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First edition.

I won't play anything else. God, that game rocked. I have my Gygax-autographed 1st Edition DMG and I will never let it leave my hands till they are cold and dead.

2nd Ed. was a moneymaking tool by the team that stole the company from Gary.

You can get more details from his site.

(though, frankly, the guy needs HTML help, his site doesn't render on Mozilla - maybe someone can volunteer, given that Gary gave us a lot over the years)

Apparently, Gary Gygax (credited with creating D&D) is still busy in this genre. Click here. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of detail on the site.

You can always understand why the people did it. Warner Brothers assured Nolan Bushnell he would still be in charge of Atari before they forced him out. Many of TSR's problems were caused by Gary Gygax's sneaky venture capital guys (not to mention his vindictive ex-wife and the widow of a former partner). Some of the people at the top of Infocom from the very start were only interested in big bucks and wanted to enter the lucrative business software field and leave games behind. The founders of Dragon thought they would have time and money to pursue other projects related to their interests.

Another thing, any company with a successful software product needs to be worried about embrace, extend and extinguish, not just from Microsoft, but from other big software companies. Look at Bleem! versus Sony. You'll always have to look over your shoulder for big, politically connected competitors with an unfair advantage in our mercantilist legal system. Money can help here, money can get you through frivolous lawsuits designed not to be won but to drain the life out of you. Money can even help you when your well-heeled competitors use pressure tactics at retail locations if they stock your product instead of theirs. Face it, in software or videogames and in most other businesses small only remains an option if you manage to remain under the big comglomorates and monopolists radar.

Even a small company can face a hostile take over if any of its operating or startup expenses come from outside sources.

We now have the best D&D rules ever.

I can't let this stand. The Third Edition rules are a good attempt to rationalize the 2nd Edition's foray into minutiae, and as such are a masterful patch job over the lousy 2nd Edition. However, the best set of rules was the original First Edition. Simple, easy to follow and nothing but gameplay rules. No pointless subclasses, overly complex weapons rules, etc. The essence of roleplay was preserved, and twelve years of campaigns (80-92) proved them out.

Too bad the books are fairly hard to get. I guard my Gygax-signed 1st ed DMG with especial care.

The old guy is still around - www.gygax.com!

actually, Dragon was sold years ago (circa 1984), so Gygax may still be writing for them.

As for TSR dumping Gygax, read the real story for yourself:
http://www.gygax.com/gygaxfaq.html

If you read the FAQ that is linked in the article you will see that for most of TSR's existance Gary Gygax was a minority shareholder who had little control of the company. Over 60% of the shares were controlled by Brian and Kevin Blume. 90 of the Blumes relatives were employed by the company, that is the nepotism the Wallstreet Journal spoke of.

At some point in 1984 Gygax convinced the board of directors (The two Blumes, Gygax and 3 other directors brought in by the Blumes) to remove Kevin Blume as president and replace him with Richard Koenigs as president pro-tem. At this point those 90 relatives of the Blumes were let go and many other changes were made in order to save the company from bankruptcy.

Eventually Gygax sold off his shares when an associate of the Blumes acquired a majority interest in the company.

For most of TSR's existance Gary Gygax was not in control of the company, he just had the misfortune of being the famous figurehead of a notoriously badly run business.

whoa. lengthy comment there, AC. with powerful allegations. most of what you say is true, however you are purposefully leaving out facts such as that Gygax himself was pushed around by TSR quite a bit (thus his departure). those people you mentioned he ousted were actually the reason for most of TSR's misfortunes in the first half of the '80s. for a few months in 1985, Gygax had control of TSR. april '85 saw Oriental Adventures and Unearthed Arcana. then he quit. (next major shipment was 2nd ed in '89)

6. Then, from left field we have Wizards of the Coast. WotC originally was another company. TSR put them out of business. So they had to re-invent their company and did so using a novel idea - playing cards like you would D&D. WotC's revenge was that they bought TSR from the heiress (who, from some accounts had doctored the books so TSR looked like it was a great thing to buy but subsequently WotC found out that all of this inventory TSR had was rotting in various warehouses because no one was buying it anymore since it was so outdated.).

What? WotC originally made greeting cards and a few D&D accessories. Then they were pitched Robo Rally by a certain Richard Garfield. Peter Adkinson (CEO and owner of the garage WotC ran out of) promised to make Robo Rally after first making some kind of card game that was simple, collectable, and fantasy-based. Boom, Magic: The Gathering. WotC grows HUGE. Meanwhile, TSR is in massive financial trouble and ready to file for bankruptcy. Adkinson, a really big fan of D&D, sees his opportunity and WotC buys TSR, fixes a bunch of problems and cleans everything up (even re-hires Gygax). Why do you think Third Edition is soooo much prettier and cleaner (and better)?

Check out Gygax's explanation for ... pretty much everything this AC left out.

Visit his site to see what he's been up to lately!

• His recent interview with RPG.net
• An insightful writeup at GameSpy
• A fairly thorough biography of the man
• And, of course, Gary's homepage

I don't use Linux because of stock prices, and I doubt that anyone sane is running around saying "Oh, Linux-oriented stocks are down. I guess I'd better run out and get Win2K for my server."

As long as the big corporations can't figure out a way to legally destroy Copyleft, useful Free Software will have a built in "immune system."

However, the stock tumble on Linux stocks will affect my boss's perception of Linux. She already doesn't like Linux (she was talked into using it by higher ups in the company) and would rather be using Windows NT. As a compromise, she'd like to move to a non-free UNIX, because she just doesn't like the concept of Copyleft software. So, when she's gathering evidence against Linux, to get funding approved to buy Solaris, she'll point to the fact, "See, all the Linux stocks tumbled. You don't want to be using this product in the company, do you?" (She's been fighting Linux since the start, she just doesn't like it.)

I suspect some management types, who don't get technology but understand the market, might fall for these arguments. For this reason, I'm hoping the Linux stocks will rally.

If I had any investing money right now (all my money is tied to a down payment on a house :( I'd probably pick up some Caldera stock now. Caldera has a lot going for it (though it isn't my favorite distribution) for example I'm pretty sure they were the first with a Windows like installation process as well as the fact they intigrate their Dr. Dos product and a lot of other commercial products well. Their stock was way cheap the last time I checked, but by the time I get to invest in it I'm sure that won't be the case...

Secondly, I have some of the Demons supplements for AD&D produced by Mayfair games, which were really well done, addressed a need in the community (I was one of the ones who felt TSR really screwed up by attempting to sate the appetite of the Fanatics for Family values by removing demons and devils from their games, when we all know that only the utter destruction of D&D and RPGs in general would ever do that.) and caused Mayfair to promptly get sued by TSR. See this page for information. What irritated me was that TSR and later Hasbro could be in a position to suppress D&D altogether is they had a motivation (eg, fundamentalist boycott) to do so.

For some information as to the chilling and horrifying goings on at TSR in those days, please read:

The Gary Gygax FAQ

As someone who used to be avidly into pen & paper RPGs, I believe a popular, copylefted RPG would be the greatest thing to happen to RPGS since their original invention. I hope this is for real.

The whole sordid story is worse than you could imagine... I just read the Gary Gygax Faq. It's a sad but interesting tale of good and evil... in which evil wins, unfortunately.

While D&D is the hot topic -- I might point out that Gary Gygax, author of D&D, has a new game out. Pick up a copy and give feedback to help it develop into a good game!

While D&D is the hot topic -- I might point out that Gary Gygax, author of D&D, has a new game out. Pick up a copy and give feedback to help it develop into a good game!

Tolkien on the other hand had no such balance issues to contend with, as he was not creating a game but a fictional universe :)