From: grendel@uhuru.uchicago.edu (Cliff Winnig)
Subject: TSR History (Was Re: TSR Worlds)
Keywords: Gygax Arneson Greyhawk Blackmoor
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:42:47 GMT

Andrew Ross writes
> standard campaign world for most of their AD&D materials. I believe this
> move was due to the Greyhawk world (once the personal campaign of Gary
> Gygax, the more-or-less inventor of D&D) being in doubt because of Gary
> Gygax's decision to strike out on his own.

In case anyone's interested, here's some boring history I've picked up over  
the years.... :)

Back in the mid-seventies, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were members of the  
Castle and Crusade Society, a group of medieval miniatures enthusiasts.   
Each of them took a portion of the C&C Society campaign map to develop.   
Arneson's portion became Blackmoor, the first (rudamentary) fantasy role  
playing game.  Gygax's became Greyhawk, which eventually evolved into the  
current TSR world by that name.

The two of them had published Chainmail under the company name Tactical  
Studies Rules, and when Gygax expanded on Arneson's idea of playing  
individual characters, D&D began to evolve.  The two of them wrote the  
original three booklets-in-a-box, then four supplements (Gygax wrote the  
first one based on things in his campaign, and Arneson wrote the second  
based on Blackmoor).

Shortly after that, Gygax...um...took over D&D and created AD&D from it.  He  
also became *the* ruling force of TSR Hobbies, as it was then called.   
Arneson started his own gaming company which lasted a short time.  Then one  
day, after one of Gygax's friends sold his stock interest, Gygax lost  
control of TSR.  AD&D, and even the world of Greyhawk, were owned by TSR,  
not him, and he was left with pretty much nothing of what he had created  
over the years.  That's business.

[I'm trying not to sound too judgmental about any of this; I do not wish to  
say or imply any bad things about Gygax or the current shareholders of TSR.   
I wasn't there, so everything I know is second-hand at best.  Besides, the  
politics of Lake Geneva rival Chicago's, and I have no wish to become  
involved. :) ]

Anyway, Gygax and TSR negotiated over Greyhawk.  He got the right to finish  
his novel series set in the world, and they owned it.  Shortly thereafter,  
TSR bought Ed Greenwood's campaign world lock, stock, & barrel and began  
developing it into the primary AD&D world.  To their credit, they've  
continued to support Greyhawk, as there is almost certainly a large "user  
base" of that world.

Krynn was an artificially developed world (as opposed to home-grown ones  
like Blackmoor, Greyhawk, and the Forgotten Realms).  It was intended from  
the start to be a novel series, a set of modules, and, if it panned out  
(which it obviously did :) ), a full-fledged campaign setting.

Meanwhile, Gygax founded the short-lived New Infinities gaming company,  
wrote a book on how to role-play, and worked on some novels.  And that's  
where I'll leave this unofficial history, except for a brief appendix....

For those interested, the now-defunct (and lamented) Judges Guild published  
much of Blackmoor in a booklet-with-maps called "The First Fantasy  
Campaign."  This booklet was an historical document as much as anything  
else, and it included maps to the original dungeons below Castle Blackmoor  
(the first frp dungeon) as well as the original C&C Society map.  TSR later  
published four D&D (not AD&D) modules set in an updated version of  
Blackmoor.

I'll warn you that, while this history was cobbled together from many  
sources, it's about as accurate as any other history.  ;-)
--
Cliff "Tedious Historian" Winnig       ||  	 ,     ___     .    -------_
cliff@uchicago.edu		       ||    	 \_|__/_ _\__|_/     \    //
or, for mail with NeXT attachments:    ||            /  >  \ 	      \  //
grendel@uhuru.uchicago.edu	       ||	     \^-^- /           \//