The History of TSR

L to R: Mike Mearls, Jeff Grubb, Ed Greenwood, Steve Winter, David Cook

While I was at Gamehole Con, I attended several panels featuring luminaries of the hobby. One of the best dealt with the history of TSR from the late 1970s through its purchase by Wizards of the Coast. Mike Mearls served as its moderator, but the real attraction were the panelists: Jeff Grubb, Ed Greenwood, Steve Winter, and David "Zeb" Cook. They're all depicted in the photograph above, taken by a friend of mine who also attended the panel. Despite my avowed dislike of smart phones, the ability to snap easily photos is something I regret not having. I met so many wonderful people, both famous and otherwise, that I regret I could take photos to commemorate the occasion. As I get older, I suspect that having such mementoes would be helpful in recalling places I'd gone and things I'd done. Oh, well!

The panel was jam-packed with lots of charming anecdotes of the panelists' time working for TSR, either directly, as in the case of Grubb, Winter, and Cook, or as a freelancer, as in the case of Greenwood. Indeed, one interesting story hinges on the fact that Ed Greenwood was never actually employed by TSR, except on a contract basis, even though many people falsely assume that he did (owing to how often his name appeared on TSR products). Ed recalled that he would often spend a week or so after GenCon each year, hanging around the TSR offices so that he could help plan the next year's release of Forgotten Realms products. 

While present in Lake Geneva, Greenwood was often asked by the staff designers and editors to act as their go-between with the dreaded Lorraine Williams, who ran the company after the ouster of Gary Gygax in 1986. According to Ed, Williams would always use the elevator to reach her office rather than the stairs. He would lay in wait near the elevator until she appeared and then get in the elevator with her. Once the elevator's doors had closed, he'd tell her something that needed saying but that none of the salaried employees could dare to say. Williams would listen and then ask Greenwood, "Do you work for me?" He'd emphatically reply, "No," and she'd reply, "I see," the implication being that, if he had been so employed, he no longer would have been. Williams sounds like she was a real piece of work.

Equally interesting was the fact that TSR Hobbies rarely knew what it was doing. The company survived and prospered largely due to just how popular Dungeons & Dragons was. TSR could afford to lurch from one decision to the next without any real plan, because D&D sold very well and TSR's creative staff did a good job of making products that gamers wanted. This lack of planning extended to the company's annual product schedule, many of whose products began simply as titles intended to fill an empty spot rather than anything more detailed. Cook mentioned a couple of humorous examples of this – the Expert-level module, The War Rafts of Kron and the Oriental Adventures scenario, Mad Monkey vs. The Dragon Claw. He came up with both titles, but it fell to the writers ultimately assigned to them to determine exactly what those title meant.

Another topic of discussion was why TSR produced so few products for the World of Greyhawk line. Apparently, it's a popular conspiracy theory among some fans that TSR hated Greyhawk or that there was an intention to slight Gygax's campaign setting. That's not true at all. There were many proposed Greyhawk products over the years that never saw the light of day. What prevented their being developed was Gygax himself. Since he was Greyhawk's creator, he had to sign off on any proposals for the game world. He was often too busy to do so in a timely manner and, as a consequence, these products were among the first to be cut from the schedule (during the annual "St. Valentine's Day Massacre," when, each February, the release schedule was adjusted and certain products were eliminated).

At the other end of the spectrum, the panelists also spoke very fondly of their days working for TSR, as well as the other editors, artists, writers, and designers with whom they worked. Lake Geneva is a small place and, based on the stories they told, very few people in town really understood what TSR Hobbies did, let alone played RPGs. Consequently, the creative staff became more than just colleagues: they were friends, too. I have to say that, more than anything else they said, this fact really touched me. I'm so happy to know that, despite all they had to put up with, they still look back on their days at the company – and at each other – with obvious affection. I've talked before about my own youthful attachment to TSR, so hearing that people who worked felt similarly does my heart good.

Sadly, the panel was only an hour long. I could easily have listened to the panelists talk for two or three times as long about their days at TSR and never gotten bored. Fortunately, Gamehole Con is a small enough con that it was very easy to find and approach these fine gentlemen on my own and chat with them a while about these and related topics. It's one of the best things about GHC – one of many – and I am so happy to have gone this year. I'm already looking forward to October 2025, so I can return.