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)

 

[Umbran]

2. How about not doing either? It's not an either/or. You can not spam the attorneys and also not post every little detail about his life

Mod Note:

And you can just not read the thread if you don't like its content. Or, you can put certain people in it on ignore so you don't see their posts.

But it is time for you to stop telling folks what they should, or shouldn't post. If you cannot resist that temptation, it can be enforced.

 

[Wincenworks]

IANAL so maybe someone who is can explain this - it seems like if LaNasa wants out of this mess he could just agree to give everything to Wizards and see if they'll negotiate on the treble damages and costs side of things. Instead of all of this bankruptcy and hiding assets he could just hand it over and say "sorry for trying to jack your copyright" and see if he could get Wizards to agree to just let it all move on with each side covering their own costs. Is that right?

The part the Wizards of the Coast would likely demand, and Justin would likely find unacceptable - is they would want him to pay their costs (which are likely massive at this point) and even worse, issue a public apology in which he admits he was in the wrong the entire time.

In all likelihood, Wizards of the Coast has offered him several compromises throughout the course of this and he's thumbed his nose at them - and now they're at the point where anything less than a lengthy (and humiliating) public apology and substantial payment toward their costs and compensation for their troubles (probably roughly his net worth).

Aside from the obvious PR issues of not wanting to appear to support hateful reactions, WotC cannot be seen to allow people to think they can benefit from copyright and trademark trolling them. He might have gotten out easy if he'd kept it discreet - but when he announced he was going to drink their blood and force them to change the disclaimers etc he basically obligated them to make an example out of him.

You're basically arguing that a company cannot make any reference to another company under same ownership regardless of context or it's "mingling businesses."

Advertising is generally a service people pay for, and so essentially what he's doing is trying to use the TSR brand (which WotC owns) to try to enrich himself via advertising for his other businesses. It's not necessarily financially comingling but it's one more snowflake in the avalanche of evidence WotC can bring forward that he's operating in bad faith and liability shouldn't be limited to the LLCs alone.

After all DHSM isn't promoting his MotB because it's relevant, because it serves their audience, etc They're doing it because it furthers Justin's personal interests - and that is contrary to the stated purpose of serving old school gamers, looking out for the family and original coworkers of Gary Gygax, etc.

If he were running a legit business, it would be inconsequential - but because he's not, it contributes to the bigger picture in various ways.

He has to believe he's cleverer than everyone else. That his legal trickery, movement of assets, and other schemes will pay off big time. Because if they don't, if he was wrong, then not only does he face real consequences, it will turn out that he wasn't smarter than everyone in the room.

Justin has an extensive history of getting away with pissing off and naughty word around with his local city, political rivals, traffic cops, etc. He appears to have (in my opinion) built up a mythology of himself as a superior person, a go-getter, etc who often gets away with things simply by being overly loud and brazen until people let him go rather than deal with the embarassment.

That backfired on him with the grits wrestling incident, and it's almost certainly going to backfire on him with the current proceedings because WotC is using white shoe law firms - ie people who are paid to not acknowledge second hand embarrassment and keep their eye on the prize the whole time. They operate in an entirely calculated and methodically manner, and in trying his usual approach - he has gifted them a mountain of ammunition to use against him.

Even if he weasels out of losing everything and/or going to prison - he's still almost certainly going to come out a loser... but regardless he'll tell people he was in the right, and he was smarter, etc.

 

[Umbran]

Even if he weasels out of losing everything and/or going to prison...

Note: nothing in the WotC suit is going to send him to prison. The stuff with WotC isn't a criminal case.

Now, if all this leads to the IRS seeing him involved in tax evasion, that will be a different case. Literally.

 

[Deset Gled]

Note: nothing in the WotC suit is going to send him to prison. The stuff with WotC isn't a criminal case.

Now, if all this leads to the IRS seeing him involved in tax evasion, that will be a different case. Literally.

Lanasa's recent shenanigans with bankruptcy are probably the highest chance he has of being sent to prison. By taking NuTSR assets and hiding them at the DHSM, rebranding NuTSR IP, and claiming questionable debts to himself, he's playing a very dangerous game. Bankruptcy fraud is taken pretty seriously. What's worse, any conspirators (i.e. the "volunteers" at the DHSM) could get implicated as well if they're not careful.

For a late night news update, it looks like Ernie Gygax's health is not well. He originally reported going to the hospital on July 4th, but didn't make it seem too major at the time. He gave an update today that makes it seem much more serious.

Here's hoping he gets better soon.

 

[jdrakeh]

Yeah, I saw that re: Ernie's health. As somebody who suffered a massive heart attack a few years ago and will be taking an obscene amount of medication for the rest of my life as a result, my deepest sympathies go out to him. I've never been so scared as I was in the ER that morning and I've experienced some naughty word in my lifetime.

 

[Clint_L]

We know Justin does mingle business based on his paypal LLC stuff. But one business making a post about another business isn't mingling. Not from a legal sense. That's...ridiculous. You're basically arguing that a company cannot make any reference to another company under same ownership regardless of context or it's "mingling businesses."

Hmmm…I read his point to be that the mingling may be of interest to a lawyer, few of us are lawyers, so put the information out there and let them decide. I’m not sure if you are a lawyer, so I can’t comment on your opinion about what law is ridiculous or not, except that to me it doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility.

LaNasa seems like the absolute worst, so I’m not to interested in defending him against scrutiny of his public business.

 

[Wincenworks]

Note: nothing in the WotC suit is going to send him to prison. The stuff with WotC isn't a criminal case.

Now, if all this leads to the IRS seeing him involved in tax evasion, that will be a different case. Literally.

As is commonly the case with these matters, the potential criminal aspects are not his direct business details but rather his attempts to weasel out of them - increasing the risk constantly with the assumption nobody will care.

Most likely: The bankruptcy has some potential charges, depending on the appetite of the trustee and FBI, which could involve actual prison time depending on the circumstances, the amounts involved and how far things progress. If he claims those bad debts on his tax returns and then is found to be dishonest about them - then the IRS may very well consider it to be on like Donkey Kong.
Least likely: Perjury over his submissions in the WotC. Even the ones where he is clearly lying through his teeth, courts are really reluctant to push for the charges - particularly in a case where the party already lost the action - purely because they don't want to create excessive anxiety over supplying evidence and testifying.
Mid range: Contempt of court for breaching the protective order, or other crimes relating to the ongoing harassment of Don Semora. It will depend on the findings of various parties and appetite to push for it by them.

With all these matters, the wheels grind slow so... who knows.

But that's just the story to date. One of the major issues here is that with TSR LLC folding, WotC should win the initial suit on default - however they are still free to continue with the counter-suit (which is much, much higher stakes) as long as there is a party still standing to sue - so there are plenty for potential for Justin to continue and escalate the matters.

As I said, he's used to getting away with petty naughty word - but he's off the map now.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Hmmm…I read his point to be that the mingling may be of interest to a lawyer, few of us are lawyers, so put the information out there and let them decide. I’m not sure if you are a lawyer, so I can’t comment on your opinion about what law is ridiculous or not, except that to me it doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility.

It would be nice if an actual lawyer with expertise chimed in, but I can't see how it even passes the smell test. Think of it like this. ESPN is in financial trouble, and has been doing massive layoffs. Let's say for sake of argument ESPN had to file bankruptcy. According to the argument presented above, ESPN couldn't make a comment about how the new Little Mermaid movie is inspirational for little girls of color (ESPN does have segments on subjects like equality and race) or how they enjoyed the new Indiana Jones movie, since ESPN is owned by Disney. I can't find a single legal definition of comingling that says you can't even mention another company.

LaNasa seems like the absolute worst, so I’m not to interested in defending him against scrutiny of his public business.

Oh, I don't disagree with you here. This is less about defending LaNasa, and more of advising caution about losing the high road. I also see risk, because if you go through this thread, there have been accusations from folks without any evidence at all, but speculation based on biased amateur internet sleuthing. And we all know how much Justin likes to "sued" people for that.

*To avoid any misunderstanding, I'm not telling people they should or shouldn't do anything. I'm only expressing how that might not be a good idea.

 

[Mannahnin]

It would be nice if an actual lawyer with expertise chimed in, but I can't see how it even passes the smell test. Think of it like this. ESPN is in financial trouble, and has been doing massive layoffs. Let's say for sake of argument ESPN had to file bankruptcy. According to the argument presented above, ESPN couldn't make a comment about how the new Little Mermaid movie is inspirational for little girls of color (ESPN does have segments on subjects like equality and race) or how they enjoyed the new Indiana Jones movie, since ESPN is owned by Disney. I can't find a single legal definition of comingling that says you can't even mention another company.

But there's so little (or no) separation here. These businesses functionally are just Justin, employing a couple of folks working retail storefront. There's no larger organization with levels of management and diffused decision-making.

It's Justin using his Port City Kava cc point of service to charge transactions from the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, which come/came directly from the TSR Hobbies website and are branded with the TSR Hobbies logo. It's the DHSM Facebook page advertising his other totally unrelated business which has no connection to TSR or old school gaming. It's Justin rebranding his books as "OSR Games, LLC" AFTER filing bankruptcy with TSR Hobbies and claiming to have no assets worth anything. All the corporate governance is just Justin behind different LLCs which he mixes the interests of interchangeably, because those businesses are really all just him.

ESPN has their own board of directors, their own legal team, hundreds or thousands of people involved with decision making, and none of the corporate funds involved going into their own pockets except through a paycheck.

 

[DLIMedia]

Note: nothing in the WotC suit is going to send him to prison. The stuff with WotC isn't a criminal case.

If anything is going to get him jail time, it's his antics in the bankruptcy case. If he keeps up trying to juggle his finances around, it's quite possible there will come a point where the court might suggest pursuing criminal charges.

ETA: I see this has been answered already... Sorry, running kinda slow brain-wise this morning.