Quote Originally Posted by Trafalgar View Post
I have been reading "Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons" by Ben Riggs which is about the TSR years at D&D. It's interesting as it covers the time when I first got into and was really active playing TTRPGs. It focusses on a lot of business details that I was unaware of at the time.

One thing I found surprising is how many talented writers and artists left TSR due to poor management decisions and an unwillingness to pay people what they were worth. For example, Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis left TSR after writing the best selling Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends trilogies after not being given a relatively minor pay increase. Then the CEO threatened to sue them at a convention...

Anyways, it's an interesting read though perhaps not for everyone.
I'd known nothing about the management and ownership conflicts of the TSR era until my wife got me the Art & Arcana D&D coffee table book a few years ago. It mostly focuses on how the iconic monsters and artwork came to be, but it also gives some hints about how seat-of-their-pants the early publications were (i.e. many iconic monster looks happened because of the children's toys they essentially kitbashed into monster figurines, lots of the old artwork was tracings of Conan-era artwork, etc). They hint very vaguely at turmoil within the companies -- lots of "X and Y 'had a falling out' and then Y left" -- but of course, since this is a licensed D&D product, they keep the history discussions pretty diplomatic.

I'd be interested in a more gloves-off exploration of the era, though I have to admit the book's description blurb on that page you linked sounds pretty close to a "hit piece," especially this section...
...managers and executives sabotaged their own success by alienating their top talent, ignoring their customer fanbase, accruing a mountain of debt, and agreeing to deals which, by the end, made them into a publishing company unable to publish so much as a postcard.
...which I suppose with a name like Slaying The Dragon I shouldn't be surprised

Does it read like it's written by someone with an axe to grind? I don't mind tell-all, dirty-laundry types of books, but I've found that if it feels like an author is overzealous I quickly start questioning their claims, even when I want to believe them.