Post by Shelby on Apr 13, 2023 10:55:50 GMT -8
There’s an interesting discussion online positing the what-if question of what D&D would be like today had Gygax not been ousted, and TSR not been purchased. I posted some responses that I thought I would consolidate here.
It's an interesting question. Remember that Gygax lost "control" of TSR not long after it was founded. First his friend Kaye died, then Brian brought in his brother Kevin. Two Blumes (financed by daddy's money) versus one Gygax. Gary remained the face and spokesperson for the company, but "control" was not a thing he had. He was ousted to California while TSR was busy mishandling money. When he got back he engineered a financial recovery. Then the backstab and he was out, and the company tanked.
So what if he had actually been in control, and remained there? There were plenty of competitors as the RPG industry boomed. TSR wouldn't have Hasbro's ability to market the hell out of an IP, so I'd say that D&D wouldn't be the juggernaut it is today. I expect it'd still be the leader in the gaming hobby though.
What would we have gained with Gygax in charge of TSR up until his death in 2008? Certainly more Greyhawk, which would make me damned happy. No Realms. PC games set in Greyhawk. A Greyhawk movie. The same creatives working at TSR for all those years, the ones that Gygax valued. Who can say what might have been produced?
We would've seen Castle Greyhawk and the dungeons beneath. Got the actual Gygax version of City of Greyhawk. Oriental Adventures would've remained set on Greyhawk, not the Realms. Tournaments would've continued as a convention thing.
I don't know if there would've been a need for Basic as a separate thing once Arneson was all settled. Maybe. Basic as a rules-lite game, compared to Advanced.
I would've liked to see more board games and war games. Since that was what the old guard played, it could've been a thing. Connecting it to D&D and Greyhawk, as GDW's board games were often tied in to Traveller, could've helped make them popular.
Oh, and likely we would've seen a slew of Rob Kuntz' adventures, since he was Gygax' DM and co-DM.
Gygax' "works of the 1990s" were his attempts to launch a new line that didn't get him in legal trouble with TSR. If he was still at TSR I doubt he would've been wracking his brains to try and come up with something new.
Would there have been an OGL or whatever? I don't even know whose idea that was, so maybe, maybe not. All of TSR's competitors in the 20th century would still be there publishing games, so I don't know that lack of an OGL would mean fewer non-TSR gaming products out there. Maybe not such a cottage industry as we have today.
[Other guys post about TSR keeping a tight hold on their IP]
Mmm, in 2009 Hasbro/WOTC pulled access to all legitimate PDFs. They didn't backpedal on that until 2013. Anyone can get proprietary about their intellectual property. Chaosium was known for going after online writers too, they still do today. And don't get me started about the Tekumel Foundation. Dave Morris, who'd released the Tirikelu rules set years back for free online, updated his downloads with a re-formatted version for printing. He was immediately threatened and had to pull it. So would TSR have calmed down? Hard to say. The online world grew and attitudes changed, who's to say how TSR might've evolved?
[Guys insist TSR = Bad]
I'd be happy to stand corrected if someone has examples, but to my knowledge there were no companies that were "open source" during TSR's lifespan. So how can you fault a company for not doing something that no one else was doing?
It's an interesting question. Remember that Gygax lost "control" of TSR not long after it was founded. First his friend Kaye died, then Brian brought in his brother Kevin. Two Blumes (financed by daddy's money) versus one Gygax. Gary remained the face and spokesperson for the company, but "control" was not a thing he had. He was ousted to California while TSR was busy mishandling money. When he got back he engineered a financial recovery. Then the backstab and he was out, and the company tanked.
So what if he had actually been in control, and remained there? There were plenty of competitors as the RPG industry boomed. TSR wouldn't have Hasbro's ability to market the hell out of an IP, so I'd say that D&D wouldn't be the juggernaut it is today. I expect it'd still be the leader in the gaming hobby though.
What would we have gained with Gygax in charge of TSR up until his death in 2008? Certainly more Greyhawk, which would make me damned happy. No Realms. PC games set in Greyhawk. A Greyhawk movie. The same creatives working at TSR for all those years, the ones that Gygax valued. Who can say what might have been produced?
We would've seen Castle Greyhawk and the dungeons beneath. Got the actual Gygax version of City of Greyhawk. Oriental Adventures would've remained set on Greyhawk, not the Realms. Tournaments would've continued as a convention thing.
I don't know if there would've been a need for Basic as a separate thing once Arneson was all settled. Maybe. Basic as a rules-lite game, compared to Advanced.
I would've liked to see more board games and war games. Since that was what the old guard played, it could've been a thing. Connecting it to D&D and Greyhawk, as GDW's board games were often tied in to Traveller, could've helped make them popular.
Oh, and likely we would've seen a slew of Rob Kuntz' adventures, since he was Gygax' DM and co-DM.
Gygax' "works of the 1990s" were his attempts to launch a new line that didn't get him in legal trouble with TSR. If he was still at TSR I doubt he would've been wracking his brains to try and come up with something new.
Would there have been an OGL or whatever? I don't even know whose idea that was, so maybe, maybe not. All of TSR's competitors in the 20th century would still be there publishing games, so I don't know that lack of an OGL would mean fewer non-TSR gaming products out there. Maybe not such a cottage industry as we have today.
[Other guys post about TSR keeping a tight hold on their IP]
Mmm, in 2009 Hasbro/WOTC pulled access to all legitimate PDFs. They didn't backpedal on that until 2013. Anyone can get proprietary about their intellectual property. Chaosium was known for going after online writers too, they still do today. And don't get me started about the Tekumel Foundation. Dave Morris, who'd released the Tirikelu rules set years back for free online, updated his downloads with a re-formatted version for printing. He was immediately threatened and had to pull it. So would TSR have calmed down? Hard to say. The online world grew and attitudes changed, who's to say how TSR might've evolved?
[Guys insist TSR = Bad]
I'd be happy to stand corrected if someone has examples, but to my knowledge there were no companies that were "open source" during TSR's lifespan. So how can you fault a company for not doing something that no one else was doing?