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)

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, this. That people saying the same things as Justin and advocating the same things Justin does hurts people even if it's not Justin directly who is doing the harming.

Oh, sorry, my bad, I misunderstood.

 

[Deset Gled]

Minor update in Lanasa v. Stiene.

It appears that @tenkar has filed notice of appearance for his lawyer. And the first thing the lawyer did is file a motion for an extension. This will give them more time to respond to Lanasa's SLAPP. I don't see a response from the court yet, but it seems very likely the extension will be granted.

 

[LordEntrails]

And no, making fun of his inability to spell check (AS A FREAKING EDITOR AND PUBLISHER) is not bad in the context of who he is.

You do you.

I suppose what you're failing to grasp is that what you claim is bullying is not necessarily bullying, just because you say it is.

I'm not the first one, or the only, to make that statement. I'm just the one who has done it in a way that triggers some folks or is most noticeable because I'm not as capable as presenting it in a sensitive manner as others.

But just like because I think something is bullying does not make it so, you claiming it is not does not make it not bullying. Whether defined as bullying or not, some folks are indeed saying it is not desirable behavior, and it does not add value to this thread.

Seriously though, if one person wants to erase you from the world and you make fun of their haircut in return those aren't even close to comparable.

I never did. But making fun of their hair cut does not help you and only distracts from the fact that what they are wanting is bad.

Dunking on horrible people is about the least worst thing that can happen to them.

So? That's a pretty low bar to set. Instead of spending time doing least worst things, maybe folks should spend time doing good things? Even least good things.

Really tired of the civility arguments, in general. I guess the problem in Weimar Germany was that nobody tsked-tsked and wagged their fingers hard enough at the brownshirts.

Yea, not even close in comparison. Or accurate in the situation.

No, no, no, you are supposed to dig upwards.

And how does this help the discussion? I understand Justin's behavior is (rightfully) a sensitive topic for you. But continuing to lash out at me does not help you.

This strikes me as tone trolling, where you agree with what someone says but not the way they say it, which all too often is used to assert control on how people choose to express their legitimate feelings on the matter.

Yea, not my intent at all.

yeah, I can't see how crossing the words like that in a really passive agressive manner can be okay. All while trying to lecture people on what they should do to be good people.

What I was doing is more simple than that. And perhaps you should have a little bit of faith in people or at least ask them why they did something before ass-ing something.

Simple, I wrote it without the struck through and italicized word. And I spent some time trying to say it as best I could. And I posted it. And I then re-read it one more time and said, yea, I could have said that better. But, knowing how fast this thread moves, I didn't want to just change what I said without admitting I said what I said. So I left the previous words in there so that if someone quoted me before I changed it it was not like I was trying to deny it.

In other words, I admit that I am not the best at conveying my thoughts. That I am willing to correct what I write. But that I've got enough integrity to admit my shortcomings and leave the original text there if for some reason it was relevant.

Go ahead and make fun of me if you want. It's the least worst thing.

 

[LordEntrails]

Minor update in Lanasa v. Stiene.

It appears that @tenkar has filed notice of appearance for his lawyer. And the first thing the lawyer did is file a motion for an extension. This will give them more time to respond to Lanasa's SLAPP. I don't see a response from the court yet, but it seems very likely the extension will be granted.

Any idea how long it takes to file an Anti-SLAPP (or is it called something else) against a lawsuit? r is it just done with the response? i.e. How's that work?

 

[Deset Gled]

Any idea how long it takes to file an Anti-SLAPP (or is it called something else) against a lawsuit? r is it just done with the response? i.e. How's that work?

My understanding is that a lot of anti-SLAPP laws are designed so that you can invoke them before the lawsuit gets into full swing and prevent high costs, but I think there are also cases where folk have had to go through the full suit and recoup costs later.

The extension isn't really much of an indicator right now. The suit Lanasa filed was so broad (e.g. he cited just about every single video Tenkar posted that ever mentioned NuTSR, regardless of content, going back to the earliest days when it was just curiosity about what the heck was going on) that it would take a real lawyer more than 30 days to respond to all of it.

 

[DLIMedia]

Back on topic... Quick case update. Apparently there's a sudden hearing scheduled for tomorrow. No information on what it's about or who called for it.

 

[JackMann]

I think part of the confusion is that there are a few separate issues with NuTSR and Lanasa. They fall into two categories, broadly, which are somewhat intertwined.

The first category are essentially defects of character. The bigotry, the cruel statements about people's children, the character assassination. These are the biggest issues going, and are the main reason I would push to keep Lanasa and company out of the community.

The second category are basically business failings. These are less heinous. This includes the attempts to claim an IP they have no real rights to, the inability to produce a real product, lying to customers. These are not nearly as bad as the first, and I wouldn't necessarily push to ostracize someone over them the way I would for espousing white supremacist beliefs. That doesn't mean they aren't still relevant when talking about them in their capacity as a publisher, however. Even if Lanasa and company weren't terrible people (or willing to stand up for terrible people), their track record would make it difficult to trust them to produce anything, let alone a good product.

So, discussing the misspellings in that capacity is fair. Discussing them as though they were a moral failing really isn't.

And of course discussing Gentry's claim that they were photoshopped in by ne'er-do-wells is probably the part that's actually most germane to this thread.

 

[Morrus]

OK, if this thread has turned into people yelling at each other rather than discussing NuTSR, it has probably outlived its usefulness (and ironically reinforcing a particular stereotype). I’ll give it chance to get back on track, but I’ll be watching to see if it does. I suggest that the ‘misspelling’ topic be dropped.

 

[Deset Gled]

Back on topic... Quick case update. Apparently there's a sudden hearing scheduled for tomorrow. No information on what it's about or who called for it.

View attachment 264267

Dang, I just checked for updates, too.

 

[DLIMedia]

Dang, I just checked for updates, too.

There's no PDF attached to it; it's a popup. I almost missed it myself.