I read up about Loraine Williams and TSR a few months back, in how it, through no intention of hers, lead to the glorious, beautiful mess that was Spelljammer. I'm looking forward to your take on her... questionable business decisions during her reign over the company XD
So one of the reasons why this lady's bad is because she's a devout Christian okay respect my sexuality but not anyone's religion is in full effect with that also one of the reasons that satanic Panic was going on because they were using actual demons names in the freaking book imagine being in Harry Potter's World playing a game using the guy who shall not be named as some type of game understandably those people would be upset too
@@malcolmgreene8830 "Actual demon names". You mean the names of "actual demons". In Harry Potter, Voldemort wasn't a character from folklore, he was an actual person and war criminal. If D&D start printing books about the "Grand Mage Hitler", I'll be all for banning it, but using "Mephistopheles" is no more aggregious than using Surtr, Zeus, or any other aspect of folklore, like Faeries and monsters of myth. But I'm sure you don't mind them using those, after all "Respect my religion, but fuck other people's".
It's weird to study DnD history, and see how so much of the history of this very successful (currently) game is steeped in tragedy, deception, and almost active sabotage. It's a real shock this game survived two editions, much less 5+.
It's just that the creators wheren't knowledgable in businesses, so the ones that knew took advantage It's always the same, whenever there's money to be made, you can expect some greedy asshole to be trying to milk the source for as much money as possible, nowadays it's done a lot with video games and movies Just mass produce using an IP until it's dead, completely disregarding the fans as nothing more than ATMs I'm glad D&D survived that tho, mostly due to the community, altho DnD Beyond's shitty copyright system that doesn't allow you to use people's homebrew unless you pay is getting dangerously close to greedy asshole territory again Also being forced to buy the books again if you want to use any of the content, since it's against the rules to add pre-existing stuff as homebrew if it's a copy from official content
@@rompevuevitos222 My advice to you, stop using D&D Beyond so much! I know a lot of folks who get their start in D&D with that, and it's definitely a helpful tool especially for new players, RPGs like D&D (And many other good ones with less greedy business practices!) are meant to be played among friends, with your minds. When systems like that become so baked in that people forget it's only an option, it can make it easy for the corporations that make that stuff to do some crummy shite. D&D Beyond is one little tool, but you can run the entire game without a shred of internet, with just a few pieces of paper, dice, and some pencils. Don't let yourself get caught up on assuming you're dependent on some company to give you permission to have fun! :)
I feel that Tim Kask should have been mentioned, he was an editor that joined into TSR when AD&D was being started that greatly influenced its acceptance. But I can see why you didn't mention him, he didn't have a deep connection with the logistics of the company in how you covered it. Are you going to touch into Dragon Magazine?
Dave Arneson walking away was the worst thing to happen to early DND. His version of the game is essentially the template from which all modem DND is cut.
@@lemonicity4834 Yes, very much so. It seems to be damn near impossible to watch or get a hold of now, but there was a documentary made a few years ago titled Secrets of Blackmoor that goes into the creation of D&D far more than Davvy can in these videos.
Great video! Yeah I was starting to play D&D when the Satanic Panic was in full swing. My mother threw a holy fit, no pun intended, when she found my Dungeons & Dragons books. Even today as a Christian, I love playing D&D. In fact, we have a church group that plays.
It's weird, being a 5e DM from Salem Wisconsin, knowing now that the game which i was introduced to second hand through Rusty quill gaming started so close to home. Rusty quill is based in London England! It all feels like i rolled a 100, and got into the habit via a convoluted mess of happenstance. Not to mention, when i was a kid, i played games of pretend with the son of a Bible thumping Karen who used corporal punishment to keep her kids in line. I feel like I'm on the "it's a small world"ride at Disney.
The "founded in our buddy's garage" stuff is all true more or less. But when you make the jump from staple bound xerox pamphlets to mass produced printed and spine bound books you quickly realize your company needs a business manager and someone with access to deep pockets to get your product out of your garage and into customers' hands. The tragedy of TSR is the business types Gygax and company hired screwed them over and handed control of the company over to a spiteful witch who wanted nothing more than to destroy the game and the hobby from the inside. Leaving the original TSR as little more than a dumpster fire when WotC eventually came in and bought out everything.
They were two wargaming clubs, one in Twin Cities, Min and one in Lake Geneva, Wis. If you look at the first employees, the ones who cranked out all the early stuff, they were mostly college kids.
I knew some of this because my parents, also Christians, had weekly to monthly game sessions with their friends, and introduced me to roleplaying and AD&D in the late 70s. However, I also learned somethings I didn't know previously. Thank you, I would enjoy seeing more.
Um yeah. I was born in 86 and got involved in D&D because of Bauldur’s Gate. I never played 2nd edition but I loved 3.5, but man I had to hide my interests at school and around others who didn’t share the same hobbies. It was seen as childish, shameful and pretty much put a giant target on your head to be made fun of or ridiculed. I also was a big Star Wars and comic fan at the time too, but god forbid you showed that to anyone. If I had been born now I feel like I’d just be a regular kid? Kinda makes me a bit bitter honestly haha
@@kozmo7 born 97. growing up being a nerd didn’t seem as accepted as it is now so to some extent I understand u. Only got into D&D in 2018 and starting to play more again but man I wish I experienced being a nerd in the 80s
@@Eggsecuter I mean I can only speak for the early 90ies and on but it honestly sucked if I ever left my corner of the world. The internet was great since it was so niche and you’d recognize people online because you’d frequent the same places. Now it feels so overcrowded and there’s a billion people all commenting and all involved. It’s great it became accepted but it feels different for sure. But the moment you get offline and go into the real world back then, it’s an entire world that doesn’t accept you or looks down on you for being anything other than what at the time was seen as “normal”. It was a double edged sword because the nerd side of things was some of the best memories of my life, especially online. But everything else was just abuse, unfortunately. I’m so glad future nerds don’t nearly have the barriers and bullying as it once was.
@no or maybe yes Yep totally agree. I’m so glad it’s become waaaaaay more culturally acceptable because it should’ve never been seen as anything but normal.
You should definitely make more videos like this... as someone who started playing when 5e was already out and popular, and also someone who studied and loves History, I was always curious about the actual history of this awesome game I some how spent 20 years not playing.
The real history of DND The barbarian hits stuff The bard has sex with stuff The cleric heals stuff and violates the Geneva convention The druid has sex with trees The fighter hits stuff more carefully The monk hits stuff more naked The paladin hits stuff with the power of God The rogue steals stuff and kills absolutely every fucking thing with life The sorcerer kills stuff on accident and also "empowered spell burning hands" The warlock kills stuff for a patron The wizard is a know it all who literally knows it all if it's a divination wizard
I doubt this comment will get noticed, but could also a historical dive into all the classes? I realize thats a hefty task, but there are so many neat tid-bits of info about the evolution of D&D. Like why we us d6s for rolling for stats, why rogues have proficiency in longswords, why fireball/lightning bolt are so OP. There are reasons for all these things that I didn't find out until years after I have gotten into the franchise.
please continue, your sexy manly man voice gives me the good chemicals also i'd love to hear the rest of the story also i love JoCat, please give him more head pets
"the latter of which is the greatest shit in the world" -Hell yeah! grew up watching the old animated series as a kid. considering a game loosely based on that premise.
It seems weird that you didn't mention basic dnd at all. It would seem from the video that odnd just kept going after adnd was released, where really the whole thing was split into 2 new branches.
Interesting video! There were even some things I didn't know. I like how you touched on Gygax's sexism without focusing too much on it, since it's definitely relevant but not really the focus for topics like this.
*Decent video .* *I have a video of me showing off the white box Dungeons & Dragons ( zero edition ) .* *Note Gary's rumored views on women where based on known science at the time and was him trying to figure out some questions .*
It's weird to think how even just a few years ago DnD was so different. I re-watched Gravity Falls not too long ago - which had a roleplaying episode - and also watched the "oh so controversial" DnD episode of Community and thought "Wow, they both show Dungeons and Dragons and roleplaying as this really nerdy thing and only nerds play." only to quickly realize that 5e hasn't even came out yet! When the hobby became more accessible than ever in its history. And I played 4e and Pathfinder 1e (the better game), I know where this social stigma comes from in those shows. Anyway, I like this quick history overview series, and await part 2.
This is a great video! You definitely did a lot of research and presented it "Davvy style" to make it enjoyable and interesting. I've been playing D&D for a long time, even when it wasn't cool lol. There's a lot I didn't know even though I've heard all the rumors over the decades. Thanks for doing this and, I'm looking forward to more like it! I will definitely share this.
Neat video, and I'm really excited for part 2. I did have to pause and ponder the "unsavory views on women" comment slipped in there and never spoke of again, though.
Our poor D&D game can't shake the Williams curse (WoTC has a lady named Williams heading things as well). And it looks like she's waging a war against the community this game has.
USA -> gets D&D Hype... meanwhile Germany the biggest boardgame company wants to make a translation of this (had done some of it already) but TSR is like "well it will cost you" and the company (Schmidt Spiele) was like NOPE forget it and goes "hey we can make our own Roleplaying game.... in 4 month since the Toy Fair in Nürnberg is on the way" and thus was "Das Schwarze Auge / The Dark Eye" born and pushed D&D out of the market (kinda) since Schmitt Spiele had the balls to say "well you want some of our board games? You better buy/sell the boxes of this new game as well" and therefore Das Schwarze Auge was almost everywhere :-D and this was ... WAY until maybe D&D 3 which was available in German as well as several modules but it NEVER hit the numbers as DSA. The world was so detailed after over 10 years at that point that you basically had a description of almost every region, could play through most of the metaplotline AND had an ingame newspaper you could buy so you where informed all the time about ingame events (and could play them sometimes) This shifted though after the release of D&D 5E and the 5th Edition of DSA i think (D&D4E was also available but not that complete afaik) (btw: DSA wasn't the first German RPG... that goes to Midgard though the rules are... strange kinda since they partly use the CoC kind of rules) Also: Runequest a D&D clone???