TSR The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR

Because the Saga of TSR3 has been ongoing for a while, with many landmarks, I thought I'd do a quick timeline for those who haven't had the time (or, frankly, inclination) to keep up with the whole palaver.

As multiple entities refer to themselves as TSR, I will use the nomenclature (1), (2) etc. to distinguish them. However, all the companies below simply use the term "TSR".

The principle people involved with this story are Ernie Gygax (one of Gary Gygax's children), Justin LaNasa (a tattooist, weapon designer, and briefly a politician who refers to himself as Sir Justin LaNasa*), Stephen Dinehart (co-creator of Giantlands with James Ward), and -- later -- Michael K. Hovermale, TSR3's PR officer.

Also linked to TSR3 is the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Much of TSR3’s commercial business appears to be conducted via the museum.

• 1974. TSR1 creates D&D.
• 1997. TSR1 is bought by WotC (WotC is bought by Hasbro in 1999).
• November 2012. Jayson Elliot registers the TSR2 name as a trademark to launch Gygax Magazine. Luke and Ernie Gygax are involved.
• November 2015. Gail Gygax sues TSR2. Luke and Ernie Gygax are forced to leave. Gygax magazine is forced to close by Gail Gygax. The company continues to sell the Top Secret RPG under the name TSR2.
• October 2020. The Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum claims ownership of various TSR logos and tries to license them to OSR publishers.
• June 19th 2021. TSR3 announces itself with a press release. It claims to be the original TSR1 back again, under the leadership of Ernie Gygax, Gary's son, announcing that "the band is back together". Also involved are Justin LaNasa and Stephen Dinehart. Their flagship product is "GIANTLANDS" by James Ward and Stephen Dinehart.
• June 22nd 2021. TSR3 announces it is rebooting Star Frontiers, a game which WotC owns and is currently selling online. They registered the trademark back in April 2021.
• June 24th 2021. Ernie Gygax does a YouTube interview, and I transcribe it. The interview begins a controversy which rages online and includes digs at newer gamers, WotC, and trans people.
• June 25th 2021. It transpires that TSR2's Jayson Elliot forgot to renew the trademark registration, at which point his former partner Ernie Gygax, along with Justin LaNasa & Stephen Dinehart, swept in and grabbed it before notifying him. They offer to let him use it for a nominal fee.

• Late June 2021. TSR3 embarks on an astonishing social media campaign where they tell people who don't like Gary Gygax not to play D&D, call a trans person on Twitter 'disgusting', thank the 'woke' because sales are up, insult Luke Gygax, and more. They also block or insult those who question them on Twitter.
• Late June 2021. Various companies distance themselves from TSR3, including Gen Con, TSR2 (who rebrand themselves Solarian Games), GAMA, and various individuals such as Luke Gygax, Tim Kask, Jeff Dee, and more. TSR3 responds to being banned from Gen Con by claiming that they created the convention.

• June 30th 2021. TSR3 blames the widespread pushback it is getting on WotC, accusing it of mounting a coordinated assault on them. In the same tweets they claim that they created the TTRPG business. Ernie Gygax and Stephen Dinehart then deactivate their Twitter accounts. Months later it transpires that this is the date they received a C&D from WotC regarding their use of their IP.

• July 2nd 2021. TSR3's Twitter account claims now to be run by a new Public Relations Officer called Michael.
• July 6th 2021. TSR3's Michael has not been heard of since he announced himself prompting a widespread online search for him.
• July 7th 2021. TSR3 rebrands its website 'Wonderfiled'(sic) as Stephen Dinehart publicly blocks WotC and Hasbro on Twitter and announces he is "breaking up with them" because of politics.

• July 9th 2021. Yet another TSR website appears! This one we call TSR 3.5. TSR3 has split into two -- Wonderfiled (later Wonderfilled), and TSR Hobbies. Stephen Dinehart runs the former, which features the GIANTLANDS project, while Ernie Gygax and Justin LaNasa run the latter.
• July 9th 2021. With the new TSR3.5, the company claims that an unnamed individual was running the Twitter accounts of the company, it's affiliate companies, and the individuals involved with the company, and that all posts on any of those social media accounts should now be considered "invalid".
• July 26th 2021. TSR3.5 announces TSR CON to be held on the July 4th weekend in the Horticultural Hall at Lake Geneva, WI, the name location as Gen Con launched in 1968. TSR announces that "TSR CON will always be here" (it never takes places there).

• September 27th 2021. TSR3's Michael K. Hovermale shows up here on EN World.
• October 14th 2021. Michael Hovermale announces that their Star Frontiers game became available and then sold out before they could announce it. Nobody can find anybody who bought this product.
• October 15th 2021. LaNasa calls EN World a 'very big company' and publicly accuses me of making all this up. I publicly ask TSR's representative, Michael K. Hovermale, three times what I've allegedly made up, but get no reply.
• October 20th 2021. TSR Con is moved from the July 4th weekend to March 24-27, the exact same dates as Gary Con. The venue is moved from the Horticultural Hall to the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. A graphic on its website promises that they will not be checking vaccinations or asking people to wear face masks.

• December 6th 2021. A record is found showing that WotC is taking action against TSR3.5 - an administrative procedure to cancel its registration of the trademarks it is using, citing - among other things - fraud.
• December 7th 2021. After a long quiet period, TSR3.5 launches an IndieGogo campaign to "stop Wizards of the Coast". It files for a court declaration of its ownership of the TSR trademarks. The crowdfunding campaign will go to fight the legal battle, with any left over being donated to the Gygax Memorial Fund.
• December 9th 2021. TSR3.5 voluntarily dismisses the suit it filed two days before. The IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign is still running.

• December 11th 2021. The president of the Gygax Memorial fund publicly declares that they were never consulted, and would refuse any donation from TSR3's crowdfunding campaign. TSR3 quietly removes the references to the GMF from the IndieGoGo page.
• December 29th 2021. TSR3.5 refiles its lawsuit, this time in the correct jurisdiction. LaNasa and TSR ask for a trial by Jury.

• January 8th 2020. Wonderfiled[sic]'s Stephen Dinehart threatens to sue Twitter user David Flor for his negative review of Giantlands on the platform.
• January 10th 2022. TSR3's Justin LaNasa sends TSR alumn Tim Kask a profane message, telling him to "Go suck Lukes/wotc/balls you f*****g coward" and accusing him of having been fired from TSR for stealing.
• January 11th 2022. Michael K Hovermale claims that the first edition of TSR3's Star Frontiers: New Genesis game was released and has sold out. He says “It was a very small limited run released and sold on the DHSM [Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum] website. It is no longer available, and probably won’t be reprinted.” As yet, nobody has publicly revealed that they bought a copy.
• January 14th 2022. Michael K. Hovermale resigns as TSR3's Chief Creative Officer and Public Relations Officer after 6 months in the position.
• March 4th 2022. WotC strikes back with a lawsuit naming TSR, Justin LaNasa personally, and the Dungeon Hobby Shop museum. WotC seeks a judgement that TSR hand over all domains, take down all websites, pay treble damages and costs, hand over all stock and proceeds related to the trademarks, and more. TSR has 21 days to respond.

• March 22nd 2022. TSR gets an extension on that WoTC suit. Two waivers of service of summons granted to both Justin LaNasa and the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. He now has 60 days from March 4th to serve an answer or motion, or suffer default judgment.
• March 26th 2022. TSR CON takes place at the same time as Gary Con. TSR claims " lol, actually we asked just about every one of the 800 people stopping by, TSR CON, and about 60% had no idea Gary con was going on, and we tried pushing them to go over and attend."
• March 28th 2022. TSR3 posts images of 'rebound' copies of AD&D 1E books it is selling for $650 each.
• May 17th 2022. Evidence emerges of Nazi connections via TSR3's Dave Johnson. Public Twitter posts include concentrated hateful imagery and messages over a long period of time.
• May 17th 2022. DriveThruRPG removes all Dave Johnson Games titles from the platform.
• May 17th 2022. A jury trial date is set for the TSR/WotC lawsuit for October 2023 (few suits like this actually make it to trial in the end).

• July 19th 2022. A leaked version of a beta version of TSR's 'Star Frontiers: New Genesis' game emerges on the internet. The content includes racist and white-supremacist propaganda, including character races with ability caps based on ethnicity, and various homophobic and transphobic references. Justin LaNasa immediately threatened to sue blogger Eric Tenkar, who shared the information publicly ('Mario Real' is one of LaNasa's online pseudonyms). Various evidence points towards the document's genuine nature, including an accidentally revealed Google drive belonging to NuTSR.
• July 22nd 2022. A video shows a Google Drive that appears to be owned by nuTSR, which contains a list of enemies of the company, usually with the word "WOKE" in caps being used as a pejorative.

(screenshot courtesy of the @nohateingaming Twitter account)​

• August 30th 2022. Wizard Tower Games announces that they have received a subpeona from WotC regarding TSR and Justin LaNasa. Former NuTSR employee Michaal K Hovermale confirms that he has also received a subpeona.
• September 5th 2022. Justin LaNasa sends out customer data, including addresses and credit card numbers. LaNasa responds by publicly claiming the evidence is photoshopped and slandering those who revealed it as liars.
• September 8th 2022. WoTC files an injunction to prevent LaNasa or his companies from “publishing, distributing, or otherwise making available Star Frontiers New Genesis or any iteration of the game using the Marks”.
• June 8th 2023. NuTSR files for bankruptcy. The case between WotC and NuTSR is postponed until March 2024.

Have I missed anything important? I'll continue updating this as I remember things, or as people remind me of things!

To the best of my knowledge, TSR3 is not actually selling any type of gaming product.

*if anybody has any link to LaNasa's knighthood, please let me know!

---

Websites
Various websites have come and gone. I'll try to make some sense of it here so you know what site you're actually visiting!

• TSR.com is the original TSR website. For a long time it redirected to WotC. The URL is no longer in use. (WotC)
• TSRgames.com was TSR2 until summer 2021. The site is still running, although TSR2 is now called Solarian Games. (Jayson Elliot)
• TSR.games was TSR3 until summer 2021. It now goes to Wonderfiled(sic)'s website. (Stephen Dinehart)
• TSR-hobbies.com is TSR 3.5, launched summer 2021 by Justin LaNasa and Ernie Gygax. (Justin LaNasa)

 

[darjr]

I know. I was there. And I gave out a piece of my mind as well.

Still, I dint think he’d sell D&D if he had it. Not that he ever will get it.

 

[jdrakeh]

No, he wouldn't. The most important thing to him is the game and his dad's legacy. A legacy he wants to be part of in a significant sense. I've never gotten the impression from him that he's in it for the money. The man literally just wants to run games and have others run games. As long as the bills are paid, everything else is secondary.

He's very susceptible to flattery, however, so when Justin came knocking and fed the poison into his ear and promised him the one thing he wants more than anything else, we are where we are now. Note, I'm not saying Ernie is not responsible for his actions by any means, just that it's more complicated than people realize. As is usually the case.

Yeah, Ernie is in this for clout. He very clearly wants to be an important game industry professional of the magnitude that his father and brother were/are. He's not going to get there following his current path, but I think LaNasa has convinced him that it's the only way forward. If he can extricate himself and the hobby shop from this mess, he might have a shot at it but I think every day that this drags on, that opportunity becomes less possible.

 

[Bolares]

What's the key factor there, when this switch happened?

Does it matter when it happened? The fact is it happened. And Ernie doubled down on this attitude, didn't take steps to make ammends, never really apologized. I don't care what he was when what he is now is so bad...

 

[Bolares]

Sometimes you think someone is a decent person, then they show themselves. No transformation needed.

Yeah, when someone shoes you who they are, I'd better believe them.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I think there are two Ernies.

"Inside of you there are two Ernies..."

 

[Sacrosanct]

Does it matter when it happened? The fact is it happened. And Ernie doubled down on this attitude, didn't take steps to make ammends, never really apologized. I don't care what he was when what he is now is so bad...

I think it's important. Again, I'm not saying he gets a free pass here. I absolutely think he needs to take responsibility for what he said and did. There has to be repentance before reconciliation. But when you have someone like Ernie, not the most astute person to begin with, then add cognitive damage from years of substance abuse on top of that, it's important to ask that question when you see a change in their behavior and mindset to be toxic all the sudden.

I don't think there's any saving LaNasa from his views, but I do think there's a chance for Ernie still. If we don't even consider the reasons a person may have changed for the worst, then we're admitting there isn't any reformation for anyone, ever. That's a position I don't believe. People have their beliefs shaped based on personal experiences and (mis)information exposed unique to them, and those things are complex.

Yeah, when someone shoes you who they are, I'd better believe them.

And when it came down to the rubber meeting the road in the past, Ernie bent over backward to help members of the LGBTQ community. So for those people, he showed who he was and it was different than now. See what I mean about things being more complicated than we think? If you're going to judge someone based on "what they show you who they are", wouldn't you look at everything they showed you, rather than one specific segment of their life?

Ernie wasn't a bad person for most of his life. By all accounts, he was a good person. Then recently he became a bad person. Whenever that happens (to anyone, not just Ernie), I think it's worth asking why and how. Once again, I am NOT saying he doesn't need to be held accountable. And I completely understand why a whole lot of folks are done with him; it's not up to you or me or anyone else to be responsible to keep giving him more chances--that's up to him and he chose to double down. I'm not asking you or anyone else to give him a free ride, or to stop criticizing him. He has earned that reaction. And I'm not asking anyone to spend any time or effort to try to help him, because that's not your (general you) responsibility. I don't expect anyone, especially those who were the target of his toxicity, to forgive or forget so easily. He said some really hurtful and alarming things.

I just happen to think if a good person changed at some point to hold toxic beliefs, there's a chance they could change back, especially if we can identify a cause for that change in the first place. Many of us have changed to be better than who we were in our youth. I certainly know I have.

Was Sloth from the Goonies a bad person because he did bad things in the past because the Fratellis were his only influence until he found Chunk? Not the best analogy, but I think it gets the point across. That being, when you have an impressionable and malleable mind, do you place full blame on the simpleton for behavior that is the result of manipulation by others?

 

[darjr]

I hope so.

 

[Bolares]

I think it's important. Again, I'm not saying he gets a free pass here. I absolutely think he needs to take responsibility for what he said and did. There has to be repentance before reconciliation. But when you have someone like Ernie, not the most astute person to begin with, then add cognitive damage from years of substance abuse on top of that, it's important to ask that question when you see a change in their behavior and mindset to be toxic all the sudden.

I don't think there's any saving LaNasa from his views, but I do think there's a chance for Ernie still. If we don't even consider the reasons a person may have changed for the worst, then we're admitting there isn't any reformation for anyone, ever. That's a position I don't believe. People have their beliefs shaped based on personal experiences and (mis)information exposed unique to them, and those things are complex.

And when it came down to the rubber meeting the road in the past, Ernie bent over backward to help members of the LGBTQ community. So for those people, he showed who he was and it was different than now. See what I mean about things being more complicated than we think? If you're going to judge someone based on "what they show you who they are", wouldn't you look at everything they showed you, rather than one specific segment of their life?

Ernie wasn't a bad person for most of his life. By all accounts, he was a good person. Then recently he became a bad person. Whenever that happens (to anyone, not just Ernie), I think it's worth asking why and how. Once again, I am NOT saying he doesn't need to be held accountable. And I completely understand why a whole lot of folks are done with him; it's not up to you or me or anyone else to be responsible to keep giving him more chances--that's up to him and he chose to double down. I'm not asking you or anyone else to give him a free ride, or to stop criticizing him. He has earned that reaction. And I'm not asking anyone to spend any time or effort to try to help him, because that's not your (general you) responsibility. I don't expect anyone, especially those who were the target of his toxicity, to forgive or forget so easily. He said some really hurtful and alarming things.

I just happen to think if a good person changed at some point to hold toxic beliefs, there's a chance they could change back, especially if we can identify a cause for that change in the first place. Many of us have changed to be better than who we were in our youth. I certainly know I have.

Was Sloth from the Goonies a bad person because he did bad things in the past because the Fratellis were his only influence until he found Chunk? Not the best analogy, but I think it gets the point across. That being, when you have an impressionable and malleable mind, do you place full blame on the simpleton for behavior that is the result of manipulation by others?

I get where you are comming from. My issue here is that while, sure there is still a chance for Ernie, that doesn't really mather (in my opinion) until the repentance begins. He may have been good to queer people before, and that's great. But he changed, and used his name, his influence and the history of the game he says he loves, to attack gay people, in a really broad avenue. He chose to do that. He may (and I believe he is) under the influence of very toxic people, but he still did that. I'm not trying to tarnish every thing he did before that, he is doing that himself.

I really hope he can comeback to being the good person you say he was, but I'm not holding my breath in waiting.

I'm not trying to make you change your opinion, or nothing like that, you have a closer connection to him then I'll ever have, and the Gygax name means more to you. I can see why you still hope for a chance, and I don't fault you for it. I just want to express my side on all of this. To me, right now, he is just another bigot who uses his dad name to grift other people and hurt queer people. I'm just sad his name means something in a game I love.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I get where you are comming from. My issue here is that while, sure there is still a chance for Ernie, that doesn't really mather (in my opinion) until the repentance begins. He may have been good to queer people before, and that's great. But he changed, and used his name, his influence and the history of the game he says he loves, to attack gay people, in a really broad avenue. He chose to do that. He may (and I believe he is) under the influence of very toxic people, but he still did that. I'm not trying to tarnish every thing he did before that, he is doing that himself.

I really hope he can comeback to being the good person you say he was, but I'm not holding my breath in waiting.

I'm not trying to make you change your opinion, or nothing like that, you have a closer connection to him then I'll ever have, and the Gygax name means more to you. I can see why you still hope for a chance, and I don't fault you for it. I just want to express my side on all of this. To me, right now, he is just another bigot who uses his dad name to grift other people and hurt queer people. I'm just sad his name means something in a game I love.

I completely respect all of this. I'm not trying to change your opinion either. Just conversation is all. You are impacted differently by him than I am, and it would be presumptuous of me to try to tell you how to feel.

 

[Stormonu]

I know. I was there. And I gave out a piece of my mind as well.

Still, I dint think he’d sell D&D if he had it. Not that he ever will get it.

I can agree he wouldn't willingly sell it, but I could see him getting bilked out of it pretty quick. He's not as smart as he seems to think he is (a trait I think many people - myself included - suffer from).