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Back in the early days(you know, the first three little paperback books of rules) my local D&D group put out a Xeroxed little newsletter, mainly to disseminate ideas and come up with new twists for the game. This was essentially circulated around my local high school, and sold at the local comic/game shop. Gygax and his lawyers came down on us hard for one issue, because we had come up with a monk character and somebody had forwarded that issue to him. He sent nasty letters threatening lawsuits, etc., all to shut down a bunch of dedicated, creative kids who loved the game. To add even more salt to the wound, a few months later the Dragon came out with a special article on a new character called The Monk, using rules and ideas that seemed very, very familiar. Worst yet, the monk character was included in further new editions of the rules, and we never got credit or compensation, since we didn't have the big bucks to hire a copyright lawyer and fight Gygax and TSR for years.
I still play the game, have for the past thirty plus years. But that whole incident soured me on Gygax and TSR.
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