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)

 

[Mannahnin]

The trademark lapsed and they swooped to get it before WotC's lawyers did.

So they do own the trademark... basically.

My understanding is that such a registration is invalid if someone else is still actively using the trademark (as in WotC continuing to sell PDFs with it). Use creates the trademark. Registration merely formalizes it.

 

[Steampunkette]

My understanding is that such a registration is invalid if someone else is still actively using the trademark (as in WotC continuing to sell PDFs with it). Use creates the trademark. Registration merely formalizes it.

More or less, yeah. Which is why WotC is gonna roflstomp Lanasa in court. Dude's got no real "Case" to support his activities.

Which is why he pressed for Dave Johnson to -quickly- produce the bigoted mess of New Genesis. To try and make "Something" to show use.

Unfortunately, what he has pressed to create defames the brand, which puts more ammo in WotC's pocket.

 

[Willie the Duck]

FWIW, West End Games, publisher of the d6 Star Wars RPG that was critically important to the Expanded Universe (as well as Paranoia, etc), was actually (owned by) a shoe company. It was actually the shoes that brought them down in the end, not bad sales in RPGs.

Oh dear! So, in the end, they were concrete shoes?

 

[Jer]

My understanding is that such a registration is invalid if someone else is still actively using the trademark (as in WotC continuing to sell PDFs with it). Use creates the trademark. Registration merely formalizes it.

I believe that this is correct. And it's also why when Fred Hicks grabbed the trademark and was thinking about doing something with it he immediately dropped those ideas when he saw that Wizards had started selling Star Frontiers on Drive Thru again (they'd taking it offline for a while - I think during the 4e decision against having any kind of PDFs for sale because the folks in charge just couldn't stop shooting themselves in the foot over stuff like that). Because he understood that that meant that Wizards could legitimately say "we've been selling a game named Star Frontiers so we have prior use on the mark".

LaNasa's plan for use of the trademark was dead in the water when he snagged the mark registration because Wizards had been using it for years by that point to sell PDFs. It's the same with the various TSR marks he is trying to claim are abandoned - they're all over the books that Wizards is selling on DriveThru.

(I think from what I've pieced together that LaNasa somehow thinks that selling PDFs somehow doesn't count for use of a trademark and that it only counts if its on something physical - which is why he needed a boxed set and a print book. And so their sales of PDFs on DriveThru don't count. Also that POD doesn't count and it only counts if you do an offset print run, since these books are also available POD. I don't know if he really thinks that or thinks he can get a judge who is sufficiently out of touch to rule that way but either way it's nuts.)

 

[Staffan]

Does it really have a claim to that?

They certainly have a claim. Whether it's a valid claim is for courts to decide.

 

[Ancalagon]

More or less, yeah. Which is why WotC is gonna roflstomp Lanasa in court. Dude's got no real "Case" to support his activities.

Which is why he pressed for Dave Johnson to -quickly- produce the bigoted mess of New Genesis. To try and make "Something" to show use.

Unfortunately, what he has pressed to create defames the brand, which puts more ammo in WotC's pocket.

He really is in a pickle - if he he had disavowed D Johnson's text he would have nothing, but by not doing so he's attracted a lot of anger (justifiably so IMO). And when people are stuck in a corner...

 

[Deset Gled]

They certainly have a claim. Whether it's a valid claim is for courts to decide.

This is really what is boils down to. @Mannahnin, @Steampunkette, and @Jer are also all completely correct in their reasoning. But at the end of the day a legal claim has been filed and it has to play out.

It's worth noting that TSR2 with Jayson Elliot actually pulled it off. They used the name TSR and published Top Secret material. There's nothing stopping multiple trademarks of the same name from existing, they just have to separate themselves in the marketplace. TSR2 was smart and walked the line; they never claimed to be the original TSR, they got new logos, they used Top Secret because it's a very generic title that was easy to build on without touching existing IP, etc.

NuTSR, OTOH, did absolutely everything wrong in a textbook way. Just like they screwed up the LLC filings that should have provided financial protections. All they had to do was follow a set of rules and they could have gotten away with it (at the very least, the DHSM should have been safe). Instead, they chose to be the proverbial pigeon on the chess board.

 

[LordEntrails]

I believe that this is correct. And it's also why when Fred Hicks grabbed the trademark and was thinking about doing something with it he immediately dropped those ideas when he saw that Wizards had started selling Star Frontiers on Drive Thru again (they'd taking it offline for a while - I think during the 4e decision against having any kind of PDFs for sale because the folks in charge just couldn't stop shooting themselves in the foot over stuff like that). Because he understood that that meant that Wizards could legitimately say "we've been selling a game named Star Frontiers so we have prior use on the mark".

Do note, that even when wen SF was not available on DriveThru, it was legally available under license (for free) through the StarFrontiersman & FrontierExplorer fanzines and associated websites. Tom (not @Jedion357 ) was the one who had the license agreement and it was revoked by WotC when WotC went back to making them available on DriveThru (roughly), probably because of the Fred Hicks interaction,

I'm not sure of all the details, but I do know SF was still actively being used with permission even when it was not on DriveThru.

 

[Mannahnin]

NuTSR, OTOH, did absolutely everything wrong in a textbook way.

TBF, they were attempting to perpetuate the exact kind of fraud that trademark law is intended to prevent.

ie: they claimed to be the original company, and attempted to create market confusion to enable sales of their merchandise, promote the DHSM (and sell games being run there at an inflated rate) and use of the name for licensing.

 

[darjr]

Do note, that even when wen SF was not available on DriveThru, it was legally available under license (for free) through the StarFrontiersman & FrontierExplorer fanzines and associated websites. Tom (not @Jedion357 ) was the one who had the license agreement and it was revoked by WotC when WotC went back to making them available on DriveThru (roughly), probably because of the Fred Hicks interaction,

I'm not sure of all the details, but I do know SF was still actively being used with permission even when it was not on DriveThru.

Note they still have a zine in Drivethru that is allowed to have SF content and they also just released an adventure and had plans to do more for the 40th(?) anniversary.

I think they are the only 3rd party group allowed on Drivethru or to sell.