Cardboard Hollywood
WotC Should Buy ‘TSR’ Before They Tank the D&D Movie
Sometimes bad press is bad press…trademarks are a bitch
A year or two ago I went looking for an absolutely ancient nerd game called The Hunt. It’s basically Crash TV as a board game. When I found it I was shocked to learn it was reprinted by a company calling itself TSR. I was further shocked to learn that this new TSR had also made a new edition of Top Secret. Later I found out that THIS TSR had little to do with the original publisher of D&D, and that the new Top Secret had little to do with that classic espionage RPG.
The name “TSR” entered the gaming news again a few weeks back. ANOTHER company had snagged the trademark and was positioning itself as the second coming of Gygaxian gaming. The more traditional RPG players online hailed it as a return to “real” roleplaying.
Around the same time Ernie Gygax, son of TSR’s founder, gave a provocative interview on YouTube. In it he aired out dirty laundry about Lorraine Williams, the original TSR’s general manager. He also compared Wizards of the Coast’s acquisition of TSR to Native American tribes murdering each other. And so on. He came off as a uncaring Boomer at best or a Conservative Culture Warrior at worst.
This didn’t go over well with modernist gamers, but traditionalist gamers loved it. Apparently someone in TSR’s leadership thought this was all a good idea to elevate their new brand. They’re probably right. But what’s good for the new TSR could be bad for Wizards of the Coast.
This third incarnation of TSR is producing a new RPG called Giantlands, which looks like a re-imagined Gamma World with the trappings of D&D. They’re also planning a new version of another classic TSR game, Star Frontiers. Like Top Secret, it will also have little or nothing to do with the original game.
D&D is on the cusp of reaching the status of a true pop culture institution. A movie and a TV series based on D&D are in the works. The chances of some nostalgia farmers derailing these projects are minimal, but WotC shouldn’t tempt fate. Wizards of the Coast should buy the TSR trademark from the current owners right the fuck now, regardless of the cost. Not because of any potential confusion between the brands. WotC’s D&D looks and plays different enough from both the original game and Giantlands. But TSR’s new owners are wading straight into the Culture Wars in a desperate effort to drum up some press. Purposefully riling up half the RPG players on Earth might be the lion’s share of their marketing plan.
This will only get worse. TSR is currently blaming WotC for orchestrating all this. Eventually someone from the new TSR will appear on Fox Business to complain about Cancel Culture. What if Ernie Gygax says something pro-authoritarian, anti-democratic on TV? After all, some fantasy writers and fans romanticize the idea of monarchy. WotC could say that Gygax has nothing to do with modern D&D all they want. That wouldn’t stop the New York Times or WaPo from writing, “Was Dungeons & Dragons responsible for the Capitol Attack?” the very next day. Then Chris Pine’s agent will start pinging Paramount. Eventually the D&D movie would get put on hold and left to rot in Development Hell. Then Netflix will start rethinking that TV show.
The battle between the new guard and the old guard is just getting started. If this keeps up, these guys WILL get more ink and airtime on conservative platforms. Alt-Righters will rewrite the history of the Satanic Panic, calling it a Liberal witch hunt like Tipper Gore’s war on Rock. All this could easily turn the rollout of the D&D TV series or movie into a cluster fuck before Paramount’s PR machine can smooth things out.
I know, for a fact, that analysts at Netflix and Paramount are monitoring this situation. Their whole job is to determine the sentiment of a potential audience. Sure, they understand that these guys have nothing to do with WotC, but their bosses might not care. The whole thing looks bad.
When those guys appear on Conservative TV, it’ll say “Owners of TSR” in the lower-third. When viewers search for TSR, they’ll find their website before WotC’s official D&D site. And that site looks terrible. Buying up the trademark won’t make this go away, but it will give WotC at least a little more control over the situation.
It’s true that bad press can be good press, but D&D is in too precarious a position to risk it. D&D is not as established as Harry Potter, and it’s less likely to weather a bad PR storm. WotC should do itself a big favor and pay the current trademark holders whatever they want. They may still be around to criticize a “woke” D&D movie, but at least won’t have as much cultural standing when they do it.
I don’t really care about either the D&D movie or the D&D TV show. I just want them to do well so we can get a show based on Eclipse Phase or Nobilis or Paranoia. But if D&D tanks, it could doom the chances of seeing any other RPGs on Netflix any time soon.