Talk:Lorraine Williams

Where is she now?
Does anyone know what she did after she sold out to WOTC? The snare (talk) 05:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

THIS NEEDS WORK
It currently reads like a linkedin profile 202.171.168.179 (talk) 12:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:SOFIXIT - just a thought. :) 24.148.0.83 (talk) 12:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking good
I think this one looks good; if we could somehow get a free picture of her, it would probably be B-class. Of course, the question is, do we want a picture of her? ;) 108.69.80.49 (talk) 05:02, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The ONLY photo I have been able to find of her is here: http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mc_los_141 taken apparently by Monte Cook's wife Sue when they were both on staff at TSR. I'll try and dig into this and see if she will grant CC rights, but is a marginal photo at best, not even showing Williams' face. Given that she was a prominent businesswoman (at least in the gaming community), I am suprised there are not more photos from business publications, annual reports, convention news, fanzines, etc. Even the recent announcement about Buck Rogers sale had no current photo. And both sources use her maiden name--possibly a change of marital status? Guinness323 (talk) 05:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I have seen that pic before as well! I think a side shot bending over isn't exactly the most flattering pic anyway, and probably not worth the effort. :) 108.69.80.49 (talk) 05:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Current discussion
The current discussions and reasons for locking are discussed at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#BLP_violation_on_Lorraine_Williams — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.202.222.1 (talk) 18:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Copyedit
As tagged, I have proceeded to do a copyedit on your article here, I will go section by section to make it easier to revert anything you think I've done that is either wrong, or doesn't improve the article, go ahead! revert me! I won't be offended! :)


 * - I would have liked to have known why Gygax was dissuaded from installing his wife...
 * - I would like to know how much the Buck Rogers collection went for at auction, is that something that is known?
 * - Generally a short, but well written article, not much to do here, pat on the back for the involved editors, even the cites are done well, nice to see a well done article!

Des pay re ( talk ) 03:14, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


 * 1. Gygax said he had been dissuaded, but I have not been able to find a source (yet) as to why (or who dissuaded him).
 * 2. William has never revealed how much she made from the auction (or at least I have not been able to discover a source.)
 * Guinness323 (talk) 04:00, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into that, I didn't actually expect any answer so soon! I just thought those were a couple of things that could be added that might flesh out the article a little more. I would think that the Buck Rogers auction might have gotten some media attention, and possibly an estimated value, or an "expected to sell at" price, somewhere... Maybe not. Still, a decently written article, and they're always nice to c/e! --Des pay re ( talk ) 07:23, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Here's something I just stumbled across because now you've piqued my interest a little, it looks like, based on this auction house, that the collection was sold, almost exclusively in 2010, and if you wanted to get a site membership (probably free), you would be able to see the values of the items sold, and ergo, the collection total worth, but that's a little bit of work to get that total, I realize that, hey, I'm just the c/e guy! :) I also found this mention, about 4/5ths of the way down the page... --Des pay re ( talk ) 08:05, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Williams in "Buck Rogers" lawsuit
According to this legal document, Lorraine Williams was involved this year in a lawsuit (along with her brother, Flint Dille, and the film producer Don Murphy) involving the intellectual property rights to the "Buck Rogers" character:

https://www.leagle.com/decision/inbco20190221935

188.141.25.160 (talk) 11:12, 13 July 2019 (UTC)


 * IANAL but this appears to be some sort of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding.Guinness323 (talk) 15:19, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding discussed there is part of a series of lawsuits involving "Buck Rogers". This Hollywood Reporter article has some background to the lawsuit, (and mentions Lorraine Williams' involvement in it):

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/battle-bring-buck-rogers-big-screen-1127544 188.141.25.160 (talk) 22:27, 14 July 2019 (UTC)


 * In what way would you like to incorporate this into the article? BOZ (talk) 03:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Put a brief mention of the lawsuit, and Williams' involvement in it, in the article. How about that? 188.141.25.160 (talk) 21:41, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * That's probably enough, I think, just a brief mention at most. 8.37.179.254 (talk) 22:28, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Many Buckets
Is gamespy considered reliable? According to it:

"The late '80s saw the launch of Forgotten Realms (still D&D's most popular setting), and DragonLance. The runaway success of those lines, particularly Forgotten Realms and its popular signature character Drizzt do'Urden, begat a slew of new world designs. There was the post-apocalyptic Dark Sun, the highly political Birthright, a response to White Wolf's successful Vampire: The Masquerade game called Ravenloft, and the extremely avant-garde Planescape, among others. Unfortunately for Williams and TSR, this strategy, while presenting the initial appearance of success, is actually a strategy for long-term loss. The marketing term is "Brand Extension," but Bill Slavicsek director of RPGs, miniatures and R&D at Wizards of the Coast, just calls it the "Many Buckets" theory.

Picture it this way," Slavicsek says, "it's raining money outside and you want to catch as much of it as you can. You can either make a really big bucket or waste your time and attention by creating a lot really small buckets -- either way, you're never going to make more rain." In plain English, TSR, by putting out a lot of product lines instead of supporting the main Dungeons & Dragons line, fragmented the marketplace. The same audience was giving the same amount of money to TSR every year, which had taken on the additional financial burden of creating, producing, and supporting hundreds of products. It needed to grow the marketplace, and these brand extensions weren't doing that. - Magic & Memories: The Complete History of Dungeons & Dragons - Part III

So it was more then going into this mind set than Dragon Dice that caused the money crunch. If fact according to Slavicsek the problem was way before Magic came out in 1993.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 11:45, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

No gaming at company
According to a forum I found:

"There were a few panels from Paizocon (at least one used to be on YouTube) called "Secrets of TSR", which had a whole bunch of TSR Alums who worked in the main office talking about the work environment and how, for example, they had try to steal time to playtest product off the clock, because Williams would not permit "playing" on company time - even if the playing was for purposes of refining upcoming product and creating new product."

Problem it seem the video is gone so barring it being on internet archive there is no way to conform this statement.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 21:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The movie Caravans
The article on the movie Caravans (film) quotes her as a writer, but is this the same person at all? It wouldn't be impossible, but I can't find any more info on that either way. (there's also a foreign affairs minister of Saint Lucia that shares her name, but that one's more clearly a different person) Rell Canis (talk) 15:57, 29 November 2023 (UTC)