A quick and dirty history of the early TSR penchant for suing like everybody

“But the lawyers weren’t gamers, and Courts decide based on the arguments before them. Here is one of many examples- Arneson claimed that the Monster Manual was just a repackaging of OD&D, and to illustrate this they used examples of monsters. One that they used was the Owlbear. Except … the Owlbear wasn’t in the LBBs. It was in the Greyhawk supplement, Arneson did not create it, and Arneson received no royalties from that. But they lawyers just used the example … from Holmes Basic, because Arneson “created” Holmes Basic. Which meant that when TSR made the decision to give Arneson royalties and a full credit on Holmes Basic under the old contract, they created the opening for Arneson to later argue that everything in it was created by him and using material that he did not create to make a new work gave him royalties on the new work.“

Shit was wild, yo.