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)

 

[darjr]

Wait. So are the racial slurs faked?

 

[Thomas Shey]

But with Star Frontiers, the IP in question is neither owned nor licensed by nuTSR.

Of course from the description so far, neither the setting IP nor the mechanics show any relationship to the original Star Frontiers whatsoever. As best I can tell if they removed the Trademark violation that is the name, there's be no connection.

 

[Steampunkette]

Wait. So are the racial slurs faked?

They -may- be faked. Right now we have evidence that they are and evidence from an earlier point that they weren't.

The question is who added the racial slurs to the document. nuTSR or the Leaker.

All evidence points to it still being nuTSR, however. We just need final confirmation which I've directly asked the Leaker to provide. If they can't, it's been faked. When they provide it, it'll be confirmed.

 

[Ancalagon]

They -may- be faked. Right now we have evidence that they are and evidence from an earlier point that they weren't.

The question is who added the racial slurs to the document. nuTSR or the Leaker.

All evidence points to it still being nuTSR, however. We just need final confirmation which I've directly asked the Leaker to provide. If they can't, it's been faked. When they provide it, it'll be confirmed.

I mean, given David Johnson's views, it's very plausible he would have written it that way. And other associates using Confederacy imagery is certainly adding more credence. But a good fake is a plausible one, so...

 

[Faolyn]

I ... ugh... feel slimy defending his design, but

You and I are a larvae. the very first animals were stationary (tunicates, etc) but some had mobile larvae to spread themselves out. Then the animals spent more and more time in the larval mobile form, until we evolve to leave the stationary mode entirely behind.

Several insects have an adult stage where they "mate and die", and spend the great majority of their lives in the non adult form. You could have a species where all their spacefaring and other major cultural/tech activities are done by the "immature" form, and then at the end of their life they breed and die. The immature forms may be very capable and able to do the things that adult humans do.

I didn't read the text so maybe I'm missing something?

Sorry, I should have written "bad sociology" instead of biology.

If the entomoids were a monster race--even one that had a high degree of innate intelligence--then their design would be OK. But Johnson wrote that they don't live together, cooperate with each other, or care about one another at all, so it makes no sense that he also wrote that they had been able to create the same level of technology as the other spacefaring races and work together as the crew of a starship. He wrote that they'll work together to create machines, but creating a machine--at least a high-tech one--involves a lot of people living and working together to come up with the ideas in the first place, teaching and developing the science and technology needed to fulfill those ideas and how to find, create, and refine the materials needed to build the make them.

In the webcoming Freefall, the alien race called the Sqid apparently also have their males and females die after mating/producing young, but in their case only a fraction of adults are fertile in the first place, and non-fertile adults raise and teach the offspring. But the Sqid's technology is at a Victorian-level, whereas the humans are spacefarers.

The entomoids could have been an interesting pirate-like monster race. Say they were intelligent, fully sapient, but didn't have any sort of real culture. Humans colonize their planet. The entomoids kill them and take their stuff and figure out how to use the weapons and get off-world with the colony ships--mostly by trial and error, since they aren't going to teach each other. Then they spend the rest of their time flying around space alone and killing other people and taking their stuff so they could replace their aging and malfunctioning equipment, or hiring/enslaving others to fix it for them, because they don't have the knowledge needed to do it themselves. That could be pretty cool.

 

[Faolyn]

They -may- be faked. Right now we have evidence that they are and evidence from an earlier point that they weren't.

The question is who added the racial slurs to the document. nuTSR or the Leaker.

All evidence points to it still being nuTSR, however. We just need final confirmation which I've directly asked the Leaker to provide. If they can't, it's been faked. When they provide it, it'll be confirmed.

The material produced (or supposedly produced) by Johnson is totally different than the material that was credited mostly to Logan Hovermale. Not just the lack of slurs, but also the content and base assumptions of the setting. If someone faked it, then it goes beyond merely adding bad language; the faker would have to have written dozens or hundreds of pages worth of content. Which seems like a lot of work to go through for no real gain. We already have Johnson's bigoted views from twitter and he hasn't apologized for them AFAIK, so inventing more bigoted views is unnecessary.

Now, if the slur-filled document were to be made public so a side-by-side comparison to Hovermale's documents can be made and the metadata examined, that'd be great.

 

[DLIMedia]

Wait. So are the racial slurs faked?

No proof of that. They "shared" a Google Drive that is extremely old (hasn't been touched since January, before Michael H left them) and barely has anything in it. Doesn't even have the beta PDF in qustion.

Really doesn't mean a thing.

 

[Steampunkette]

The material produced (or supposedly produced) by Johnson is totally different than the material that was credited mostly to Logan Hovermale. Not just the lack of slurs, but also the content and base assumptions of the setting. If someone faked it, then it goes beyond merely adding bad language; the faker would have to have written dozens or hundreds of pages worth of content. Which seems like a lot of work to go through for no real gain. We already have Johnson's bigoted views from twitter and he hasn't apologized for them AFAIK, so inventing more bigoted views is unnecessary.

Now, if the slur-filled document were to be made public so a side-by-side comparison to Hovermale's documents can be made and the metadata examined, that'd be great.

Hovermale's documents just -don't- compare. Like at all.

All of Hovermale's work was centered around Star Frontiers as a 5e setting with subclasses, feats, new spells, new skills, etc. It would -just- have been a 5e Sourcebook. No more "Old School Revival" than Sins of the Scorpion Age.

Then with the WotC campaign they hired on Johnson who wrote up a whole document separate from anything and everything Hovermale wrote.

Like. Nothing in that drive is represented in the Johnson Beta Packet 'cause it was all 5e stuff and Johnson's schtick is a whole new system concept.

 

[DLIMedia]

...and now they updated the images they posted to cross out the Google Drive link (which still works; I checked)...

Not the sharpest spoons in the drawer, are they?

 

[Steampunkette]

...and now they updated the images they posted to cross out the Google Drive link...

View attachment 254994

Not the sharpest spoons in the drawer, are they?

Ahhhh, yes.

Now it's just a random discord message from a random person with no information which supports their statement! Brilliant!

Should I go ahead and post the address in the thread orrrr...?