&D: TSR Lawsuit Against WotC Voluntarily Dismissed, Vows To Refile". Bell of Lost Souls. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  65. ^ a b Chancey, Tyler (2021-12-14). "TSR Drops Wizards of the Coast Lawsuit, Gets Sued Back". TechRaptor. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  66. ^ a b Chancey, Tyler (2022-07-21). "TSR's Star Frontiers New Genesis Playtest Contains Racist Content". TechRaptor. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  67. ^ Bahri, Syazwan (2022-09-14). "Wizards of the Coast Files Lawsuit Against Allegedly 'Racist And Transphobic' Tabletop Game". IGN Southeast Asia. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  68. ^ Stephen L. Carter (September 17, 2022). "Can Trademark Law Stop a Racist Role-Playing Game?". Bloomberg. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  69. ^ a b c d Hall, Charlie (2022-09-13). "D&D publisher requests injunction against competitor, citing 'blatantly racist and transphobic' content". Polygon. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  70. ^ a b Codega, Linda (13 September 2022). "Wizards of the Coast Wants to Shut Down TSR for Bigotry". Gizmodo.
  71. ^ a b Dodge, John (2022-09-10). "Wizards of the Coast Files Injunction Against TSR's Star Frontiers: New Genesis". CBR. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  72. ^ Lidgett, Adam (December 16, 2022). "Hasbro Unit Loses Bid To Stop Game Rival In IP Suit". Law360. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  73. ^ TSR LLC, Plaintiff, v. WIZARDS OF THE COAST LLC; Case 2:21-cv-01705-SKV; Document 51 (C21-1705-SKV)

Bibliography

  • Appelcline, Shannon (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  • Peterson, Jon (2012). Playing at the World. San Diego, California: Unreason Press. ISBN 978-0615642048.
  • Riggs, Ben (2022). Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250278043.
  • Witwer, Michael (2015). Empire of the Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63286-279-2.

Further reading

  • GameSpy interview with Gary Gygax on the history of TSR, among other things
  • Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons (GameSpy)
  • The Ambush at Sheridan Springs, a history of TSR's corporate governance and Gygax's 1985 ouster

January 28, 2023
american, game, publishing, company, best, known, original, publisher, dungeons, dragons, earliest, incarnation, tactical, studies, rules, founded, october, 1973, gary, gygax, kaye, gygax, been, unable, find, publisher, type, game, dave, arneson, were, develop. TSR Inc was an American game publishing company best known as the original publisher of Dungeons amp Dragons D amp D Its earliest incarnation Tactical Studies Rules was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for D amp D a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co developing so founded the new company with Kaye to self publish their products Needing financing to bring their new game to market Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner Dungeons amp Dragons is generally considered the first tabletop role playing game TTRPG and established the genre When Kaye died suddenly in 1975 the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies Inc and accepted investment from Blume s father Melvin With the popular D amp D as its main product TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies TSR Inc IndustryRole playing game publisherFounded1973Defunct1997FateAcquired and discontinuedSuccessorWizards of the CoastHeadquartersLake Geneva Wisconsin United StatesKey peopleGary Gygax Brian Blume Lorraine WilliamsProductsDungeons amp DragonsTSR Hobbies ran into financial difficulties in the spring of 1983 prompting the company to split into four independent businesses with game publishing and development continuing as TSR Inc TSR After losing their executive positions the Blume brothers subsequently sold their shares to TSR Vice President Lorraine Williams who in turn engineered Gygax s ouster from the company in October 1985 TSR saw prosperity under Williams but encountered financial trouble in the mid 1990s While their overall sales and revenue were healthy TSR s high costs meant the company nevertheless became unprofitable and saddled by debt TSR was left unable to cover its publishing costs due to a variety of factors Facing insolvency TSR was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast WotC WotC initially retained use of the TSR name for D amp D products but by 2000 the TSR moniker was dropped coinciding with the release of the 3rd edition of Dungeons amp Dragons WotC allowed the TSR trademark to expire in the early 2000s Two new companies have since utilized the TSR trademark commercially Contents 1 History 1 1 Tactical Studies Rules 1973 1975 1 2 TSR Hobbies Inc 1975 1983 1 3 TSR 1983 1985 1 3 1 Management turmoil 1 4 Lorraine Williams era 1985 1997 1 4 1 Tabletop and board gaming in the Williams era 1 4 2 Other products 1 4 3 Final years Financial trouble and sale 1995 1997 1 5 After acquisition 1997 2000 2 Business disputes 3 Subsequent trademark usage 4 Products 4 1 Role playing games 4 2 Wargames 4 3 Other games 4 4 Magazines 4 5 Fiction 5 See also 6 References 6 1 Bibliography 7 Further readingHistory EditTactical Studies Rules 1973 1975 Edit Tactical Studies Rules Original logo of Tactical Studies Rules the entwined initials of founders Gary Gygax and Don Kaye IndustryRole playing game publisherFounded1973Defunct1975FatedissolvedSuccessorTSR Hobbies Inc HeadquartersLake Geneva Wisconsin United StatesKey peopleGary Gygax Don Kaye Brian BlumeProductsDungeons amp DragonsTactical Studies Rules TSR was formed in 1973 as a partnership between Gary Gygax and Don Kaye who collected together 2 400 for startup costs to formally publish and sell the rules of Dungeons amp Dragons the creation of Gygax and Dave Arneson and the first modern role playing game RPG 1 The first TSR release however was Cavaliers and Roundheads a miniature game to start generating income for TSR The partnership was subsequently joined by Brian Blume in December 1973 Blume was admitted to the partnership to fund further publishing of D amp D as Cavaliers and Roundheads was not a commercial success 2 3 In the original configuration of the partnership Kaye served as president Blume as vice president and Gygax as editor 4 In January 1974 TSR with Gygax s basement as a headquarters produced 1 000 copies of D amp D selling them for 10 each and the extra dice needed for another 3 50 This first print sold out in 10 months 1 In January 1975 TSR printed a second 1 000 copies of D amp D which took only another five or six months to sell out 5 Also in 1974 TSR published Warriors of Mars a miniatures rules book set in the fantasy world of Barsoom originally imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his series of novels about John Carter of Mars to which Gygax paid homage in the preface of the first edition of D amp D However Gygax and TSR published the Mars book without permission from or payment to the Burroughs estate and soon after a cease and desist order was issued and Warriors was pulled from distribution When Don Kaye died of a heart attack on January 31 1975 his role was taken over by his wife Donna Kaye who remained responsible for accounting shipping and the records of the partnership through the summer 6 By the summer of 1975 those duties became complex enough that Gygax himself became a full time employee of the partnership in order to take them over from Donna Kaye Arneson also entered the partnership in order to coordinate research and design with his circle in the Twin Cities 6 TSR Hobbies Inc 1975 1983 Edit TSR Hobbies Inc IndustryRole playing game publisherFounded1975Defunct1983FateSplit upSuccessorTSR Inc TSR Ventures TSR International and TSR Entertainment CorporationHeadquartersLake Geneva Wisconsin United StatesKey peopleGary Gygax Brian Blume Kevin BlumeProductsDungeons amp DragonsSubsidiariesGreenfield NeedlewomenBrian Blume and Gary Gygax reorganized the business from a partnership to a corporation called TSR Hobbies Inc At first it was a separate company to market miniatures and games from other companies an enterprise which was also connected to the opening of the Dungeon hobby shop in Lake Geneva 6 TSR Hobbies then moved to buy out the old TSR partnership s assets Brian s father Melvin Blume invested 20 000 in the nascent company which enabled it to buy out Donna Kaye s share of the original TSR partnership On September 26 1975 the assets of the former partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies 7 Brian Blume became the largest shareholder Melvin Blume the second largest and Gary Gygax the third largest 8 9 Gygax served as president of TSR Hobbies and Blume as vice president and secretary The Dungeon hobby shop would become the effective headquarters of the company including the offices of Blume and Gygax TSR Hobbies subcontracted the printing and assembly work in October 1975 and the third printing of 2 000 copies of D amp D sold out in five months 5 Tim Kask was hired in the autumn of 1975 as Periodicals Editor and the company s first full time employee 8 Empire of the Petal Throne became the first game product published by TSR Hobbies followed by two supplements to D amp D Greyhawk and Blackmoor 9 Also released in 1975 were the board game Dungeon and the Wild West RPG Boot Hill 9 The company took 300 000 in revenues for the fiscal year of 1976 10 TSR began hosting the Gen Con Game Fair in 1976 and featured the first ever D amp D open tournament that year 9 11 D amp D supplements Eldritch Wizardry and Gods Demi gods amp Heroes were released in 1976 9 TSR also began to branch the Dungeons amp Dragons product into two Dungeons amp Dragons as a general audience product intended for novices and Advanced Dungeons amp Dragons AD amp D for a more complicated product aimed at hardcore fans In 1977 the Dungeons amp Dragons Basic Set was released for D amp D and the Monster Manual was released as the initial product for AD amp D the first hardbound book ever published by a game company The next year the AD amp D Players Handbook was published followed by a series of six adventure modules 9 Due to the inclusion of the word Advanced in the title TSR did not pay Dave Arneson any royalties on AD amp D products saying his co creation rights extended to the base D amp D name only 12 Also in 1978 TSR Hobbies moved out of Gygax s home and into downtown Lake Geneva above the Dungeon Hobby Shop 9 In 1979 the AD amp D Dungeon Masters Guide was published and radio ads featuring Morley the Wizard were broadcast 9 All of these core books would go on to be major hits the D amp D Basic Set sold well in 1977 and 1978 would sell over 100 000 copies in 1979 and would continue to be updated and re released for years 12 During this era there were a number of competitors and unofficial supplements to D amp D published arguably in violation of TSR s copyright which many D amp D players used alongside the TSR books Among these were the Arduin Grimoire the Manual of Aurenia and variants such as Warlock and Tunnels amp Trolls TSR regarded these very warily and in cases where they felt their trademarks were being misused they issued cease and desist letters More often than not this legal posturing resulted in only slight changes to competitors works but caused significant animosity in the community 13 In 1979 TSR signed a contract with Random House with unusual terms In most deals between publishers and distributors publishers are paid directly based on books sold downstream by the distributor to bookstores In TSR s contract however Random House would loan money to TSR as an advance upon shipment of product from TSR to Random House a loan equivalent to 27 3 of the suggested retail price The arrangement was mutually beneficial at first TSR could acquire money up front to fund their work and not have to worry about immediate sales Many of TSR s products had consistent sales over time and the loans allowed the company to recoup the investment immediately and use the funds to make more books Returns were generally low leading to Random House s confidence in TSR The arrangement would cause trouble later in the 1990s however 14 Gygax granted exclusive rights to Games Workshop to distribute TSR products in the United Kingdom after meeting with Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson Games Workshop printed some original material and also printed their own versions of various D amp D and AD amp D titles in order to avoid high import costs When TSR could not reach an agreement with Games Workshop regarding a possible merger TSR created a subsidiary operation in the UK TSR Hobbies UK Ltd in 1980 9 Gygax hired Don Turnbull to head up the operation which would expand into continental Europe during the 1980s TSR UK published a series of modules and the original Fiend Folio TSR UK also produced Imagine magazine for 31 issues The first published campaign setting for AD amp D the World of Greyhawk was introduced in 1980 The espionage role playing game Top Secret came out in 1980 reportedly a note written on TSR stationery about a fictitious assassination plot part of the playtesting of the new game brought the FBI to TSR s offices 9 That same year the Role Playing Game Association was formed to promote quality roleplaying and unite gamers around the country 9 In 1981 Inc magazine listed TSR Hobbies as one of the hundred fastest growing privately held companies in the US 10 That same year TSR Hobbies moved its offices again this time to a former medical supply building with an attached warehouse In 1982 TSR Hobbies broke the 20 million mark in sales 9 In 1982 TSR Hobbies decided to terminate Grenadier Miniatures s license and started producing its own AD amp D miniatures line followed by a line of toys Part of the licensing of the AD amp D toy line went to LJN Also that year TSR introduced two new roleplaying games Gangbusters and Star Frontiers 9 Exclusive distribution of the D amp D game was established in 22 countries with the game being translated first into French followed by many other languages In 1982 an educational department was established to develop curriculum programs for reading math history and problem solving with the most successful program being the Endless Quest book series 9 Melvin Blume s shares were later transferred to his son Kevin Blume After this the leadership of TSR consisted of Kevin Blume Brian Blume and Gary Gygax In contemporary articles from the early 1980s Gygax said that the three worked as a team and only proceeded with unanimous consent and buy in In interviews years later Gygax downplayed his role and described his position as primarily a powerless figurehead CEO with Brian Blume as president of creative affairs and Kevin Blume as president of operations 15 16 10 In 1981 TSR Hobbies had revenues of 12 9 million and a payroll of 130 10 TSR Hobbies sought diversification acquiring or starting several new business ventures These included miniatures manufacturing toy and gift ventures and an entertainment division to pursue motion picture and television opportunities 9 Many parts of this expansion were later criticized as bad investments and over extension Greenfield Needlewomen a needle craft business was one particularly criticized acquisition it was owned by a cousin of the Blumes Sales of D amp D themed needlecraft were abysmal and the acquisition was criticized as nepotism The company was similarly accused of favoring friends and relatives of the Blumes and Gygax in hiring The management also used company funds to raise a shipwreck from Geneva Lake for no clear financial benefit The company acquired the trademarks and copyrights of SPI and Amazing Stories magazine despite Amazing Stories having only ten thousand subscribers 9 17 TSR 1983 1985 Edit In 1983 the company was split into four companies TSR Inc the primary successor TSR International TSR Ventures and TSR Entertainment Inc 3 Gygax left for Hollywood to found TSR Entertainment Inc later Dungeons amp Dragons Entertainment Corp which attempted to license D amp D products to movie and television executives His work would eventually lead to only a single license for what later became the Dungeons amp Dragons cartoon 18 The series led its time slot for two years 9 TSR Inc released the Dragonlance saga in 1984 after two years of development an entirely new game world The series was both a set of modules and supplements designed for running campaigns starting with Dragons of Despair as well as a novel series The novel series was written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman The Dragonlance trilogy of novels was a colossal hit Dragons of Autumn Twilight the first novel in the series reached the top of The New York Times Best Seller list encouraging TSR to a launch a long series of paperback novels TSR s Books Department would go on to launch novels on its other D amp D settings as well and be one of TSR s most profitable divisions 19 9 In 1984 TSR signed a license to publish the Marvel Super Heroes Indiana Jones and Conan role playing games In 1985 the Gen Con game convention moved out of Lake Geneva which had given it its name and relocated to Milwaukee Wisconsin due to a need for additional space The Oriental Adventures hardback for AD amp D was released that same year becoming the biggest seller for 1985 TSR introduced the All My Children game based on the ABC daytime drama with more than 150 000 copies sold In 1986 TSR introduced the Dungeon Adventures magazine a bi monthly magazine featuring only adventure scenarios for D amp D 9 Management turmoil Edit Sales of the core rule books and boxed sets crested in 1983 and fell in 1984 and 1985 largely due to market saturation customers who wanted rulebooks largely already had them There were bright spots in 1983 1985 such as Dragonlance novel sales Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures but TSR s finances were in bad shape due to high expenses and costs that had assumed rule book sales would remain strong The result was a cycle of layoffs and contractions in 1983 1985 as well as the Blumes negotiating a 4 million loan from American National Bank 17 The struggle for financing led to board room shake ups at the top level TSR s line of credit was stopped by its bank and the company was in debt to over US 1 5 million Gygax would later say that he was in the dark as to the extent of the financial difficulties due to being in Hollywood Ben Riggs an author who studied TSR s history is skeptical Gygax was truly unaware however 20 Gygax returned to Wisconsin from Hollywood In the spring of 1985 Gygax exercised an option to buy seven hundred shares of TSR stock which combined with shares given to his son Ernie gave him 51 1 of all stock up from around 30 before 20 Gygax also says he had a confrontation with the board of directors and had the Blumes removed 21 22 4 Gygax now controlled TSR Financial difficulties continued however 20 Within a year of the departure of the Blumes the company posted a net loss of US 1 5 million resulting in layoffs of approximately 75 of the staff Some of these staff members went on to form other prominent game companies such as Pacesetter Ltd and Mayfair Games or to work with Coleco s video game division Gygax searched for financing Flint Dille one of his contacts he made in his time in Hollywood suggested his sister Lorraine Williams might be interested in investing money into TSR Williams was given a position of general manager at TSR and attempted to fix TSR s precarious financial situation This led to clashes between Williams and Gygax who resisted some of Williams suggestions Meanwhile the Blumes out of power at the company and worried about its financial strength in the long term sought to cash out their shares They offered to sell their shares to Gygax but he refused They exercised their own options to buy seven hundred more shares then sold their entire holdings to Lorraine Williams instead Williams herself bought fifty shares With these purchases Williams became the majority shareholder of TSR and used her voting power to depose Gygax as CEO and president on October 22 1985 Gygax unsuccessfully challenged the sale in court Gygax s supporters considered the Blumes sale an act of retaliation 22 Gygax eventually sold his remaining stock to Williams and used the capital to form New Infinities Productions On TSR s side they would pepper Gygax with legal threats long after he left in an attempt to deter him from competing with his old company in the area of role playing games 20 23 Lorraine Williams era 1985 1997 Edit Williams was a financial planner who saved TSR from financial disaster and by extension saved Dungeons amp Dragons She saw potential for rebuilding the debt plagued company into a highly profitable one However she also acquired a reputation as a non gamer who played the villain in retrospectives of TSR Gary Gygax grew particularly disdainful of her Williams habit of threatening lawsuits and legal action against perceived foes was criticized as unwise and turning potential allies into enemies 24 25 26 23 However her tenure has also been defended John D Rateliff said that Every single person I talked to who worked under Gary Gygax and the Blumes and then worked under Lorraine preferred working under Lorraine I never met a single person who was under both who didn t prefer being under her 26 Jeff Grubb said that she pretty much saved the company as the company was weeks away from total collapse when she took over 26 Tabletop and board gaming in the Williams era Edit TSR released the Forgotten Realms campaign setting in 1987 which would go on to become one of the most popular settings for D amp D TSR s settings would generally include a boxed set with multiple paperbacks and a map as their core product and would produce tie in supplements such as pre made adventures usually called modules guides to regions within the world and novels Also in 1987 a small team of designers began work on the second edition of the AD amp D game In 1988 TSR released a Bullwinkle amp Rocky RPG complete with a spinner and hand puppets That same year TSR released the wargame The Hunt for Red October based on Tom Clancy s novel The Hunt for Red October which became one of the biggest selling wargames of all time In 1989 AD amp D 2nd edition was released The release saw a new Dungeon Master s Guide Player s Handbook and the first three volumes of the new Monstrous Compendium A new campaign setting Spelljammer was also released in 1989 which allowed characters from one D amp D world to travel to other worlds via space galleons in an Age of Sail themed setting TSR would go on to produce many expansions for 2nd edition such as a series of class handbooks that began with The Complete Fighter s Handbook 9 In 1990 the Ravenloft setting was released a horror themed setting for AD amp D Ravenloft had been introduced in an acclaimed 1983 adventure module and was now expanded into an entire setting In 1991 TSR released the Dark Sun campaign setting which was more dark fantasy in genre and set on a post apocalyptic desert world threatened by evil life draining wizards and psionicists In 1992 TSR released the Al Qadim setting with a Middle Eastern flavor similar to a fantasy version of the Arabian Nights although its world was also connected to the Forgotten Realms In 1993 a revised version of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting for 2nd edition was released TSR had published a sourcebook on upgrading the 1st edition material to 2nd edition in 1990 earlier In 1993 DragonStrike was released as an introductory product aimed to recruit new players including a 30 minute video which explained the concepts of role playing a similar introductory product First Quest was released in 1994 Also in 1994 the Planescape campaign setting was released featuring the city of Sigil as the City of Doors that connected to the various planes of existence in AD amp D 9 Spelljammer had not been considered a success by TSR as players perceived it as mainly a way to move characters from one world to another rather than its own setting Planescape attempted to remedy this by focusing on Sigil as a place to set an entire campaign rather than a place to pass through 27 TSR also released Karameikos Kingdom of Adventure in 1994 which detailed one of the kingdoms in the setting of Mystara 28 As an innovation it included an audio CD with tracks of dialogue and sound effects In 1995 TSR released Birthright a campaign setting that mixed D amp D with strategy games The intent was for players to play noble characters empowered by divine blood which gave them the power to rule domains players could expand their domains and divine powers with a mixture of war and diplomacy 9 In 1996 Dragonlance Fifth Age was released a diceless role playing game that departed from the roots of Dragonlance in AD amp D 9 Other products Edit Under Williams direction TSR solidified its expansion into other fields such as magazines paperback fiction comic books and collectible games TSR s book division was a traditional powerhouse for the company especially due to the comparatively low costs in producing novels compared to role playing supplements which required commissioning art and play testing The most notably successful novel series of the era was R A Salvatore s Drizzt series set in the Forgotten Realms Starting with The Crystal Shard in 1988 many of Salvatore s books would go on to reach the paperback bestseller lists 29 TSR eventually moved into publishing hardcover novels as well with Salvatore s The Legacy published in 1992 It made the top of the New York Times bestseller list within weeks 9 better source needed The Dille Family Trust of which Lorraine Williams was a part held the rights to the Buck Rogers license Williams personally encouraged TSR to produce Buck Rogers tie in material TSR would end up publishing a Buck Rogers board games novels a comic book and a role playing game based on the AD amp D 2nd Edition rules 22 TSR s Buck Rogers projects were commercial failures 30 In the late 1980s TSR opened a new West Coast division in Southern California to develop various entertainment projects similar to how Gygax had sought deals in Hollywood in the early 1980s However the efforts of the division would come to less than nothing according to TSR historian Ben Riggs despite initial promise 31 TSR had an arrangement with DC Comics to produce the comics Advanced Dungeons amp Dragons and Forgotten Realms which sold well and were profitable for both DC and TSR Sensing an opportunity TSR decided to produce comics themselves as a stepping stool to television and film as comics were cheaper to produce and start with However they had already sold the rights to their own A list product in AD amp D TSR attempted to not enrage DC Comics by calling their new product comics modules and including game related material at the end of each issue additionally TSR largely sold the comics modules through bookshops rather than comic shops The compromise failed in both directions DC feeling betrayed that their partner was moving to become a competitor immediately stopped production of both the AD amp D and Forgotten Realms comics and canceled an in production Ravenloft work However the changes to present the product as not a comic book caused the potential audience to either not know of its existence at all or to be confused as to its nature TSR West eventually published four comics modules a Buck Rogers comic a sci fi comic Intruder a time travel comic Warhawks and a horror comic called R I P They were not commercially successful 31 TSR West closed around 1991 although TSR would continue to work with Flint Dille on film adjacent products made in California such as the introductory video for Dragonstrike 14 and a 1995 interactive video game series called Terror T R A X TSR continued to own and operate the Gen Con role playing game convention Gen Con grew beyond its initial focus on D amp D and wargames to role playing fans in general Gen Con was a growing and successful convention in 1992 it broke all previous attendance records for any U S gaming convention with more than 18 000 people 9 better source needed In 1993 Wizards of the Coast released the game Magic The Gathering at Gen Con which was an immediate smash hit that established the collectible card game CCG genre TSR s Jim Ward led a development effort to create a Dungeons amp Dragons themed CCG competitor that would be a response to Magic The result would be Spellfire released in April 1994 Spellfire was produced on a shoestring budget and re used art that TSR had already commissioned for other projects Lorraine Williams was not a fan of the project Its financial results are contested some TSR insiders say that Spellfire sold well considering the constraints on it while others indicate it sold poorly 32 33 Spellfire was discontinued in 1996 although one final release occurred in late 1997 Another collectible competitor to Wizards of the Coast that TSR produced was Dragon Dice which was released in 1995 Dragon Dice was a collectible dice game where each player started with a random assortment of basic dice and could improve their assortment by purchasing booster packs of more powerful dice Sales of Dragon Dice through the games trade started strongly so TSR quickly produced several expansion packs In addition TSR tried to aggressively market Dragon Dice in mass market book stores through Random House However the game did not catch on through the book trade and sales of the expansion sets through traditional games stores were poor citation needed In 1994 TSR signed an agreement with Sweetpea Entertainment for rights to make a D amp D movie This would eventually result in the 2000 Dungeons amp Dragons movie 34 TSR s book division ran into troubles in the mid 1990s TSR engaged in disputes with some of its most successful authors over terms and remuneration Weis amp Hickman had been driven off in the mid 80s a new dispute with R A Salvatore happened in 1994 1995 35 TSR ramped up the number of novels published but the expanded roster saw disappointing sales TSR decided to publish twelve hardcover novels in 1996 despite a previous history of publishing only one or two hardcover novels each year but they did not sell as well as expected citation needed Final years Financial trouble and sale 1995 1997 Edit By 1996 TSR was experiencing numerous problems as outlined by various historians of the company Shannon Appelcline wrote Distributors were going out of business TSR had unbalanced their AD amp D game through a series of lucrative supplements that ultimately hurt the long time viability of the game Meanwhile they had developed so many settings many of them popular and well received that they were both cannibalizing their only sales and discouraging players from picking up settings that might be gone in a few years They may have been cannibalizing their own sales through excessive production of books or supplements too 36 Ben Riggs agreed that TSR was factionalizing the AD amp D audience by continually releasing competing new settings Forgotten Realms Al Qadim Dragonlance Planescape Dark Sun Birthright Karameikos etc a strategy intended to lure in new customers but that actually divided its own core customers 37 TSR s products essentially competed with themselves requiring more development effort to reach the same number of total customers Ryan Dancey and Lisa Stevens who examined TSR s finances for Wizards of the Coast found that many of the AD amp D settings products were never profitable and more worryingly never could have been profitable the cost of production was simply too high compared to the price they sold for 37 David M Ewalt writes that Spellfire and Dragon Dice were both expensive to produce and neither sold very well 33 Another factor that hobbled TSR in the long term was a financial arrangement known as factoring Factoring worked like this TSR first arranged contracts with retailers in the hobby trade gaming stores comics stores and so on to preorder their products and offered a discounted rate for contracts signed in January TSR then took these contracts to investment banks and was advanced money immediately by the banks with the banks to be paid off from the eventual sales of the product This financial innovation allowed TSR to be essentially paid in advance less fees from the banks and from discounts given to suppliers which worked out to keeping about 82 of the revenue Getting all of the money in January allowed TSR to budget with more certainty and potentially fund projects with a long lead time immediately rather than waiting on sales Other than the direct cost of losing 18 pennies on every dollar of revenue factoring had the other downside of not being flexible to changing market conditions however as TSR was essentially locked into its budgeting from January It was partially why Spellfire was made on a tiny budget as TSR was attempting to take on a new initiative in the middle of the year and led to a fiasco with its Advanced Dungeons amp Dragons CD ROM Core Rules product where a preorder arrangement with Babbage s was continued despite Babbage s becoming financially insolvent 38 TSR s old deal with Random House which had been mutually beneficial in the 1980s began to be used by TSR in ways that would paper over short term financial problems Since TSR was paid up front on the assumption that shipped goods would ultimately sell TSR began shipping overstock to Random House to generate loans on demand This caused people in the know at TSR to call it the Banco de Random House 14 It also dulled TSR s internal sense of which products were selling leading to overprinting of niche products Ben Riggs cites the introductory product DragonStrike as an example which sold well but was vastly overprinted 14 The extra copies were still sent to Random House to generate loans however The result was a steadily expanding debt bubble with Random House as returns of product soared Random House eventually noticed something was amiss and began demanding TSR shrink its debt load with them around 11 8 million in June 1995 Random House sued TSR in April 1996 for repayment 39 Despite total sales of around 40 million in 1995 39 TSR ended 1996 with little in cash reserves and the company was deep in debt 36 Random House returned an unexpectedly high percentage of unsold stock including the year s inventory of unsold novels and sets of Dragon Dice and charged a fee of several million dollars Random House returned around 14 million of product between 1995 1997 40 TSR found itself in a cash crunch With no cash TSR was unable to pay their printing and shipping bills J B Kenehan the logistics company that handled TSR s pre press printing warehousing and shipping refused to do any more work 40 Since the logistics company had the production plates for key products such as core D amp D books there was no means of printing or shipping core products to generate income or secure short term financing 41 Thirty staff members were laid off in December 1996 and other staff left over disagreements about how the crisis was handled including James M Ward 36 40 In large part due to the need to refund Random House TSR entered 1997 over 30 million in debt 33 TSR was threatened by lawsuits due to unpaid freelancers and missing royalties but TSR made enough money from products already on the shelves to pay remaining staff through the first half of 1997 36 With no viable financial plan for TSR s survival Lorraine Williams sold the company to Wizards of the Coast in 1997 in a deal brokered by Five Rings Publishing Group FRPG 24 42 After acquisition 1997 2000 Edit Wizards of the Coast settled TSR s debts as part of the acquisition This included unwinding TSR s deal with its printer enabling the products TSR had worked on in the first half of 1997 to be printed and distributed such as the space opera game Alternity More generally Wizards was cash rich which solved some of the problems TSR had faced that had caused it to resort to the rolling loans and financial trickery that had cut into TSR s profits such as factoring Wizards also moved to mend relations with some of TSR s former employees and contractors who had been alienated Notably this included allowing artists to take back personal ownership of the original versions of art they had made for TSR 43 Wizards eventually closed the TSR corporate offices in Lake Geneva Some TSR employees accepted the offer of transferring to Wizards of the Coast s offices in Washington and a few others continued to work remotely from Wisconsin Wizards of the Coast continued to use the TSR name for D amp D products for three years Wizards also set about the creation of the third edition of Dungeons amp Dragons It was released in 2000 under the Wizards of the Coast brand only In 1999 Wizards of the Coast was itself purchased by Hasbro Inc 44 In 2002 the Gen Con convention was sold to Peter Adkison 45 Business disputes EditSee also Dungeons amp Dragons controversies Business disputes at TSR After its initial success faded the company turned to legal defenses of what it regarded as its intellectual property In addition there were several legal cases brought regarding who had invented what within the company and the division of royalties including several lawsuits against Gygax 42 This included the company threatening to sue individuals supplying game material on websites 46 In 1984 there was an incident involving Lucasfilm that led to a legend that TSR had trademarked the term Nazi TSR published a supplement for the Indiana Jones RPG Raiders of the Lost Ark Adventure Pack in which some figures were marked with Nazi This trademark notation was because of a list of trademarked character names supplied by Lucasfilm s legal department they had indiscriminately marked all figures with a trademark symbol and the Nazi figures were likewise marked accidentally 47 48 Subsequent trademark usage EditIn 2011 a new company taking the name TSR was founded by Jayson Elliot who co founded the Roll for Initiative podcast Elliot found that the TSR trademark had expired around 2004 so he registered it himself He then decided to launch the new company with assistance from early TSR D amp D contributors including Luke and Ernie Gygax sons of the deceased D amp D co creator Gary Gygax and Tim Kask former editor of Dragon magazine 49 50 Their first product was Gygax Magazine announced along with the TSR company revival in December 2012 51 Wired reported that Elliot stressed that his TSR is a new company 49 Both Gygax brothers left the company in 2016 when the magazine ended 52 The company operated as TSR Games producing the Top Secret New World Order role playing game 53 50 In June 2021 a new separate TSR company was launched by a group including Ernie Gygax Justin LaNasa and Stephen Dinehart 53 50 54 55 The company is based out of Lake Geneva Wisconsin they announced plans to release tabletop games and operate the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum which is located in the first office building of the original TSR 53 56 Elliot s TSR Games then announced on social media that while they have owned the trademark since 2011 they missed a filing date in 2020 and were considering various options 50 54 57 58 However after Ernie Gygax s troubling comments about race gender identity and gun violence as well as his company s reaction 54 Elliot announced that his company 50 59 would not have any form of working relationship with Ernie Gygax s TSR 54 Ultimately Elliot s TSR Games was rebranded as Solarian Games in July 2021 60 59 Dinehart then rebranded as Wonderfilled Games 61 62 Dicebreaker reported that TSR Games never officially announced its rebranding as Wonderfilled Games and most of its Twitter accounts had been locked down or nuked and the company s old website simply redirected to a new page that interestingly listed Dinehart s GiantLands as an in development title How much of TSR Games exists in Wonderfilled Games isn t clear 55 LaNasa s TSR Games then launched a crowdfunding campaign in December 2021 to raise money to sue Wizards of the Coast for Trademark Declaratory Judgement of Ownership the company then filed and voluntarily dismissed the complaint that month 63 64 65 Wizards of the Coast also in December 2021 sued LaNasa s TSR for trademark fraud over the use of the TSR logo which is owned by Wizards of the Coast 65 In July 2022 TechRaptor reported on a leaked Star Frontiers New Genesis a reboot of the 1982 Star Frontiers role playing game playtest created by LaNasa s TSR the content contains blatantly racist descriptions of character races and the race design plays into Nazi eugenics 66 The content also contains homophobic transphobic and anti semitic content as well as additional material of a discriminatory nature 66 IGN Southeast Asia highlighted that in this playtest game a black race is classified as a Subrace and having average intellect with a maximum intelligence rating of 9 whereas the norse race has a minimum intelligence rating of 13 67 68 In September 2022 Wizards of the Coast sued TSR Games helmed by Ernie Gygax and LaNasa and the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum to enjoin these companies from publishing games under the Star Frontiers and TSR trademarks 69 70 71 In its motion for a preliminary injunction Wizards of the Coast wrote that TSR s Star Frontiers New Genesis game is despicable and blatantly racist and transphobic 69 and that the publication of such content would inflict reputational harm on Wizards of the Coast 69 70 71 Charlie Hall for Polygon commented that Wizards filing also seeks to undermine LaNasa s most powerful argument that Wizards abandoned TSR and other related trademarks thus opening the door to his usurping of the brand and its games Here s where things get complicated Wizards admitted that it failed to file paperwork for the registration of TSR Star Frontiers and other related marks in a timely fashion as required under federal law But through continued sales of related products and use of the related IP the company claims ownership via common law trademark rights It will be up to a jury to determine if that is in fact the case 69 In December 2022 a federal magistrate judge denied the preliminary injunction Wizards of the Coast filed The judge said that Wizards had not yet shown enough evidence to demonstrate continuous use of the TSR brand she also noted that the defendants disclaimed the racist version of the game and had promised not to release any version of Star Frontiers at all until the court case concludes hence there was no need for a preliminary injunction 72 verification needed 73 Products EditTSR s main products were role playing games the most successful of which was D amp D However they also produced other games such as card games board games and dice games and published both magazines and books Role playing games Edit Alternity 1998 Amazing Engine 1993 Boot Hill 1975 Buck Rogers Adventure Game 1993 Buck Rogers XXVc 1988 Bullwinkle and Rocky Role Playing Party Game 1988 Conan Role Playing Game 1985 Crimefighters 1981 Dragonlance Fifth Age Saga System 1996 Dragonstrike board game and VHS tutorial 1993 Dungeons amp Dragons 1974 Empire of the Petal Throne 1975 Gamma World 1978 Gangbusters 1982 Indiana Jones 1984 Marvel Super Heroes 1984 Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game Saga System 1998 Metamorphosis Alpha 1976 Star Frontiers 1982 Top Secret 1980 and Top Secret S I Wargames Edit Cavaliers and Roundheads 1973 3 Chainmail 1975 Fight in the Skies 1976 Panzer Warfare 1975 Other games Edit All My Children board game Attack Force microgame The Awful Green Things from Outer Space board game 1979 Blood Wars collectible card game 1995 Buck Rogers Battle for the 25th Century board game 1988 Chase board game Crosse board game Divine Right board game Dragonlance board game Dragon Strike board game 1993 Dragon Dice collectible dice game Dungeon 1975 Dungeon Fantasy 1989 Elixir board game Endless Quest gamebooks 1982 Escape From New York 1981 board game Fantasy Forest 1980 board game 4th Dimension board game The Great Khan Game card game HeartQuest game book series Honeymooners Game board game 1986 Icebergs microgame Kage board game Knights of Camelot board game Maxi Bour e board game Party Zone Spy Ring Scenario party game Perry Mason board game 1987 Remember the Alamo Revolt on Antares microgame 1980 Saga microgame Spellfire collectible card game 1994 SnarfQuest game book series 1983 Snit s Revenge boardgame 1977 Steppe board game Terror T R A X hybrid audiobook gamebook line 1995 They ve Invaded Pleasantville microgame Vampyre microgame Viking Gods War of Wizards Magazines Edit Amazing Stories Dragon Dungeon Imagine Fiction Edit See also Dungeons amp Dragons novels and List of Dungeons amp Dragons comic books In 1984 TSR started publishing novels based on their games Most D amp D campaign settings had their own novel line the most successful of which were the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms lines with dozens of novels each TSR also published the 1995 novel Buck Rogers A Life in the Future by Martin Caidin a standalone re imagining of the Buck Rogers universe and unrelated to TSR s Buck Rogers XXVC game TSR published a large number of fantasy and science fiction novels unconnected with their gaming products such as L Dean James Red Kings of Wynnamyr novels Sorcerer s Stone 1991 and Kingslayer 1992 Mary H Herbert s five Gabria novels Valorian Dark Horse Lightning s Daughter City of the Sorcerers and Winged Magic and humorous fantasy fiction including Roy V Young s Count Yor novels Captains Outrageous 1994 and Yor s Revenge 1995 However such projects never represented more than a fraction of the company s fiction output which retained a strong emphasis on game derived works See also EditLake Geneva Tactical Studies AssociationReferences Edit a b Kushner David 2008 03 10 Dungeon Master The Life and Legacy of Gary Gygax Wired com Retrieved 2008 10 16 Witwer 2015 21 The Art of Making Art a b c Sacco Ciro Alessandro February 2007 An Interview with Gary Gygax Part I PDF OD amp Dities issue 9 Richard Tongue p 7 Retrieved 2007 11 09 Peterson 2012 pp 78 79 a b Peterson 2012 p 496 a b c Peterson 2012 pp 522 523 Peterson 2012 p 535 a b Witwer 2015 23 A Makeshift Solution a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y The History of TSR Wizards of the Coast Archived from the original on 2000 08 18 Retrieved 2005 08 20 a b c d Stewart Alsop II 1982 02 01 TSR Hobbies Mixes Fact and Fantasy Dungeons amp Dragons FAQ Wizards of the Coast Archived from the original on 2008 10 02 Retrieved 2021 06 30 a b Riggs 2022 pp 19 22 99 Peterson 2012 p 555 a b c d Riggs 2022 pp 164 170 Riggs 2022 pp 36 37 Sacco Ciro Alessandro The Ultimate Interview with Gary Gygax thekyngdoms com Retrieved 2008 10 24 a b Riggs 2022 pp 45 48 Rausch Allen 2004 08 16 Gary Gygax Interview Part 2 GameSpy IGN Retrieved 2006 07 05 Riggs 2022 pp 48 52 a b c d Riggs 2022 pp 56 61 Gygax I was alerted to a problem Kevin Blume was shopping TSR on the street in New York City I flew back from the West Coast and discovered the corporation was in debt to the bank the tune of circa US 1 5 million Gary Gygax Q amp A Part XII Page 28 EN World 2007 01 21 Retrieved 2009 03 15 a b c Rausch Allen 16 August 2004 Magic amp Memories The Complete History of Dungeons amp Dragons Part II GameSpy IGN Retrieved 2008 12 20 a b Witwer 2015 pp 171 197 a b What Happened to Gygax TSR gygax com Archived from the original on 1999 01 28 Retrieved 2006 07 04 Magic amp Memories The Complete History of Dungeons amp Dragons Part III Tyrants amp Wizards Gamespy 2004 08 17 p 1 Retrieved 2006 07 04 a b c Riggs 2022 pp 61 65 70 Riggs 2022 pp 185 191 Riggs 2022 pp 208 209 Riggs 2022 pp 83 90 Riggs 2022 pp 69 70 108 a b Riggs 2022 pp 103 123 Riggs 2022 pp 211 214 a b c Ewalt David M 2013 Of Dice and Men The Story of Dungeons amp Dragons and the People Who Play It Scribner p 174 ISBN 978 1 4516 4052 6 Gardner Eriq May 14 2013 Hasbro Sues to Stop Warner Bros Dungeons and Dragons Film The Hollywood Reporter Retrieved August 8 2015 Riggs 2022 pp 71 76 177 184 a b c d Appelcline 2011 p 30 a b Riggs 2022 pp 272 275 Riggs 2022 pp 204 209 212 a b Riggs 2022 pp 196 202 a b c Riggs 2022 pp 215 220 223 231 30 Years of Adventure A Celebration of Dungeons amp Dragons Renton WA Wizards of the Coast 2004 p 55 ISBN 0 7869 3498 0 a b La Farge Paul September 2006 Destroy All Monsters The Believer Magazine Archived from the original on 2008 09 20 Riggs 2022 pp 263 278 A Brief History of Game 1 Wizards of the Coast 1990 Present RPGnet Retrieved 2018 01 22 Appelcline 2011 p 291 Complang tuwien ac at Laws Robin D August 2007 40 Years of Gen Con Atlas Games p 139 ISBN 978 1 58978 097 2 MATT FORBECK the last copy of the Indiana Jones roleplaying games It actually has one of the legendary counters in it that reads Nazi Which apparently was not TSR s idea but Lucasfilm insisted that everything that appeared in the game have a TM next to it Appelcline Shannon February 2 2021 Advanced Designers amp Dragons 44 The Top 10 Infamous RPGs RPGnet Retrieved October 28 2022 a b Gilsdorf Ethan January 25 2013 A New TSR to Launch Gygax Magazine Saturday Wired Conde Nast Retrieved September 27 2018 a b c d e TSR Games cuts business ties with Ernest G Gygax Jr and second RPG publisher calling itself TSR Dicebreaker 2021 06 29 Retrieved 2021 06 30 Bricken Rob December 4 2012 The company that created Dungeons amp Dragons is back with Gygax magazine updated io9 Retrieved September 27 2018 TSRgames June 27 2021 We no longer have any Gygaxes in our company since 2016 when Gygax magazine ended We are definitely pro LGBT and love the whole rainbow of gamers and kind humans Tweet Retrieved 2021 06 28 via Twitter a b c TSR the Original Maker of Dungeons amp Dragons Has Re Launched as New Company ComicBook com June 24 2021 Retrieved 2021 06 27 a b c d TSR Games Distances Itself From Ernie G Gygax Jr Owner of Another TSR Games Gizmodo July 1 2021 Retrieved 2021 07 06 a b Both RPG publishers once known as TSR change their name Dicebreaker 2021 07 22 Retrieved 2021 09 09 Hines Dennis July 11 2021 Lake Geneva Dungeons amp Dragons museum receives city approval Kenosha News Retrieved 2021 07 11 TSRgames June 24 2021 We have owned the TSR trademark since 2011 Last year we missed a filing date and another company registered it though we are still using it in commerce While we could win a lawsuit we frankly don t have the money to litigate So we re licensing it back from them thread Tweet Retrieved 2021 06 27 via Twitter TSRgames June 27 2021 We are not abandoning the name just not working with them or licensing anything More to come Tweet Retrieved June 28 2021 via Twitter a b TSR Games 2 rebrands to Solarian Games Geek Native 2021 07 04 Retrieved 2021 07 06 TSRgames July 2 2021 We have rebranded officially as SOLARIAN Tweet Retrieved July 3 2021 via Twitter Zambrano J R July 8 2021 RPG The New TSR Saga Ends No More TSR s Bell of Lost Souls Retrieved July 8 2021 Sasso Mabelle February 13 2022 TSR Vs Wizard Of The Coast la battaglia dei Gygax alcuni Tom s Hardware in Italian Retrieved 2022 09 14 Chancey Tyler 2021 12 09 TSR Crowdfunds Campaign To Stop Wizards of the Coast TechRaptor Retrieved 2022 09 14 Zambrano J R 2021 12 13 D amp D TSR Lawsuit Against WotC Voluntarily Dismissed Vows To Refile Bell of Lost Souls Retrieved 2022 09 14 a b Chancey Tyler 2021 12 14 TSR Drops Wizards of the Coast Lawsuit Gets Sued Back TechRaptor Retrieved 2022 09 14 a b Chancey Tyler 2022 07 21 TSR s Star Frontiers New Genesis Playtest Contains Racist Content TechRaptor Retrieved 2022 09 14 Bahri Syazwan 2022 09 14 Wizards of the Coast Files Lawsuit Against Allegedly Racist And Transphobic Tabletop Game IGN Southeast Asia Retrieved 2022 09 14 Stephen L Carter September 17 2022 Can Trademark Law Stop a Racist Role Playing Game Bloomberg Retrieved December 20 2022 a b c d Hall Charlie 2022 09 13 D amp D publisher requests injunction against competitor citing blatantly racist and transphobic content Polygon Retrieved 2022 09 14 a b Codega Linda 13 September 2022 Wizards of the Coast Wants to Shut Down TSR for Bigotry Gizmodo a b Dodge John 2022 09 10 Wizards of the Coast Files Injunction Against TSR s Star Frontiers New Genesis CBR Retrieved 2022 09 14 Lidgett Adam December 16 2022 Hasbro Unit Loses Bid To Stop Game Rival In IP Suit Law360 Retrieved December 20 2022 TSR LLC Plaintiff v WIZARDS OF THE COAST LLC Case 2 21 cv 01705 SKV Document 51 C21 1705 SKV Bibliography Edit Appelcline Shannon 2011 Designers amp Dragons Mongoose Publishing ISBN 978 1 907702 58 7 Peterson Jon 2012 Playing at the World San Diego California Unreason Press ISBN 978 0615642048 Riggs Ben 2022 Slaying the Dragon A Secret History of Dungeons amp Dragons St Martin s Press ISBN 9781250278043 Witwer Michael 2015 Empire of the Imagination Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons amp Dragons New York Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN 978 1 63286 279 2 Further reading EditGameSpy interview with Gary Gygax on the history of TSR among other things Magic amp Memories The Complete History of Dungeons amp Dragons GameSpy The Ambush at Sheridan Springs a history of TSR s corporate governance and Gygax s 1985 ouster Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title TSR Inc amp oldid 1128777131, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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