If you are looking for an understanding of how TSR got started and what struggle looked like for them before Dungeons and Dragons defined a genre and became the behemoth that is 5E today, I would highly recommend Jon Peterson's "Game Wizards" to you.Like many of an older generation that discovered the Holmes Box set and ogled the Player's Handbook in their local (and independent) toy store in the early 80's, I have a soft spot for all of the starter and Advanced D&D products that made up 1st edition. I left the hobby when 2nd Edition hit and I went off to college (in hindsight - odd that I never sought out gamers at school there), but returned with the advent of 3rd edition and the nostalgia itch it created.By that time Gary was a much venerated bulletin board presence on many gaming websites. Answering questions with a wink and a nod. Often with the same wit and charm that came across in his introduction essay to many of the early products of TSR.But this work by Peterson lays bare the animosity, paranoia, pettiness, and later folly of both creators of D&D - Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. While also crediting their genius, drive to be something more than they were, and what they did with the surprise success that found them.Some of these stories you may have heard. Peterson brings to the table the discussions of the industry at the time. Origins and Gencon rivalry. The competition with Avalon Hill and Flying Buffalo. The rivalries with fellow publishers that in time turned into acquisitions for TSR. The gossip that seemed to follow every move of Gary and TSR as D&D sales grew dramatically in the roughly 10 years of Gary's tenure. The nepotism of both the Gygax family and the Blume family (2 brothers co-owned the company with Gary) that constituted a good chunk of staff at any given time and seemed to suppress employee morale as the company grew.You won't find a lot of details on product development. The attempted comic book arm that has been described in other books isn't to be found here. But you get a good look at the "Hollywood days" of Gygax as he went to the west coast in an effort to get D&D made into film and yes eventually, Sunday morning cartoons.On full display is the hubris that quick success can bring and the awful business decisions one can make when money seems to be raining from above and can't possibly stop. Exponential growth was the expectation every year - regardless of outside factors. It seemed they wanted to go from a small company to a toy making powerhouse without stopping in the middle. They talked of competing with the enormous board game manufacturers of the time while D&D made them a big player in a very small pond. Ownership readily admitted they had little in the way of business training, and that becomes more and more evident as the company grew. A group leadership approach is fine for a small startup but proves to be increasingly problematic as opportunities and responsibilities mushroom. A company without a vision and someone to drive a team forward is bound to experience more than their fair share of growing pains. Entrepreneurs and those interested in business will learn a lot from reading about this particular decade in TSR's history.In the end, the middle-aged war gamer was out maneuvered by a player that he invited to the table but never really saw as a threat. A pawn that could provide a cash infusion to help save his creation from the deep debt TSR found itself in by 1985. The general was vanquished and removed from the board. But he and all the creators at TSR build the foundation of a genre of gaming millions have enjoyed 50 years on (and counting).Kudos to Peterson for his scholarship and his narrative flow. Never a dull moment in reading this. He would do a great service to the hobby and to RPG history by writing about Lorraine Williams years of TSR in another book and Wizards of the Coast and Peter Adkison in a third. If we can only be so lucky!