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)

 

[pantsorama]

Well there was someone in this thread a few pages ago who claimed to have an example, but, despite several people asking, has not shared any images/evidence...

I wonder if that person would be willing to swear in a court of law. How convenient that they are not in the US. I mean - sure, it could be legit, but given this crowd's penchant for sock puppetry, I am gonna have to stick my hand in the side of that document afore I believe it is an actual thing.

Side note: I actually ordered and received two copies of Star Frontiers from NuTSR. I saw that it was possible to order that stuff for a brief while and thought "wow, that might become collectible in asimilar fashion like Creeks & Crawdads or Spawn of Fashan".

Or maybe the item is not coming from NuTSR? Or maybe they are sending it to other countries only to try and mess with copyright there, and claim prior use?

Somthing is hinky, I'll tell you what.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The episode about the folly of racism with aliens who were literally half white and half black. It doesn't get more in your face than "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."

View attachment 252778

Mind reader!

 

[billd91]

All while claiming to be fans of Trek, RATM, and other clearly left-leaning aspects of modern pop culture. So, even with the power of self-delusion, you have to wonder what they’re getting out of consuming such media while rejecting the not-so-subtle message they contain. Nifty spaceships? Cool guitar solos?

Nifty spaceships and cool guitar solos? Yes, there are a LOT of people who never get deeper than that. Some because they don't want to go deeper. Some because they may have never learned to go deeper (there's a reason certain political parties are downplaying education these days).
And some may be aware of it but thing "Eh, it's just entertainment." My guess is Paul Ryan fits into that type of RATM fandom. He should be smart and well-educated enough to get it. He just downplays them and their message.

 

[Vaalingrade]

many years ago at a Con game I had a player melt down because the flavor text for my town guard had a woman as it's head. He tried to argue that women can't (maybe shouldn't?) be the captain of the guard because they are too emotional and not equipped to fight men... I pointed out he was being quite emotional and he did not take that well.

He even went into some argument about 90lbs women inmoveis fighting 300lbs guys that would snap them in 1 hit....

said Captain of the guard was a half ogre, so I don't even know where the 90lb women came from in this example

Reminds me of the dude that trolled my site and left an review complaining that the 7'6", dragon-blooded, artificial demigod trained from a young age to do nothing but fight and kill could not be a warrior because she's a lady and that didn't happen 'back then' because women were too 'fragile and valuable for baring children'.

So being a woman alone apparently trumps being a living war crime.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

At a con game, where everyone has an interest in the game flowing along smoothly, that sort of meltdown is even more egregious.

I think we should start a thread just on con horror stories cause that was far from my only...

 

[CleverNickName]

At a con back in the 90s (or was it the early 2000s?), a DM told a fellow player that their female character couldn't have a Strength higher than 15. The player was understandably angry about this, and an argument ensued. His defense: "That's not misogyny, that's just biology!" he declared. "I'm sorry you don't understand science!"

"Woops!" I said, loudly. "I'm at the wrong table." And I left without another word.

20ish years later, and I still remember that toolbag.

 

[Jer]

Reminds me of the dude that trolled my site and left an review complaining that the 7'6", dragon-blooded, artificial demigod trained from a young age to do nothing but fight and kill could not be a warrior because she's a lady and that didn't happen 'back then' because women were too 'fragile and valuable for baring children'.

The guys who have no problem with dragons, or with wizard hurling fireballs, or any of the other things that are accepted in a fantasy universe but then freak out when they meet a female character who can bench press more than they can will never cease to make me happy that I mostly only game with people I'm friends with now. Or that I can only go to Origins for my con experiences and haven't really seen any of that kind of behavior there (though that could be luck on my part).

Makes me wonder what would happen if they met a woman in real life who could bench press more than they can. Because usually the guys who freak out like that aren't build like a pro bodybuilder IME.

 

[pantsorama]

a living war crime.

My fave Timothy Dalton era Bond movie

At a con back in the 90s (or was it the early 2000s?), a DM told a fellow player that their female character couldn't have a Strength higher than 15. The player was understandably angry about this, and an argument ensued. His defense: "That's not misogyny, that's just biology!" he declared. "I'm sorry you don't understand science!"

"Woops!" I said, loudly. "I'm at the wrong table." And I left without another word.

I won't play Cyberpunk at a Con due to a similar experience. A person who was neither Asian or a woman played a Japanese RockerGirl. They would go into disturbing detail about what they did (or promise to do) to the NPC, (apparently in public, I have no idea how these characters had the place or time) The GM mostly wouldn't even roll - the RockerGirl got whatever they needed.

I literally did the "'Oh I need to take this' when my phone wasn't even ringing" thing.

Who wants to play in a game where writing letters to Penthouse Forums for the GM is a superpower (and you get bonuses if you play to IRL racial stereotypes - yuck).

EDIT: Not to mention, why do such people have such a low opinion of their own gender? Do they not realize that turning into a drooling pile of dumb every time someone of a different sex bats their eyelids at them is not a good look. I know it is not high on the list of things that is wrong here, but... get some self respect, people.

 

[Willie the Duck]

And it’s not like Next Gen, Enterprise, DS9 or Voyager were any less prone to take progressive stances.

Amazingly, some of the people complaining about modern Trek's politics sometimes point to DS9 and say, 'there, that's how you do politics in trek without rubbing peoples' noses in it,' or similar. I wonder if they were watching the same DS9 I was. While I agree that DS9 was a high point for Trek, to cherry pick it and suggest that it was better because it did politics in a way one prefers (subtly, I guess?) is ignoring that by cherry picking, one is evading the Sturgeon's 90% culling (and goodness knows most nerd culture IPs are 3/4-9/10 junk. Star Trek actually having a fairly decent track record).

Spinning this back to Ernie and his dad's lit collection, this might be a good example (if he actually knows what is in it). 'This thing I grew up with and associate with my childhood/dad is a good example of dealing with racial issues, unlike the horrible way it is dealt with nowadays by these PeopleIDontLike.' Why? 'Well because I have fond memories of this thing. Also, by retroactively picking something that has stood the test of time (and any drek from that era was never saved), I am selectively misportraying the stuff from back then as higher quality).'

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Nifty spaceships and cool guitar solos? Yes, there are a LOT of people who never get deeper than that.

Yes, we call those people .... Star Wars fans.