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!

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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)

 

[Sacrosanct]

So I Googled Port City Kava LLC. Don't know why I did, and shouldn't be surprised at the first hit:

Port City Vapor Kava Oxygen Bar LLC :: North Carolina (US) :: OpenCorporates

Free and open company data on North Carolina (US) company Port City Vapor Kava Oxygen Bar LLC (company number 1665750), 208 S Front St Unit 2, Wilmington, NC, 28401

opencorporates.com

Hey look, it's Justin Lasagna again. Though it says it was Dissolved in 2020.

EDIT: Also checked with the state of WI; nothing in that name.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I said I wouldn't be shocked if there were things not on the up and up. He's got an expired LLC* as the business name taking funds from things purchased from the DHSM online. Combine that with his fiasco with campaign financing, and he's doing things that make no sense to me as a business owner.

*An expired LLC that is still currently operating as a physical store (Port City Vapor Kava & Oxygen Bar in Wilmington NC). I don't know the laws in NC, but here in Oregon, you're not allowed to run a business as an LLC if that LLC is expired. Maybe he changed it to Sole Proprietor after the expiration and never updated the paypal details? Who knows. Either way, there's clear proof he's mixing businesses, which should allow WoTC to pierce the corporate veil that LLCs normally protect.

Receipt from an online purchase at the DHSM:

 

[pantsorama]

The sole purpose of all woke 'debates' is to have people spend time fretting and raging about things that present no genuine threat, so they don't go worrying their silly heads about genuine threats like the climate, invading Russians, no housing, . . . other small stuff.

Couple of things here:

1) This statement commits the informal logical fallacy of Relative Privation. Rolled up in your statement is the idea that anyone discussing "woke" issues can never address any of the issues you consider more important. Obviously this is, on its face, false, and a deliberate misrepresentation. People can have more than one concern, and fight more than one issue. It is not a zero sum game.

2) Your claim that this presents "no genuine threat" is also incorrect. What we are seeing is the nascent stages of a potential genocidal action. (Yes, despite the word origin, a genocide can be perpetuated against a culture.) I do not use this term lightly either. Ten stages of genocide - Wikipedia See that link for further reading. Right now we are in stage 6 of that model, with many instances of stage 7 happening. Thing is shame is such a great weapon for fighting genocide. It does not change the hearts and minds of the truly committed, but it does stop genocide from becoming the cultural norm. Turns out, pointing out the immorality of an action stops most "normal thinking" people from doing said action. Arguments against "wokeism" are attempts to remove shaming as a curb on anti-social actions. So yes, they are of great relative importance.

Also shame on anyone who fights for bigotry to be a cultural norm, whether you know or don't know where it might lead.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Has someone claimed they are a non-profit recently? There's at least two interviews where Justin specifically says that it's not. He was pretty up front about it when the museum was starting up. His other "museum" isn't a non-profit, either.

I had heard somewhere that's what he wanted to do. Since it's obviously for profit, that messes things up even further. According to the FLSA, you can't volunteer for a "For Profit" business. You can have internships, but obviously what they are asking for won't pass the Department of Labor's test (see below). Also, you can't have a contract with a volunteer or unpaid intern since contracts are only enforceable if there's a trade of value (again, according to the Dept of Labor). So someone like Leason could have a contract and be a contractor since he gets room and board. Someone working there minding the shop or running games who isn't getting anything in return couldn't have an enforceable contract (which I'm assuming LaNasa would want because you need a contract for things like protecting company private information such a worker would have access to).

The Test for Unpaid Interns and Students
Courts have used the “primary beneficiary test” to determine whether an intern or student is, in fact, an employee under the FLSA.2 In short, this test allows courts to examine the “economic reality” of the intern-employer relationship to determine which party is the “primary beneficiary” of the relationship. Courts have identified the following seven factors as part of the test:

1. The extent to which the intern and the employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee—and vice versa.
2. The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by educational institutions.
3. The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
4. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
5. The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
6. The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
7. The extent to which the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

 

[Umbran]

Couple of things here:

Mod Note:
The post you are responding to has already received moderator attention. It is inappropriate to continue the discussion it presents in this manner. The person in question cannot respond to your post.

2) Your claim that this presents "no genuine threat" is also incorrect. What we are seeing is the nascent stages of a potential genocidal action.

Folks, I guess I must reiterate - this site is about pretending to be elves. We allow some discussion of diversity topics in connection specifically with the gaming community, because we are, and want to be, diverse.

Real-world genocide, important though it may be, is outside our bailiwick, I'm afraid. Can you please bring it back in to discussion nuTSR and LaNasa, please?

Thanks, all, for your attention.

 

[GraphPaper Architect]

I think @Sacrosanct was dead on earlier. I don't think that whoever is behind these accounts can stop. They're just going to keep going.

I think so too. I'm going to go back to ignoring the whole mess.

 

[GraphPaper Architect]

Is MortanYato another sock puppet or an actual person?

I am not certain. They write very differently than the Mario accounts, and then they have very similar sayings so I find it a little difficult for me to tell.
After I let myself get irritated and called them out last night, I remembered Sadhguru and dumped that toxic waste, blocked their crap from my mind and I am feeling much better now.

 

[pantsorama]

I'm thinking this might be an "even evil has standards" situation:

Fellow gamer - you have to give notice for TV Tropes links. I need to work today!

 

[Rabulias]

View attachment 250279

Maybe I read too much into it, but is it a red flag that the example date the questioner uses for a hypothetical end date is Hitler's death?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I doubt they'd be marking or even aware of the date of his death.

Edit: Was confused as to who was posting the date.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I used to work as a volunteer for Origin/EA back in the late 90's as a Counselor/Seer for their online game, Ultima Online. I quit after a year because I was honestly feeling like I was working a part time job. Shortly after the volunteers launched a class-action lawsuit against EA for wages for the work they've done, and the judge basically said "WTF? You can't volunteer for a for-profit company!" And all the volunteer programs subsequently shut down. I provided some material to a lawyer on request as well.

I hope someone is bringing all of this to the attention of Lake Geneva's town council, as they are the ones who gave LaNasa permission to operate the museum. This won't be good press for them if it leaks out into the greater mass media. (As is, the headline "Nazi's in roleplaying!" would definitely be something even WotC would want to shut down FAST.)

I was a "Guide" on EQ for a hot minute. If I recall we got our EQ subs for free if we volunteered to be a Guide.

I ended up getting fired for abuse of power