TSR TSR3 Blames Widespread Pushback On WotC

In an unexpected turn of events, the primary individuals behind TSR3 have claimed the pushback they've received on social media and elsewhere was orchestrated by .... D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast (a company which has thus far remained completely silent on recent events).

TSR3 is run by Justin LaNasa, Stephen Dinehart, and Ernie Gygax. The controversy has been raging for over a week, since TSR3 announced itself with a press release.

TSR - Companies & Freelancers Distance Themselves From The New TSR

The new TSR (which I refer to as TSR3 to avoid confusion) has doubled down on its stance--which has been widely condemned online--via an ongoing series of tweets and replies from its TSR Games, Giantlands, and Dungeon Hobby Museum social media accounts (possibly operated by Justin LaNasa) in an...

www.enworld.org

Stephen Dinehart and Ernie Gygax have since deactivated their Twitter accounts; Justin LaNasa doesn't appear to have one, but it is believed he is the person operating TSR3's Twitter account. A couple of days ago, Ernie Gygax posted about recent events on Facebook (note that he edited the post, but the original can be seen here).

I wish to state in the strongest terms that I never meant to hurt anyone of any race, creed or color. My video From the Bunker caused some to feel that they would not be welcome or would be looked down upon. That was never the intent, I was reacting to focus of modern role play into a more background and Role Play rather than the wargame that so made so many lives happy over 40 years ago.

As a gamer it meant that most of us were not worthy of any attention from others of our own age. We were Nerds. We were brainy-acks and others would snicker. Older classmen would ask to "borrow" something of ours to then pass back and forth a game of keep away. I used to receive some special attention from about 4 Juniors in my Freshman year. I played the Violin and often I began to wish that I had Super Powers, perhaps become a Giant.. I was far to shy and then embarrassed as attractive ladies would just lower the eyes while the jocks or other socially vibrant fellows had some fun at another geeky nerds expense. Thank goodness I grew 4 inches my junior year.

The only real comfort zone we all could share was a table in the lunch room. At least the fledgling TSR found fertile minds in those who had only those like us - gamers. Rather than have to risk embarrassing myself, since Phy Ed was going to force us to dance with those wonderful and yet scary girls. Well to get my Diploma I had to slave for a month to Mr. Gerber the head of the Phy Ed department. Fortunately I knew all about janitorial work as before D&D and TSR dad only made $5,000 as a Cobbler (five children) and we had food stamps and even free school lunches. Yes you had to go to the councilors office every week to collect your free lunch passes. Obviously you could feel all the eyes on you and the talk about....

Everyone has been welcome at my gaming table and multitudes of new friends have been created by the time spent playing the games we Love. Look at pictures of gaming on my site or anywhere I run games. Everyone is welcome, just like a Boot Hill game leave your guns at the bar until you leave town. If you come to the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum Jeff R. Leason will show you courtesy and a smile and you will see that gaming with elder gamers is a safe and entertaining environment.

TSR - Ernie Gygax on New TSR, WotC Beefs, Trademarks, Licensees, 5E, & More

A YouTube channel, 'Live From the Bunker', interviewed Ernie Gygax about the new TSR. I've watched and decided to try to transcribe the most relevant parts of it, but the full hour-long video is below if you want to see the whole interview and full context. Ernie Gygax is one of D&D...

www.enworld.org

 

[Malmuria]

My kids were still teenagers when I ran a game for them that began with goblins raiding a local farming village. Their response was to talk to the goblins and find out why they were raiding. I already had a backstory, complete with no goblin children, in case they decided to hack and slash their way through the story. The goblins had fled because the evil temple in the caves had been taking their children to force the goblins to obedience. The goblins in question were the advance scouts and the rest of them (including most of the non-combatants) were still working their way down through the caves from the High Vale where they lived.

The characters negotiated a peaceful coexistence between the goblins and the local halfling farmers (who also required some convincing), then waited for the pass to clear, went into the high vale and rescued the goblin children from the temple.

This is what I did with the Caves of Chaos. The caves were spread out over a huge mountain vale and the prime evil was the temple of the Crawling Chaos that was hidden in one of the caves. Some of the non-humans were willing followers of the cult. Others were reluctant. Even within the caves of the willing followers, they were able to find dissenters and helped to free them and to help them to take over their communities.

Based on the actions of the characters in that first story, I was able to turn a somewhat problematic module from the Basic D&D days into a story that ran all through the first tier (we take a long time to level so that was several complete stories and one game year). Not only that, it was a story that allowed to characters to fight evil, while supporting the non-evil elements within each community. The only pure evil they encountered was the temple itself and the illithid scouts who were spying on the area (which they defeated with the help of a friendly flumph who was anxious to end the illithid thread before it came to the attention of the "great flumphtilla" that was passing through space nearby with flumphs the size of castles). It culminated in an old dwarven mining community that had fallen under the control of the orcs over the last two centuries (a mash-up of Quasqueton and the Forge of Fury). Even as they killed many orcs (who were threatening to invade the low-lands once their rivals in the temple had been defeated), they were looking for a reasonable orc leader they could support who would lead their people back into the orc caves and out of the fortress so the dwarves could reoccupy it.

You can have the same sorts of adventures in D&D without the colonialist narrative that you can with that narrative. Trust me. There was plenty of combat and treasure seeking to go along with the role-playing and negotiation.

That sounds amazing

 

[Malmuria]

Gay people play D&D as if it was Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

(They'd probably be better off playing Thirsty Sword Lesbians instead, unless they really need to scratch that tactical combat itch, but I digress).

In all seriousness, I skimmed the past few pages, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the general perception I got from the discussion was about how "personal" issues such sexuality, among others, are deemphasised or not really engaged with. At tables where the DM and all the players are LGBTQ+, the general stereotype I've seen (backed by ample anecdotal evidence) is that those issues are front and centre. It's not limited to sexuality though; from the play reports and game stories I've read, the entire play culture places a lot more emphasis on the personal moments, the quiet time between the action. A lot less killing, or at least a lot less glorification of killing. A lot more talking. A lot more intimate moments (not necessarily physically so, more social intimacy). This doesn't mean that a play style and culture focused more on social play than mrchanics is automatically LGBTQ+; it's just that from what I've seen, gay and trans players who are bringing their LGBTQ+ identity to the table front and centre tend to gravitate towards that playstyle.

This serves as a nice distinction between "OC" and "neo-trad" styles of play. What's weird is that there's not really a lot of support for this type of play in the game other than emulating critical role, and yet they stick with dnd.

Also tieflings. Tieflings as far as the eye can see. A few elves here and there, definitely some "monstrous race" presence, but it's under a deluge of tieflings. And say goodbye to any sense of the typical heroic fantasy gravitas; it's either gonna be super sappy and sentimental, or it's gonna be a total farce.

Lots of purple tieflings. If only they could be introduced to Diterlizzi's tieflings!

 

[Thaumaturge]

Gay people play D&D as if it was Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

(They'd probably be better off playing Thirsty Sword Lesbians instead, unless they really need to scratch that tactical combat itch, but I digress).

In all seriousness, I skimmed the past few pages, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the general perception I got from the discussion was about how "personal" issues such sexuality, among others, are deemphasised or not really engaged with. At tables where the DM and all the players are LGBTQ+, the general stereotype I've seen (backed by ample anecdotal evidence) is that those issues are front and centre. It's not limited to sexuality though; from the play reports and game stories I've read, the entire play culture places a lot more emphasis on the personal moments, the quiet time between the action. A lot less killing, or at least a lot less glorification of killing. A lot more talking. A lot more intimate moments (not necessarily physically so, more social intimacy). This doesn't mean that a play style and culture focused more on social play than mrchanics is automatically LGBTQ+; it's just that from what I've seen, gay and trans players who are bringing their LGBTQ+ identity to the table front and centre tend to gravitate towards that playstyle.

Also tieflings. Tieflings as far as the eye can see. A few elves here and there, definitely some "monstrous race" presence, but it's under a deluge of tieflings. And say goodbye to any sense of the typical heroic fantasy gravitas; it's either gonna be super sappy and sentimental, or it's gonna be a total farce.

And that, my EnWorld friends, is how I discovered I’ve been running a queer table most of my life. This really is wonderful. Thank you.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Faolyn]

Gay people play D&D as if it was Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

Wait, that's out now? <runs off to grab a copy>

In all seriousness, I skimmed the past few pages, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the general perception I got from the discussion was about how "personal" issues such sexuality, among others, are deemphasised or not really engaged with. At tables where the DM and all the players are LGBTQ+, the general stereotype I've seen (backed by ample anecdotal evidence) is that those issues are front and centre. It's not limited to sexuality though; from the play reports and game stories I've read, the entire play culture places a lot more emphasis on the personal moments, the quiet time between the action. A lot less killing, or at least a lot less glorification of killing. A lot more talking. A lot more intimate moments (not necessarily physically so, more social intimacy). This doesn't mean that a play style and culture focused more on social play than mrchanics is automatically LGBTQ+; it's just that from what I've seen, gay and trans players who are bringing their LGBTQ+ identity to the table front and centre tend to gravitate towards that playstyle.

That's a more modern approach to gaming: less (glorification of) killing, more talking and interpersonal relationships. My table is a lot like that, and we have a variety of sexualities, including heterosexual.

Also, more LGBT+ folks are playing these days--or at least, playing while not being closeted.

There's a Venn diagram here. Probably if there were all-LGBT+ groups playing in the 70s-90s, they'd look a lot like what you'd consider to be a "straight" approach.

Also tieflings. Tieflings as far as the eye can see. A few elves here and there, definitely some "monstrous race" presence, but it's under a deluge of tieflings. And say goodbye to any sense of the typical heroic fantasy gravitas; it's either gonna be super sappy and sentimental, or it's gonna be a total farce.

Tieflings are cool. Not as cool as they used to be (I agree with Malmuria and really miss the hooves, although my tiefling is blue, bot purple. OK, it's a purple-y blue. But still blue!) but pretty darn cool.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Gay people play D&D as if it was Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

(They'd probably be better off playing Thirsty Sword Lesbians instead, unless they really need to scratch that tactical combat itch, but I digress).

In all seriousness, I skimmed the past few pages, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the general perception I got from the discussion was about how "personal" issues such sexuality, among others, are deemphasised or not really engaged with. At tables where the DM and all the players are LGBTQ+, the general stereotype I've seen (backed by ample anecdotal evidence) is that those issues are front and centre. It's not limited to sexuality though; from the play reports and game stories I've read, the entire play culture places a lot more emphasis on the personal moments, the quiet time between the action. A lot less killing, or at least a lot less glorification of killing. A lot more talking. A lot more intimate moments (not necessarily physically so, more social intimacy). This doesn't mean that a play style and culture focused more on social play than mrchanics is automatically LGBTQ+; it's just that from what I've seen, gay and trans players who are bringing their LGBTQ+ identity to the table front and centre tend to gravitate towards that playstyle.

Also tieflings. Tieflings as far as the eye can see. A few elves here and there, definitely some "monstrous race" presence, but it's under a deluge of tieflings. And say goodbye to any sense of the typical heroic fantasy gravitas; it's either gonna be super sappy and sentimental, or it's gonna be a total farce.

interesting, most of that would be fine other than sexuality, that is the land of trauma for me.

 

[Thaumaturge]

interesting, most of that would be fine other than sexuality, that is the land of trauma for me.

Ah trauma, the gift we never wanted that keeps on giving.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Ah trauma, the gift we never wanted that keeps on giving.

Thaumaturge.

honestly, I did not even get it from the stuff people get like the M or R words so I can't even explain it to people, plus I only grasp doomed tragic romances it is honestly kinda depressing.

 

[Thaumaturge]

honestly, I did not even get it from the stuff people get like the M or R words so I can't even explain it to people, plus I only grasp doomed tragic romances it is honestly kinda depressing.

Have you heard the term “CPTSD”? It’s like the common conception of PTSD, but the “C” means “complex”. A lot of CPTSD sufferers can’t point to the specific event that hurt them. It’s more a sequence of events.

I just read Rebecca for the first time, and I loved it.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Have you heard the term “CPTSD”? It’s like the common conception of PTSD, but the “C” means “complex”. A lot of CPTSD sufferers can’t point to the specific event that hurt them. It’s more a sequence of events.

I just read Rebecca for the first time, and I loved it.

Thaumaturge.

I know the events just they are oddly bland uninteresting and likely to get laughed back in your face hence I just act like I am dead in that area makes it easier aside from when it came up once in dnd that was when I figured there was a problem with me.

 

[Saracenus]

This doesn't mean that a play style and culture focused more on social play than mrchanics is automatically LGBTQ+; it's just that from what I've seen, gay and trans players who are bringing their LGBTQ+ identity to the table front and centre tend to gravitate towards that playstyle.

D&D is not genderless. If there is a choice to play a gender, then D&D is perfectly suited to explore those issues. Now the assumptions of gender in OD&D/1e D&D are another kettle of fish. But, D&D is not encased in amber. The game has shifted its assumptions over time.

I will let in on a little secret. When I started playing D&D back in 1979 every table I played at tinkered with the rules and assumptions of the game to make it our own (despite Gary Gygax's bombastic claim in Dragon Magazine that only stuff published by TSR(1) was the only way to play the game properly). Every table was mess of house rules and gaming customs. Believe me when I say Gary would not have recognized his narrow view of D&D/RPGs at the tables I played at.

Everyone brings an identity to the table in D&D and at my table all are welcome. Everyone is welcome to explore that in the characters they want to play be it a rip off of some pop-culture character from TV/Movies, be just themselves, an aspect of themselves, something they want to try out, or even just roll some dice with very little personality at all.

My main mantra is, "More Places To Play, More People To Play With." The idea that someone should not be able to play D&D with me because of their gender or sexual identity is alien to me.