There’s no more accurate term for what happened 15 years ago in what became my last day with GDW. “Laid off.” “Let go.” “Org’d out.” They’re all NewSpeak (the polite name for BS). I’m comfortable with the blunt, “truthy” word of “fired” because it wasn’t for incompetence, it was politics. I have the dagger scars in my back to prove it.
I will always remember what a rotten move it was on Frank (Chadwick) and Dave’s (Nielsen) part, 10 days before Christmas. However, I should’ve seen it coming; GDW was hemorrhaging money every day it existed thanks to the disastrous Gary Gygax comeback game Mythus. Not only was it DOA upon release, it came with a lawsuit courtesy of TSR. As soon as the stink of legal problems appeared, the other partners, that were signed on to make miniatures and video games, bailed. They weren’t afraid of litigation, they just knew Mythus was a loser.
My bluntness about the game’s problems and what it would take to “fix” it (or “negativity” in NewSpeak) was just the ammo Dave needed to get rid of me while feeding Frank’s denial problems. It didn’t matter what I did at GDW, Dave would’ve turned the knife in my back for two reasons: Mythus took away resources and attention from his equally doomed, boring revision of Traveller; the other being a way to deflect scrutiny of his alcoholism which was becoming more obvious.
I cried tears of relief after Frank dropped the hammer in our “meeting.” Having nothing to lose then I told those two schmucks a couple things they didn’t want to hear: for Frank, (paraphrased) “Gary Gygax took you to the cleaners because there’s nothing Mythus and Unhallowed (the horror RPG) do that hasn’t been covered by D&D and Call of Cthulhu.” Frank probably knew albeit too late. For Dave, “despite the criticisms of who I am, how I am, etc. at least I was working, meeting the deadlines as often as possible and not sitting in Frank’s office talking shit about others.” Dave claimed he felt hurt by my statement. I guess he was sober or still hung over from the previous evening.
The silver lining took weeks to manifest. Mentally, I knew I had been thrown off the sinking ship those idiots would go down with (Feb. 29, 1996). The emotional side was harder to reconcile until I landed my new job at DG months later. Getting sacked before the holidays and into the new year just amplified so many negative, unproductive feelings. I recall how much I didn’t want to attend Steve and Patty’s wedding because those two jackasses were coming. At least Phil and I weren’t under any immediate deadline to leave the Silder’s New Year’s Eve party; I don’t think I drank heavily again until I had a job in 1993. The student loan company surprised me; my debt with them was frozen in place until I landed a new job and I only needed to list three places I applied with every quarter. I was granted a reprieve for up to two years. Too bad unemployment checks only last six months. Being 24, I was so overwhelmed by the situation that I didn’t take advantage of it, namely going back to school. I had recently dropped out of a French class with ISU thanks to GDW’s pressuring. I was still enrolled and since my BA from Marquette covered all the electives, earning a second or third degree would have taken a mere couple years since I only needed to take the essential classes. Better yet, I’m confident Grandma would’ve been ecstatic and paid my tuition regardless of what I studied; she was an alumnus and how she wanted one of her grandchildren to go there.
It wasn’t meant to be. I let those jerks at GDW get to me for too long and it was more of my own doing. The company’s fortunes were already very dire so they were busier producing more uninteresting wargames and badly designed roleplaying material, not spending hours on end wishing me misfortune. Yet, after working there, I had no doubt Frank was badmouthing me as he always did of numerous former employees, especially the ones with better careers. Frank’s worn-out refrain of “they never really did anything here did they?” was his favorite chestnut. Even when I was an employee, I sensed this expression was a reassuring rationalization in his pathetic mind. Tim Brown never did anything? By 1993 he was only TSR’s creative director and responsible for the popular Dark Sun campaign (D&D meets John Carter of Mars). Lester Smith (my gaming sensei) never did anything? He only wrote Dark Conspiracy for GDW and then designed several successful games at TSR. Julia Martin (the person I replaced) never did anything? She became one of TSR’s editors on the Forgotten Realms setting. Frank was the King of Schadenfreudeland. However, the bad blood never ended with my firing. In the Spring of 1993, I had practically cinched a typesetter position with the new local kinko’s. The manager at the interview was amazed by my skills on the resume test plus I had worked for the company before in Milwaukee. By her behavior this looked great. Then she did a 180 on me days later with no explanation. I found out through the grapevine about her speaking to Dave. The lush torpedoed me in a way which was difficult to prove because I would’ve sued GDW and put it out of its misery sooner. I did needle them back with my Babs Bunny flyers when I landed a temp gig at CCG. My friend Lazz was still there to post the one I gave him. He said a bitter co-worker named Olle pulled it down when he stepped away from his desk. Around the time I joined DG, I decided to take the advice Steve (Bryant) gave me, living well is the best revenge. Boy have I 15 years later! I make almost three times what GDW paid. I own my car, 17% of my house, I’m married to a cool lady, I live with three cats and I reside in a city in which Winter is unheard of.
I do confess I couldn’t resist one opportunity to kick Frank and Dave while they were down in 1993. I had a friend named Todd coordinating the local Fall gaming convention and he was no fan of GDW’s products anyway. Frank got a hold of him asking why his company wasn’t invited. Todd explained he wasn’t interested in giving space to people who published games they didn’t know how to play. I have a feeling Frank sensed I was involved for it was a criticism I always leveled at him. Todd said Frank’s immediate response was his patented verbal sputtering which meant an outburst of rage was being held in check. Frank ended the conversation by saying something to the effect of, “well call me if you need anything.” GDW did show up to demonstrate a space battle in Traveller the New Era. I have no recollection if anyone bothered to play, the gaming-crack addiction called Magic the Gathering dominated the convention.
In closing, I want to write about the really awesome thing being fired did for me. It showed that I could rely on my friends. I didn’t lean on them for money, times were tight in 1992-93. No, my friends pulled through in the emotional and mental department. They didn’t abandon me like I had leprosy or I was bad luck. They were quite the opposite, namely Steve who was quite a hero despite his continued employment at GDW, until FASA hired him in the Spring of 1993. For ten weeks, he would occasionally take me to lunch. In exchange, I kept his art department’s Mac running since Steve was trying to keep production flowing. Dave or Frank confronted him over this, as if I were a terrorist. His reply was, “Thanks to you firing Maggi, the company has no one to oversee the Macs.” I felt he was sticking his neck out there. Others helped too, the Silders, Doc, Jose and Phil. (If I left someone out, tell me). My family’s support existed, just only in a form they understood. The parents were, “come to North Carolina.” Brian had his own problems in Chicago and I had alienated him when we were teenagers. Grandma and Grandpa did what they could but they were incapable of helping because they didn’t understand, otherwise I have no doubt in their abilities.
Back to my friends! They gave me a sense of vindication and still do. When I was growing up, my parents spouted off a constant litany about friends being unimportant and they could never be relied upon. This chorus of BS grew louder every time we packed up and moved to another city, especially during my high school years. Nothing can be more trying than unemployment and all my good friends proved them wrong. They have continued to prove me right to this day: Rad and Steve got me in at DG, Doc brought me to Austin the first time, Kris the second time, Sonia tried to get me married off (she failed so Somara is grateful), Nelson flew me to Milwaukee for his son’s christening, the list goes on. I only hope I have continued to repay them with interest since the student loan people were finished off in 2003.