Dragons enabled TSR Hobbies to bring Gygax and Blume on board as salaried staff. Further new hires drawn from the gaming community, including the immediate family of both Blume and Gygax, assisted with advertising, creative design, artwork, shipping, and manufacturing. Employees were given the opportunity to purchase small amounts of equity, though most shareholders possessed less than 20 shares at the end of 1975. Even Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson, who joined TSR around this time, only held about 30 shares; he was sidelined late in 1976, and although his famous resulting lawsuits against TSR ensured his presence at board meetings, he had little practical influence over company direction.

Gygax and Blume bolstered their own positions in the company as profits and investment increased, mostly thanks to apreemptive right to purchase new shares pro rata but also through various grants. Fatefully, in July 1976, TSR Hobbies issued both Gygax and Blume options to purchase up to 700 additional shares at a price of $100. Through gradual accumulation, Gygax’s stake rose to around a third of the company by the late 1970s; while Brian Blume always owned roughly 100 shares more than Gygax, his own holdings slid a few percentage points down from its peak over 40%. As Melvin acquired no further shares, his position declined precipitously, from around a third to just under a tenth of TSR. But, again, irrespective of ownership, it was clearly Gygax who ran the business; a 1976 issue of the Strategic Review shows pictures of both Gygax and Blume, the