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)

 

[Wincenworks]

An important thing to understand with all this is: The veil is pierced when a judge says its pierced.

Part of the reason that it doesn't happen often is it is rarely worth the time, expense and drama of a court case. Usually people who do the kind of thing it warrants are either too pathetic to make it worth it, or already naughty word (debt, incarceration, death or disappearance) and in the few cases outside of that - people settle.

Justin's business interests and his finances seem to be a huge mess, and it would not surprise me at all to learn that he's got a mess of loans, joint ventures, partnerships and trusts that will take a team of forensic accountants armed with chainsaws a year to decipher - or that Justin himself isn't sure on what he does or doesn't own.

Generally speaking if one intended to count on limited liability for a defence, one should keep the distinctions as clear as possible. It is pretty clear that Justin has never done that. His tattoo shop only registered and LLC a few years ago, even though he's supposedly been running it for forever.

A big factor here, that works more against him in the here and now - is that this nonsense also diminishes the credibility of his suit, his defence in the counter-suit etc because... he's obviously not acting as a serious business trying to publish old school games and revive the legacy of TSR Inc. He's acting like the kind of weirdo buffoon who would register some trademarks purely for trolling purposes and also hire a Nazi to write a book with "Negro" as a race - and who operated independently on his own name rather than specifically through limited liability companies.

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.

And this is what I mean by "business" ESPN is a cable company so providing entertainment, including commenting on other entertainment etc is their stated business and it serves their business interests.

Promoting random venues in North Carolina with a link and no explanation how it relates to anything, is not really DHSM's business or serving their business interests. It's inconsistent with the narrative of the business, and even though it's mild discrepancy - many, many of them add up over time and contribute to the overall look.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

According to a Cornell Law article:

Bankruptcy fraud carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, or a fine of up to $250,000, or both. Even just intending to commit bankruptcy fraud may be punishable.

 

[Wincenworks]

According to a Cornell Law article:

More commonly it's two years - but again it depends on the appetite of the trustee and the FBI to prosecute.

But realistically even six months would be beyond disastrous for Justin.

But that said, expect the wheels to grind exceptionally slow for anything related to criminal - it's quite a hike to get from "this guy wrote some shady numbers" to "we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt he knowingly defrauded the IRS"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Absolutely.

 

[Hussar]

All things aside, let’s be honest here. He’s as likely to spontaneously combust as do jail time here. It’s just not going to happen.

 

[JackMann]

I don't think it's impossible. I think it's unlikely, but if he decided his ego couldn't stand listening to a judge, he could face some jail time. I think it's more likely he just gets told to stop being an idiot and pay what he owes, but I don't think it's impossible he decides he can out-alpha a judge and end up facing more severe penalties. He's probably smart enough to know that, and he's probably not going to play those games. But I think it's only a probably.

Basically, I don't think he sees jail unless he screws up even worse than he's done so far, but I'm unwilling to dismiss the possibility that he does.

 

[Deset Gled]

All things aside, let’s be honest here. He’s as likely to spontaneously combust as do jail time here. It’s just not going to happen.

On the one hand, you have a very valid point.

On the other other hand, Lanasa seems to be hell bent on the path to rock bottom. He's had so many ways out of this, but he escalates with every step. Yes, it's ridiculous to think that this would end with Lanasa in criminal trouble. But what else seems like it could ever make his quit? At this point, I'm just hoping that he stops dragging other people down with him.

On the other other hand, I feel like we've been saying some variation of this for over two years. Two years? If you told me two years ago this thread would still be actively updated, I would have called it ridiculous. What are the odds the legal case would make it out of the USPTO's hands and into federal court, where it would linger for years? Who would expect that Ernie's first round of insensitive remarks would eventually lead to NuTSR having a literal nazi as a writer? Things have escalated to a point where actual criminal charges over bankruptcy fraud may not be the most ridiculous part of the story.

On the other other other hand, if this story were a book, jail time for the villain would be a great conclusion to the narrative.

And at that point, we are a Girallon.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

And at that point, we are a Girallon.

Oh, I'd hardly compare Grits to Jean Valjean.

...

... wait, that's not a Les Misérables reference.

 

[Deset Gled]

I can't tell if those are giants or windmills in the distance, but I'm going in.

For over a year now, Mick McArt has been proudly showing off his sales of Dungeon Crawl by NuTSR. He happily took pics of folks with the game last year, and continued the trend during his tour of fairs and farmer's markets this summer. Between McArt's and NuTSR's social media accounts, there are dozens of posts about McArt selling copies.

This is a picture of the booth design Mick was showing off this year, along with a pic of him selling a game. It's just one example. The DHSM even re-shared this on FB. The arrow shows where you can see more copies of Dungeon Crawl when you zoom in.

But about a month ago, right after NuTSR declared bankruptcy, McArt abruptly stopped sharing pics of fans holding Dungeon Crawl. And now, the new pics he shares of his booth look like this.

Its exactly the same booth design as in the last pic. But the big banner is covering up the board games. Curious. And even though he's been to 3~4 shows since the bankruptcy, McArt hasn't shown a single picture where Dungeon Crawl is visible.

Well, here's a pic of a different booth layout that he just posted today:

Hmm, what's that in the corner?

Yup, that's definitely Dungeon Crawl. It's fuzzy and behind a display of books, but that's undeniably the game.

It sure looks to me like McArt is still selling Dungeon Crawl, but doesn't want to advertise it on his social media. But why would McArt be hiding it now? He's stood behind Lanasa though the worst of the bigotry (and by all accounts, it appears McArt is on board with most of it). Is he worried that selling games from a company that just declared bankruptcy might bring unwanted attention to his business? Did Lanasa tell him that Dungeon Crawl is now by "OSR" instead of "TSR", and Lanasa doesn't want anyone to know that McArt is selling copies with the original branding? Could it be that the copies are technically owned by Lanasa, not McArt, and this is undeclared income for the bankrupt NuTSR?

 

[Umbran]

Did Lanasa tell him that Dungeon Crawl is now by "OSR" instead of "TSR", and Lanasa doesn't want anyone to know that McArt is selling copies with the original branding?

So, I would expect LaNasa uses a model in which he sells copies to a retailer, and from there it is the retailer's problem. So long as LaNasa hasn't sold more copies to McArt, with the original branding, they'd be fine.

Mind you, if McArt still has old-branding copies to sell, that suggests they don't move well....