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Old 03-02-2016, 07:29 AM
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StainlessSteelCynic StainlessSteelCynic is offline
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A few pieces I've read over the years claim that Williams believed gamers were inferior or that she believed she was superior to anyone who "played games".
One claim in particular was that she loathed gamers and didn't want any of them working for TSR. A counterpoint was made by one former TSR worker who was also a gamer, he claimed that as unpleasant as she was, it was also decisions such as borrowing money from Random House against future sales, the promotion of her own IPs and so on that really killed the company.
Regardless of the truth of that, she did set about trying to remove the old guard and pretty much dogged Gygax's every step to try and hound him out of the industry. Even Dave Arneson, the often forgotten co-created of D&D, felt her spite.

The following is from an interview with Dave Arneson by Ciro Allessandro Sacco of the now dead www.dungeons.it/ website.
The full transcript can be found here http://www.thekyngdoms.com/interviews/davearneson.php

Sacco: In 1986 TSR published the first module of the DA (David Arneson) series, Adventures in Blackmoor. This module introduced D&D fans to the past of the Known World (then Mystara) and especially to its pecular technomagical society in its very beginning. This series was surely the most unusual D&D line ever produced, with starships and laser swords. How was born this unusual idea?

Arneson: The published modules represented actual adventures and areas from my Blackmoor campaign. Because of the adventures that were chosen, there is a popular misconception that technology was a major part of my original campaign. It was not that way. Rather, technology was always there but generally in the background.

In 1986 Gary Gygax had taken over the leadership of TSR and approached me to do the series. The modules that were published were the first ones submitted. Yet, even these were heavily edited. Since within a few months Gary lost control of TSR, the series was terminated. Up until that time, the modules sold as well as any other TSR modules.


But the new president (Lorraine Dille Williams, the infamous "Dragon Lady" N.d.R.) did not want Gary or me involved with TSR in any way anymore. So, no more Blackmoor modules. By then I was out in California becoming quite involved in computer games and so I 'turned my back' on paper & pencil games for several years."

** Emphasis mine **
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