TSR, INC.

'TSR, Inc.' was an American game publishing company most famous for publishing the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game. The company was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast, which no longer uses the TSR name for its products.

Contents

History

Logos

Products

Role-playing games

Wargames

Other games

Magazines

Fiction

Criticism

References

External links

History

'Tactical Studies Rules' was formed in 1973 as a partnership between Gary Gygax and Don Kaye as a means to publish formally and sell the rules of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', one of the first modern role-playing games. The partnership was subsequently joined by Brian Blume and (temporarily) by Dave Arneson. When Don Kaye died of a stroke in 1975, the Tactic Study Rules partnership was dissolved. Brian Blume and Gary Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company, 'TSR Hobbies, Inc.', of which Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, had the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc. Ownership of Melvin Blume's shares were later transfer to Kevin Blume. With the board of directors consisting of Kevin and Brian Blume plus Gygax, Gygax was primarily a figurehead president & CEO of the corporation with Brian Blume as President of creative affairs and Kevin as President, operations effect in 1981. In 1983, the company was split into three companies, TSR, Inc. (primary successor), TSR International and TSR Entertainment, Inc."^[1]
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.^[2] The Blumes were forced to leave after being accused of misusing corporate funds and accumulating large debts in the pursuit of acquisitions such as latchhook rug kits that were thought to be too broadly targeted.^[3] Within a year of the ascension of the Blumes, the company was forced to post a net loss of 1.5 million US dollars, resulting in layoffs for approximately 75% of the staff. Some of these staff members went on to form other prominent game companies such as Pacesetter Games, Mayfair Games and to work with Coleco's video game division.
Gygax, who at that time owned only approximately 30% of the stock, requested that the Board of Directors remove the Blumes as a way of restoring financial health to the company. In an act many saw as retaliation, the Blumes sold their stock to Lorraine Williams.^[4] Gygax tried to have the sale declared illegal; after that failed, Gygax sold his remaining stock to Williams and used the capital to form New Infinity Productions.
Williams was a financial planner who saw the potential for transforming the debt-plagued company into a highly profitable one. However, she disdained the gaming field, viewing herself as superior to gamers.^[5][6] Williams implemented an internal policy under which playing games was forbidden at the company. This resulted in many products being released without being playtested (some were playtested "on the sly") and a large number of products being released that were incompatible with the existing game system.
Through Williams' direction, TSR solidified its expansion into other fields, such as magazines, paperback fiction, and comic books. Through her family, Williams personally held the rights to the Buck Rogers license and encouraged TSR to produce Buck Rogers games and novels. TSR would end up publishing a board game and a role-playing game, the latter based on the AD&D 2nd Edition rules.⁴
In 1984 TSR developed ''Dragonlance'', which consisted of an entirely new game world promoted both by a series of game supplements and a trilogy of novels written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. "The 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 based on the various official settings for D&D. By the early 1990's, the profits from TSR's fiction department actually far surpassed that of their gaming publications. During the height of its success, TSR made an annual profit of over one million U.S. dollars, and maintained a staff of 400 employees.
However, TSR gradually lost its ability to innovate. After the emergence of collectible card games, TSR released several new collectable game lines: ''Dragon Dice'' and ''Spellfire''. Neither found great success in the market place. At the same time, TSR began retaliating against fan fiction and other creative work derived from TSR intellectual property, which angered many long-time customers and fans. Other new entrants into the RPG genre introduced competing fantasy worlds, which fragmented the RPG community, further reducing TSR's already wilting consumer base. These and other factors, such as a disastrous year for its fiction lines in 1996 (over one million copies of tie-in books for various game lines were returned to TSR that year), led to TSR ending accumulating over $30 million in debt by 1996, and having to endure multiple rounds of layoffs.
With the decline of TSR, Wizards of the Coast, publishers of the wildly popular collectible card game '', inherited the title of "Lord of the RPGs". Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR and its intellectual properties in 1997, ending the company's slow fall from grace.^[7] TSR employees were given the opportunity to transfer to Wizards of the Coast's offices in Washington; some accepted the offer. Corporate offices in the Lake Geneva office were closed. Over the next few years, various parts of the company were resold to other companies, while in 1999, Wizards of the Coast was itself purchased by Hasbro, Inc. In 2002 Gen Con was sold to Peter Adkison's Gen Con, LLC.^[8] Also in 2002 TSR's magazines were transferred to Paizo Publishing.^[9] The TSR brand name continued for several years, then was retired. Soon after, TSR trademarks were allowed to expire.

Logos

Products

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

Role-playing games

★ ''Alternity'' (1998)

★ ''Amazing Engine'' (1993)

★ ''Boot Hill'' (1975)

★ ''Buck Rogers XXVC''

★ ''Conan the Barbarian''

★ ''DragonLance: Fifth Age'' (Saga System) (1996)

★ ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (1974)

★ ''Empire of the Petal Throne'' (1975)

★ ''Gamma World'' (1978)

★ ''Gangbusters'' (1982)

★ ''Indiana Jones''

★ ''Marvel Super Heroes''

★ ''Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game'' (Saga System) (1998)

★ ''Metamorphosis Alpha'' (1976)

★ ''Star Frontiers'' (1982)

★ ''Top Secret'' (1980) and ''Top Secret/S.I.''

Wargames

★ ''A Gleam of Bayonets'' (on Antietam)

★ ''Cavaliers and Roundheads'' (1973)

★ ''Chainmail'' (1975)

★ ''Classic Warfare'' (1975)

★ ''Divine Right'' (1979)

★ ''Don't Give Up The Ship!'' (1975)

★ ''Fight in the Skies'' (1975) (later renamed ''Dawn Patrol'')

★ ''Sniper!'' (1986)

★ ''Star Probe'' (1975)

★ ''Terrible Swift Sword'' (1986)

★ ''Tractics'' (1975)

★ ''Tricolor'' (1975)

★ ''Warriors of Mars'' (1974)

★ ''Wellington's Victory''

★ ''William the Conqueror'' (1976)

★ ''Cordite & Steel'' (1977)

Other games

★ ''[4th Dimension'' (board game)

★ ''Buck Rogers - Battle for the 25th Century'' (board game)

★ ''Dragon Dice'' (collectible dice game)

★ ''Dungeon!'' (1975)

★ ''Endless Quest'' gamebooks

★ ''Spellfire'' (collectible card game)

★ ''Blood Wars'' (collectible card game)

★ ''Chase'' (board game)

★ ''Kage'' (board game)

★ ''Steppe'' (board game)

★ ''Attack Force'' (microgame)

★ ''Icebergs'' (microgame)

★ ''Remember the Alamo'' (microgame)

★ ''Revolt on Antares'' (microgame)

★ ''Saga'' (microgame)

★ ''They've Invaded Pleasantville'' (microgame)

★ ''Vampyre'' (microgame)

★ ''Viking Gods'' (microgame)

Magazines

★ ''Amazing Stories''

★ ''Dragon''

★ ''Dungeon Adventures''

Fiction

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 released in each.
TSR also published the 1995 novel '' by Martin Caidin, a standalone reimagining of the Buck Rogers universe and unrelated to TSR's ''Buck Rogers XXVC'' game.
TSR published a 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) and Mary H. Herbert's five "Gabria" novels (''Valorian'', ''Dark Horse'', ''Lightning's Daughter'', ''City of the Sorcerers'' and ''Winged Magic''). However such projects never represented more than a fraction of the company's fiction output, which retained a strong emphasis on game-derived works.

Criticism

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. These actions reached their nadir when the company threatened to sue individuals supplying game material on Internet sites (illegitimately, as under special circumstances U.S. copyright law holds that guidelines and rules may not be copyrighted).^[10] In the mid-1990s, this led to frequent use of the nickname "T$R" in discussions on RPG-related Internet mailing lists and Usenet, as the company was widely perceived as attacking its customers. Increasing product proliferation did not help matters; many of the product lines overlapped and were separated by what seemed like minor points (even the classic troika of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance suffered in this regard).
The company was the subject of an urban myth stating that it tried to trademark the term "Nazi". This was based on a supplement for the ''Indiana Jones'' RPG in which some figures were marked with "NAZI(tm)". This notation was in compliance with the list of trademarked character names supplied by Lucasfilm's legal department, specifically referring to a particular illustration of a Nazi on a cardboard game piece, which is legally trademarkable. (Marvel Comics also supplied a list of trademarked Marvel characters which included the term "NAZI(tm)".) Later references to the error would forget its origin and slowly morph into stories of TSR's trying to register such a trademark, possibly aided by TSR's own reputation late in its existence as a "trademark Nazi" company.
In addition, TSR's corporate culture tried to convince its creative staff that the company was their only refuge for employment. In response, ex-employees banded together in a loose organization called "CTHULHU" (Confederation of TSR Hirelings Undaunted by Leaving the Hideous Uglyheads).

References

1. OD&Dities issue 9
2. Gary Gygax Interview - Part 2
3. [1]
4. Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons - Part II: Mazes & Monsters
5. gygaxfaq: What Happened to Gygax - TSR?
6. Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons - Part III: Mazes & Monsters
7. Wizards of the Coast to acquire TSR
8. Biography, Peter D. Adkison
9. Wizards of the Coast Signs Exclusive Publishing Agreement With Paizo Publishing, LLC To Produce Top Hobby Industry Magazines
10. U.S. Copyright Office - Games

External links

★ TSR history to 1999

★ Publication list on Pen & Paper

★ Gamespy interview with Gary Gygax on the history of TSR (among other things)

★ U.S. Copyright Government Site