TSR, Inc.

TSR was a company formed as Tactical Studies Rules in 1972 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye (and others later) to publish the rule set for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game (RPG). When Don Kaye died of a stroke in 1975, Brian Blume and Gary Gygax, the remaining owners, formed a new company, TSR Hobbies, Inc. The assets of the original company were transferred to the new one, and Tactical Studies Rules was dissolved. In 1983, the word "Hobbies" was again dropped from the name to form just TSR, Inc.

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After several missteps, the company became debt-laden and Gygax lost control. However the new management failed to reverse the situation and the company's debt continued to increase. When combined with other problems such as poor sales in new lines and lax stock control the company came to the brink of insolvency.

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TSR published a number of early roleplaying games including Dungeons & Dragons, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Top Secret, Empire of the Petal Throne, Star Frontiers, Indiana Jones, and Marvel Super-Heroes. It also published Dragon and Dungeon magazines. In 1984, TSR started publishing novels based on their games.

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TSR also published a number of rules sets for other periods including the American Old West, World War II, and the Middle Ages (Chainmail, the rules set from which D&D evolved).

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After initial success faded, the company would often turn to legal defenses of what it regarded as its intellectual property. In addition to this there were several legal cases brought regarding who had invented what within the company and the division of royalties. These actions reached their nadir when the company threatened to sue individuals supplying game material on Internet sites (illegitimately, as US copyright law holds that guidelines and rules may not be copyrighted). In the mid-1990s, this lead to frequent use of the nickname "T$R" in discussions on RPG-related Internet mailing lists and Usenet, as the company was widely perceived to be attacking its own customers. Increasing product proliferation in TSR's line didn't help matters any; many of the product lines overlapped in interest and were separated by what seemed like minor points (even the classic troika of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance suffered in this regard).

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The company was the subject of an urban myth stating that it tried to trademark the term "NAZI". This was based on a supplement for the Indiana Jones RPG in which some figures were marked with "NAZI(tm)". Presumably, this was a typographical error due to the abundance of trademarked names of Lucasfilm characters used on the same sheet. Later references to the error would forget its origin and slowly morph into stories of TSR's trying to register such a trademark.

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Wizards of the Coast purchased the remainder of the company and its intellectual properties, including the Dungeons & Dragons game and its various campaign settings, in 1997. Shortly thereafter, the former TSR staff was integrated into the Wizards of the Coast offices, and TSR ceased to exist as a separate entity. The TSR name survived for several years as a brand name, then was retired. The TSR trademarks have since been allowed to expire. In 1999, Wizards of the Coast was itself purchased by Hasbro, Inc.

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1972: 1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday....

Don Kaye: Donald R. Kaye (June 27, 1938 - January 31, 1975) was the childhood friend and business partner of Gary Gygax, and co-founder of TSR, Inc. with Gygax in 1973....

Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) published by Wizards of the Coast. The current version of the game is Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5 (also known as the Revised 3rd Edition or D&D3.5). Previous versions of the game include Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (abb...

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