Young Jim Ward and the Dice Monster

[Ubiquitous]

As “Young Jim Ward” I started out in the sales department as the inventory
controller. It was my job to order the boxes and parts for the games and
especially the D&D box set. That game was selling 100,000 units a month. One
of “Young Jim Ward’s” jobs was to make sure the Hong Kong dice came in on
time to fill the next batch of 100,000 boxes.

Note from Morrus -- this is the third of Jim Ward's series of articles here
on EN World! Upcoming articles include TSR's Amazing Accounting Department,
The Origin of Monty Haul, and The Making and Breaking of Deities & Demigods!


Receiving dice from Hong Kong took exactly six months for 100,000 sets of
poly dice to be made, shipped from Hong Kong over the sea, and delivered to
the boxer in Madison. Naturally, being a careful person “Young Jim Ward”
ordered the dice two months early so that 100,000 boxes in December had their
dice ordered 8 months out. So in May “Young Jim Ward” ordered dice for the
December publication.

I’m proud to say there were problems with getting things in on time before
me. After “Young Jim Ward” started, TSR was usually never late on getting
product out.

So one day “Young Jim Ward” is doing his job and the vice presidents of the
company had a meeting and decide it would be much more cost effective to make
our own dice. I had no problem with the concept. I told them my dice schedule
and “Young Jim Ward” went back to work. Two months later, the Vice President
in charge of getting the dice molds made comes into my office and says I can
stop ordering Hong Kong dice.

“Young Jim Ward” became very alarmed and asked, “do we have finished dice
molds?” His reply was no but the Dice Vice President was sure we would have
finished molds in a few short weeks. “Young and Diligent Jim Ward” didn’t
want to stop ordering dice since there wasn’t a finished dice mold yet. He
went to his Vice President and got permission to order the next month’s
100,000 dice.

Weeks later the other Vice President comes storming into the sales office. “I
thought I told you not to order dice,” he shouted.

“Do we have a working dice mold?” “Young Jim Ward” asked very meekly even
though I wasn’t feeling meek. After all “Young Jim Ward” had an important
inventory responsibility to the company.

“No we don’t, but that doesn’t matter, we will when we need the dice.” The
Dice Vice President stormed out of the office and I heard the lecture. I was
told if a vice president of the company gave me an order I had to do it. In
the next month the Hong Kong dice weren't ordered and it almost killed “Young
Jim Ward” with worry.

For two months “Young Jim Ward” got real sneaky and tracked the progress of
the dice mold. On the day we were going to be late if we didn’t have Hong
Kong dice “Young Jim Ward” sent out a memo detailing the schedule and our
need for 100,000 sets of dice. “Young Jim Ward” gave it to all of the vice
presidents and Gary Gygax. An hour later the mold VP brought the memo back to
my office and threw it in my face.

“We will have dice when we need them. You are not to worry about this matter
any more.”

Naturally, “Young Jim Ward” worried even more. I asked my Vice President if I
would send out memos every week (“Young Jim Ward” wanted every day, but held
himself in check) on the dice issue. He allowed me to send out one a month.
On the day when it would be too late to order dice to get them in December
“Young Jim Ward” sent out a memo detailing that fact. All the vice presidents
got together and were assured we would have dice. “Young Jim Ward” was
ordered not to send out any more memos on the dice. Raw blades of inventory
agony transfixed “Young Jim Ward’s” body as the weeks went bye. Still, sneaky
“Young Jim Ward” knew exactly what condition the dice were in that were being
pumped out by the mold. “Young Jim Ward” begged my VP to talk to Gary about
the matter. He did and Gary went to the dice mold VP and asked to see what
type of dice were being made by the new molds. That VP opened his desk to
pull out several pieces of what looked like popcorn with numbers on them.
Clearly they would not be used for the D&D box set. Gary went to me and told
me to order dice and get them as soon as possible. He also told me never to
listen to anyone who said not to order dice again. That dice VP got a written
reprimand and “Young Jim Ward” had a huge smile plastered on his face for a
week.

For three ugly months TSR used cardboard counters and a coupon for dice in
the 300,000 D&D box sets. The only people happy about that were the prisoners
in jail as they couldn’t get games with dice in them.


A TSR Story
------------
Long ago and far away we at TSR wanted to find something that was a possible
counter to the success of the Magic the Gathering game. We had come up with
highly successful card games ourselves, but we wanted something different. I
had studied the issues that made Magic interesting to consumers. The rarity
of the cards was high in that list. At a New York toy fair a German inventor
showed us a great dice idea. On the six sides he had made plastic buttons
that allowed the player to change the faces of each die to make millions of
possible combinations. I entered in negotiations with the man and we started
working on fun design ideas for the concept. As time went on the weasel of a
man kept raising his demands for advances and royalty rates. I could never
get him to back down on his demands even when I showed him the quotes from
Hong Kong on how much the production dice molds would cost and the cost of
the per die rate on each die. Eventually, we had to stop negotiating with the
man.

The leaders at TSR were very unhappy to hear that I couldn't deliver this
product. We all sat at the conference table very unhappy. Then a thought
occurred to me. TSR could make our own dice. We couldn't do the variable
spots on the dice, but we could make lots of different dice. We contacted Jim
Koplow for the dice. TSR's great artists started making usable icons for the
dice faces. Lester Smith led the way in the design of the game and the design
team that backed him up did a great job. We produced the Dragon Dice game.

We did all the same things that collectible card games did. We had rare dice,
we came out with expansions that could be used with the original set of dice.
We made lots of accessories that people bought by the semi-truck loads.
Again, I couldn't talk TSR management in also doing a country wide tournament
schedule in hobby stores like Magic did.

One more fun story. We were doing a white Amazon expansion set. In that set
was one rare die. I ordered this die to be placed in half of the sets. I
naturally thought they would put the chase die in every even numbered box in
the entire set. When the Chinese saw that I asked for the die to be put in
half the sets, they naturally thought they should put the dice in the second
half shipment of the dice sets. They shipped the first half and for three
months people looked for that chase die and couldn't find it in the sets.
They all thought they just didn't get boxes with it in. This led to an
amazing price being offered for this one rare die. When the second half of
the series came out, they all sold instantly. Good times at TSR.


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