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\title{Truth \& Heresy}
\author{A Clarification of Historical Artifacts}
\date{For the Inquiring Role-Player}
\maketitle
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{\it \noindent
{\Large W}hile rumor and superstition float in the muck,
{\em Truth \& Heresy} dredges the sludge at the bottom.\\}

\begin{center}
{\Large D\&D history}
\end{center}

{\noindent \large
D}ave Arneson used to come down to Lake Geneva from the Twin Cities in the
early 70's to play games.  The Fantasy Supplement for Chainmail caught on
and while Gary was making his campaign, Greyhawk, Dave was making his own,
called Blackmoor.  Both ``castles" exist in the same world, Blackmoor being
more to the north.  The rules back then were MUCH more fluid than now, as
they existed only in Dave and Gary's notes and heads, principally the
latter.  Eventually (I think 75) Gary formed a partnership with a gaming
buddy and neighbor, Tom Kaye, (cf.  Koeghtom's Ointment), and they
published the original set of D\&D, with Dave getting second billing.

The first supplement was called Greyhawk, penned by Gary and Rob Kuntz, a
protegee of Gary's who'd been one of the original players with Ernie Gygax
and Rob's brother Terry, and was now co-judging the campaign.  This
contained material principally derived from the Greyhawk campaign.  About
this time Tom Kaye died of some malady I forget, and Tactical Studies
Rules threatened to fold, until Gary managed to get some capital from
Brian Blume (Boot Hill), a peculiar sort from the North Side of Chicago,
whose father was the very wealthy owner of a tool and die company.  They
incorporated and changed the name to TSR, which no longer means anything.
The second supplement was called Blackmoor and contained material
principally from Dave's campaign.

Around 77 Dave move down to Lake Geneva with a bunch of other Twin Cities
gamers like Dave Sutherland (artist and Tekumel scholar), Mike Carr (Figh
in the Skies), Dave Magary (Dungeon), and things got really cooking as
they published all kinds of things, including MAR (Phil) Barker's
wonderful (at the time) Empire of the Petal Thrown, much due to
Sutherland's affiliation with Barker.  This was when I started working for
the company, although I'd long gamed with them. (I lived around two blocks
from Gary.)  You see, only at this time was I legally old enough to do
so.  It was an idyllic time when only friends worked there and we gamed
incessantly.  Eventually Jeff Perren joined the company, and Jim Ward
(Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World) quit his job teaching high school
history in Prairie du Chien (the most beautiful area in Wisconsin --- read
Clifford Simak's SF) to come to Geneva.  Gary's wife did PR and his son
Ernie ran the hobby shop (which is where I worked).  Tom Wham (Snit games,
Awful Green things) had an office that looked and smelled more like some
aging hippy's headquarters than a business office, and he and Brian Blume
rented part of TSR's main building as their living quarters.

Well, much of the remainder is easily foreseen.  As a family company
became a big company and a stream of Blume's (Kevin, Doug, another
brother, and associated spouses and spouses' siblings) came up from
Chicago to run the business aspect, things started going downhill.  James
Egbert III disappeared from a Michigan campus, and the press hyped it up
to be some sort of D\&D-cult bizarreness; actually, it was but a poor,
alienated, young genius from wealthy and insensitive family who just
couldn't understand him, who had run off to get away from it all (he was
16, and in CompSci at the University already.) The national press helped
TSR even more due to the exposure.  We grew too big, too fast, and we
forgot to be nice to the customer.  As competitors sprang up, TSR spent a
whole lot of time in the courts trying to get them on ``Look and Feel"
suits.  We began to get a bad name in the business as a bunch of greedy,
imperious assholes.  The development types (Gary et al.) came head-to-head
with the finance types (the Blumes) and there began to be fallings out
amongst friends.

Eventually something happened between Arneson and Gary, and Gary fired
Dave.  Soon thereafter they invented AD\&D and got Dave's name off of it
(he really hadn't contributed much anyway after the initial development of
FRP's).  Dave took Gary to court on this, and to my astonishment, actually
lost.  I guess Gary had better lawyers.  He somehow talked the courts, who
understood as much about D\&D as they do about software, into believing
that D\&D and AD\&D *were not the same game*, and the product lines began to
diverge in order to make reality conform to law.  After four years of part
time work (full time during the summers) doing various things including
shipping and mailing, hobby shop work, convention organization,
proofreading, and playtesting,

I went off to college just as things were getting hot.    Some of my
friends had already left or been fired, like Arneson and Magary.  Since
then nearly everyone I ever knew there has gone elsewhere.  The Blumes
consolidated their power and kicked out even Gary, who was having mild
culture shock as he went from the the village cobbler and despised as a
do-nothing failed violinist to being the town celebrity and millionaire.
Gary had moved to California to do the D\&D cartoon and ended up divorcing
his wife.  Now he's writing bad novels and trying to do another company
(New Infinities), I believe.

When I go home now I still get together with a lot of these folks, but
they don't work for TSR now.  We've got a bitter taste in our mouths about
the whole thing, and try not to talk about ``the good old days".  It's all
really depressing.  This has been a much more draining posting that I'd
expected.

Well, now you know the rest of the story.

\begin{tabbing}
\ \ \ --- \=Tom Christiansen\\
\>CONVEX Technical Support Center,\\
\>\ \ \ Richardson, TX\\
\>circa: October 1988\\
\end{tabbing}

\begin{quote}
``That's not a bug -- it's a feature!"\\
\end{quote}

\begin{center}
{\Large TSR Trademark Policy}
\end{center}

{\noindent \large
H}ere's a little story.

As part of the current Ragnarok advertising campaign I recently 
submitted an ad to \underline{Dragon} for \underline{Abyss} Magazine.
I then got a call from
a woman in the ad department who said that TSR's Legal Department had
objected to the wording of the ad.  Apparently I had mentioned the 
fact that \underline{Abyss} publishes the occasional AD\&D related article in 
the ad, and that was a no-no, which is fine, because \underline{Dragon} is their 
magazine, so I sent them a new version with AD\&D not
mentioned and it was approved and was in a recent issue.

Then she told me that the legal department would like to LOOK at a
copy of \underline{Abyss}.  I was willing to play along so I sent them a couple 
of recent issues, issues which featured the usual mix of not 
particularly AD\&D specific material.

This is the letter which I got back:

By certified mail, no less\ldots

\begin{center}
\parbox{2.5in}
{Dear Mr. Nalle:\\

\ldots Thank you for your letter dated December 19, 1990, regarding your
publication titled ``Abyss."

\ldots As I'm sure you are aware, your revised ad will run in the next 
issue of \underline{Dragon} Magazine.

\ldots While TSR does not have any objection to others writing reviews 
of our products, we do object to our trademarks and/or copyrighted 
materials being used in any other context, i.e. articles or adventures.

\ldots We therefore request that you refrain from any further use of TSR
trademarks and/or copyrighted materials for anything other than a
review of a TSR product.  In order to fully preserve the great value 
inherent in its many important trademarks and materials, TSR must 
take all steps necessary to defend and protect its rights in its 
trademarks and copyrighted materials.

\ldots Thank you for your cooperation in this very important matter.\\

Very truly yours,\\

Debbie Poutsch,\\
Legal Assistant\\
}
\end{center}

Short and sweet.  Frightening and yet strangely amusing.  The only 
way in which TSR products are mentioned in \underline{Abyss} aside from 
reviews is in variant articles and editorial articles.  When I 
first read this letter it struck me as unlikely that the trademark 
law would make it illegal to discuss products and their use in print.  
That would put Consumer Reports out of business, 
as well as dozens of other successful magazines and books.

TSR seemed outrageously over-protective of their rights.  And on 
consideration it occurred to me that every time a game variant or a
module which is AD\&D compatible gets published, it is in effect a 
service to their loyal players and an endorsement and promotion 
of their game.  So, in effect, their policy is to their own disadvantage.

But to check up on just what TSR was getting at, I sought out a copy of 
the trademark law.  I quote from section 1114, which restricts the use 
of a trademark by persons other than the registrant, prohibiting:

\begin{center}
\parbox{2.5in}
{\noindent ``use in commerce any reproduction, counterfeit, copy or colorable
imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering
for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in
connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause
mistake or to deceive; or reproduce, counterfeit, copy or colorably 
imitate a registered mark and apply such reproduction, counterfeit, 
copy or colorable imitation to labels, signs, prints, packages, wrappers,
receptacles or advertisements intended to be used in commerce or in 
connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution or advertising 
of goods or services or in connection with shich such use is likely to 
cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive\ldots"}
\end{center}

What this does make abundantly clear is that advertising a product and
using TSR's trademark in your advertisement is definitely a violation.  
What it does {\bf not} say is that referring to AD\&D in an article or in a
discussion of a product, or even in the text of an adventure or module
is a violation of trademark.  As long as the reference to AD\&D or TSR is
not part of the advertising, packaging or promotion of the product, there
is no violation of trademark.  That's very clear.

Later on in the trademark law, in section 1127 it defines what is meant
by using a trademark in commerce, indicating that such use only occurs if
the mark is placed ``on goods or their containers or the displays associated
therewith: or on the tags or labels affixed thereto."  Which clearly
indicates that to violate trademark the reference to the trademark would
have to be on the outside packaging of the product, something which has
never been done in \underline{Abyss} or any other of our products, and a point which
should be clear to TSR's legal department.

I think the real key here is the part of the trademark law where it says
``to cause confusion", because nothing published in \underline{Abyss} is going to 
confuse people into thinking that \underline{Abyss} is some sort of AD\&D product
or supplement.  Most of the mentions of TSR's products are fairly 
negative, usually editorial commentary on the damage that TSR is doing
to the hobby as a whole and stuff like that.

I'm really not sure what else to say about TSR's rather aggressive
policy.  I can't see how they could find anything in \underline{Abyss} to be a 
violation of their trademark, assuming they've actually read the law
they are trying to enforce, and the fact that they are so concerned
makes me wonder a bit about their sanity.  It seems to me that there
are so many better things they could be doing, like making their
products something actually {\bf worth} protecting\ldots but then I guess that
isn't what TSR is all about.

\begin{tabbing}
\ \ \ --- \=David Nalle\\
\>{\em dfn@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu}\\
\>The University of Texas at Austin\\
\>circa: March 1991\\
\end{tabbing}

\begin{center}
{\Large Necronomicon}
\end{center}

{\noindent \large
I} must say that I have found the Necronomicon discussion
    amusing, to say the least.  However, it is getting a little
    tiresome, so I went through some of my books and did a little
    research on the \underline{Necronomicon}.  By the way, I am a fan of
    the Lovecraft circle of writers (H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E.
    Howard, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, et al.), so I have
    read most of their stories and poetry, and I have read many
    essays, treatises, and biographies on these writers.

    Here is what my research came up with:

\begin{center}
\parbox{2.5in}{
      {\noindent \underline{Lovecraft: A Biography}} by L. Sprague de Camp
          1975 Doubleday \& Company, Inc. ISBN 0-385-00578-4\\

       {\noindent A}ccording to this book (and others), Lovecraft made up
          the \underline{Necronomicon}.  Lovecraft {\em himself} stated that he
          made the book up.  The title ``Necronomicon" was derived 
          from a Roman astrological poem written by Manilius (circa 
          100 AD) called ``Astronomica."  This poem was a favorite of H.P.L.
          and he often quoted it in newspaper articles.  Lovecraft
          did make use of real books in his stories [like ``The Story
          of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria" by Scott-Elliot (1896, 1930)
          and ``Sadducismus Triumphatus" by Joseph Glanvil (1681)],
          but the \underline{Necronomicon} was entirely fictitious.}
\end{center}

    Over the years, many different factors have caused people to believe
    in the existence of a real \underline{Necronomicon}.  One of the more popular
    theories is that due to repetition (the references to the 
    \underline{Necronomicon} in many, seemingly-unrelated stories) people came to
    think that a real book was being referred to.  In other words, if
    a person hears something often enough, and from enough sources, that
    person will start to believe it even though it is false.  In 
    addition, Lovecraft wrote a pseudo-intellectual history of the
    \underline{Necronomicon}.  This essay was the beginning of the whole mess.
    People began asking book dealers for copies and book dealers (now
    convinced of the book's existence; after all, if so many were looking
    for it, it {\em must} be real) began offering large sums of money
    for the book.  Furthermore, a practical joker managed to place an
    index card for the \underline{Necronomicon} in Yale's library files.  And to
    top it all off, in \underline{Lovecraft: A Biography}, de Camp writes: ``A 
    waggish bookseller, Philip C. Duschness of New York, listed a copy
    of the Latin edition in his Catalogue No.78 at \$375."

    As for the hoax versions of the \underline{Necronomicon}, I know of three
versions. The first is the version that was produced by de Camp.  It was 
    artificially aged and every effort was put into making it look as
    authentic as possible.  I actually saw a copy of this version in
    a book store in Los Angeles back in 1989.  The owner told me what
    he knew about it.  By the way, it was just on display, it was not for 
    sale (I couldn't have afforded it anyway -- it must be worth a small
    fortune).  The second version that I know of (whether it was ever 
    published, I don't know) was advertised in the Oct. 1982 issue of
    ``Epic Illustrated" magazine (\#14).  It was a leather bound hard
    back that listed for \$50 (no publisher listed).  The third version
    is a paperback (I happen to own a copy) was published by Avon Books
    in 1980 (ISBN 0-380-75192-5).  All in all, not a convincing book.
    The author is listed as being ``Abdul Alhazred," which, as others
    have pointed out, is not a proper Arabic name.

    In case anyone is wondering about who L. Sprague de Camp is, he has
    been writing professionally since the 1930's and has written 
    textbooks, fantasy, science fiction, biographies, and historical novels,
    as well as articles for newspapers, magazines, and encyclopedias.
    He has written something on the order of 100+ books.

\begin{tabbing}
\ \ \ --- \=Andrew G. Hummell\\
\>{\em aghst1@unix.cis.pitt.edu}\\
\>{\em aghst1@vms.cis.pitt.edu}\\
\>University of Pittsburgh\\
\>circa: April 1991\\
\end{tabbing}

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\ \\

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\begin{quote}
``To light a candle is to cast a shadow."\\

\ \ \ --- A Wizard of Earthsea
\end{quote}


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