Elon Musk Calls for Wizards of the Coast to "Burn in Hell" Over Making of Original D&D Passages

Elon Musk, the owner of the app formerly known as Twitter, is calling on Wizards of the Coast and its parent company Hasbro to "burn in hell" for the publication of Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons. On November 21st, former gaming executive turned culture warrior Mark Hern posted several passages from Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons on Twitter, criticizing the book for providing context about some of the misogyny and cultural insensitivity found in early rulebooks. These passages were pulled from the foreword written by Jason Tondro, a senior designer for the D&D team who also worked extensively on the book. Hern stated that these passages, along with the release of the new 2024 Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D's "40th anniversary" (it is actually D&D's 50th anniversary) both "erased and slandered" Gary Gygax and other creators of Dungeons & Dragons.

In response, Musk wrote "Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash E. Gary Gygax and the geniuses who created Dungeons & Dragons. What the [naughty word] is wrong with Hasbro and WoTC?? May they burn in hell." Musk had played Dungeons & Dragons at some point in his youth, but it's unclear when the last time he ever played the game.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash E. Gary Gygax and the geniuses who created Dungeons & Dragons. What the [xxxx] is wrong with Hasbro and WoTC?? May they burn in hell.

- Elon Musk​

Notably, Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons contains countless correspondences and letters written by both Gygax and Dave Arneson, including annotated copies of early D&D rulesets. Most early D&D rules supplements as well as early Dragon magazines are also found in the book. It seems odd to contain one of the most extensive compliations of Gygax's work an "erasure," but it's unclear whether Hern or Musk actually read the book given the incorrect information about the anniversary.

Additionally, Gygax and Arneson are both credited in the 2024 Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. The exact credit reads: "Building on the original game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and then developed by many others over the past 50 years." Wizards of the Coast also regularly collaborates with Gygax's youngest son Luke and is a participant at Gary Con, a convention held in Gygax's honor. The opening paragraph of the 2024 Player's Handbook is written by Jeremy Crawford and specifically lauds both Gygax and Arneson for making Dungeons & Dragons and contains an anecdote about Crawford meeting Gygax.

Musk has increasingly leaned into culture war controversies in recent years, usually amplifying misinformation to suit his own political agenda.

 

[Nikosandros]

Considering what a horrible and extremely dangerous person Musk is, his idiotic statements about WotC rank pretty low in my list of things that I despise about him.

 

[GreyLord]

On the bright side, WotC already burns in the Hells (Nine Hells at least, then if you want to go deeper we have the Abyss, and other places).

It has been incredibly profitable.

Tieflings are extremely popular as well, even more so than the Asimar are.

WotC has it all, from the Seven Heavens, the Elysium, and more!

So, thank you for the encouragement, and if all is well, they will continue to burn brightly for years to come.

 

[GreyLord]

As Morrus already noted, the book doesn't even call anyone any names. It doesn't even name anyone to criticize them. It just talks about the text.


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That's extremely educational. It looks like Musk is not an early riser. From that, it appears that he sleeps from approximately 2Am/3AM to around 10:30/11AM. Late nights and late mornings. That implies he probably doesn't have the work ethic he claims he has these days...but who knows?

Though, going by how many twitter posts he has, he must consider posting to twitter (Oh, that's right, it's called X these days) as work, which...I'm not so sure I would share that same opinion with.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's extremely educational. It looks like Musk is not an early riser. From that, it appears that he sleeps from approximately 2Am/3AM to around 10:30/11AM. Late nights and late mornings. That implies he probably doesn't have the work ethic he claims he has these days...but who knows?

Work ethic is for people trapped working at Twitter by their H 1B visas whom you can make sleep at their desks and have their loved ones bring them clean clothes periodically.

 

[GreyLord]

He's also documented as one of the top Diablo IV players on the planet... I don't know how familiar you might be with D4, but that's not an accomplishment based on skill, but rather an accomplishment based on the amount of time you've burned away playing that game. And he somehow manages to play that game a stupid amount of time, like thousands of hours.

There was a guy recently that posted the top player lists and almost proved that the top 70 or so were all using cheats (proveable by the impossible stats they had, and impossible items that could not be found in game, only created by a cheat). He theorized, that since he was like 96th or so in the top 100, and the top 75 or so could be proven to be in their positions by cheating, that he was actually in like the top 25 legitimate players in the world.

 

[overgeeked]

That's extremely educational. It looks like Musk is not an early riser. From that, it appears that he sleeps from approximately 2Am/3AM to around 10:30/11AM. Late nights and late mornings. That implies he probably doesn't have the work ethic he claims he has these days...but who knows?

It’s always weird to see this puritan nonsense. You get 8 hours of sleep at a different time than I do, therefore you must be lazy and have no work ethic.

Not defending Musk, at all, rather the millions of people who don’t work 9-5 jobs.

 

[Lanefan]

However, I will also entertain myself by asking them two questions-
1. What does DEI stand for?
2. What does "woke" mean?

1. Drunk to Extreme Inebriation.
2. Awake, unlikely to be the case once 1. is in effect.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

It’s always weird to see this puritan nonsense. You get 8 hours of sleep at a different time than I do, therefore you must be lazy and have no work ethic.

Yeah, there's tons of good reasons to dump on him. No need to throw shade at night owls (like I used to be before Baby Yoda came along (it's complicated)).

 

[Maxperson]

Am I the only one disappointed that Musk said Hell instead of the 9 Hells of Baator?

I think Musk is more of the NuTSR type and would have stopped at 9 Hells.

 

[Nikosandros]

Yeah, there's tons of good reasons to dump on him. No need to throw shade at night owls (like I used to be before Baby Yoda came along (it's complicated)).

Since I teach and I have to be in the classroom at 8 AM, I've became an early riser, but some of my most productive periods (in my younger years) where those in which I went to bed at 3 AM and rose at 11.