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.

 

[Parmandur]

There is a lot of that too. And the new platforms magnify it. Pops in your human head, disseminated for eternity.

I am sure he plays D&D adjacent video games but doubt he has really delved into 5e etc or maybe even played it once.

He is as the op says culture warring like so many others.

5E, seriously doubt. He did play D&D as a teen, though.

 

[Parmandur]

Because he is autistic, has no filter, and loved the game.

Juat because he is on the spectrum and has a limited capacity for keeping his thoughts inside is not really an excuse.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

And because it’s pandering to a political base he dearly wants to build his Twitter empire upon because it cements their support and furthers his government career. There’s not just an impulse control problem here. He knows how his base will react to this.

Never thought I'd see the day when the upper echlons on political power would care this much about D&D it's freaking weird time to be alive.

 

[Azzy]

did not realize you had to address me personally for me to reply to your post…

I think calling Musk a net negative to society is reality based

It is. Oligarchs are the enemy of the people.

 

[darjr]

Lee Gold is still alive too. They can ask her. I think she recently crowdfunded a game of hers.

Here is @BenRiggs article, he just recently posted it again to Facebook.

D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist. Talking About it is Key to Preserving his Legacy. — Ben Riggs

“Damn right I am a sexist. It doesn’t matter to me if women get paid as much as men… They can jolly well stay away from wargaming in droves for all I care.” -Gary Gygax, EUROPA 10/11 August-September 1975 Do TTRPG Historians Lie? The internet has been rending its clothes and gnashing its teeth

www.writerbenriggs.com

Edit:

I think it's important to add Heidi Gygax's response to Benn.

Regarding the post by Ben Riggs “D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist” IMO much seems to be taken out of context and pieced together. I cannot verify the sources, although I truly believe they are incomplete and/or incorrect. I think Frank Mentzer states his insights on this eloquently. As for my perspective, I do not believe my father was racist or misogynistic. Was he sexist? He was born in 1938 to a father born in the 1880’s and a mother born in 1906. He was raised in a traditional Anglo-Saxon Protestant family with traditional biblical family values where the male was the head of the household. In my adult opinion, yes, this is sexist and doesn’t hold up to our more enlightened standards today. Yet, he was a loving father and husband who valued all of his children and his wife. All 3 of his daughters played D&D with him at some point, but I happen to be the only one who still plays. In short, he wasn’t perfect, but he was far from all of the negative accusations that are (re) surfacing, and I’m extremely proud - as a strong, independent female - to have E. Gary Gygax as my father and my family legacy.

I updated my earlier post with Heidi Gygax's response.

 

[Remathilis]

Never thought I'd see the day when the upper echlons on political power would care this much about D&D it's freaking weird time to be alive.

He doesn't. But you do. And he wants to use your anger to his purpose.

 

[Some Dude]

I just think people can reach different conclusion about this stuff and not hate each other over it. And there is a range of opinion as well. Some people might reject the foreword entirely. Some people might agree with what it says about sexist language, but reject other aspects of the criticism. Some people might agree with what it says about sexism and other things, but disagree with calling it conscious misogyny. It goes on and on. I think we can all have these different views, without accusing each other of being completely wrong or bad. And I think when it comes to judging Gygax himself, people are going to have wildly different opinions. These are charged terms that require individual judgment to decide how well grounded we think the criticisms are. You have reached some different conclusions than I have (and I don't disagree with everything you have said). But it doesn't affect my overall positive impression of you. People see the same text, the same concepts and have different responses. But I also don't find your criticisms reductive



I agree with this sentiment. I am not particularly invested in creators as people. And I think people with flaws tend to make more interesting art in general (I think there are a wide range of reasons for that but in my experience creative people often have demons, mental illness, etc that makes their art a necessary catharsis but also gives it a flame that makes it compelling: I love Kubrick movies for example but not sure I would want to have spent an afternoon with him).

Some stuff I can disagree on and still be friends. Bigotry (and I'm not calling you or anyone else a bigot here) is not on that list. The mainstreaming of sexist or racist views, as if they are legitimate points of view to be logically and constructively debated, is false and harmful.

Yes, some people will come to different conclusions about Gygax's statements. But if it was an "angry joke," he had decades to correct any misconceptions, and did not.

I didn't know Gary, but other old white dudes coming to his defense isn't really moving the needle for me. Mentzer, in particular, once responded to me on Facebook, in a comment which he later deleted. I had mentioned Liz Danforth's old editorial in Sorcerer's Apprentice, condemning the infamous Alma Mater RPG. Mentzer responded that "Liz was always outraged about something." I can't speak to the veracity of that statement, but I can say that she has told me directly that she didn't experience ill treatment from the T&T crew, and rarely in gaming circles as a rule. Which leads me to believe she's not out there outage farming. To be fair, I don't really "know" any of these people, so I may be as wrong as anyone else.

What I'm getting at is, if someone is the type to refer to a nakedly sexist comment as a "joke", and a thoughtful but condemnatory editorial as "outrage", you may be part of the double standard and sexism that is being discussed here. Men make "angry jokes", but women are "outraged". And so on. Alma Mater, remember, was banned from Gen Con, so Danforth was hardly alone in finding it offensive.

I'm not trying to villainize Mentzer, and as I said, he later deleted his comment, so he obviously thought better of it. And, yes, I understand that we are all capable of saying or doing the wrong thing at times. Boy, do I understand.

If there is a bright spot here, it's that, currently, around 40% of D&D players are female, so Gygax's sexist wish that women stay away from gaming "in droves" was denied him.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And I'm just here pointing out evidence to the contrary. You know, to add to the conversation.

Kelsey's shared experience of feelings of camaraderie with Gygax and team (that led to her becoming a full-time game desinger) far outweigh his decisions to use "Fighting-Man" and gender the dragon of chaos female.

Pay attention to what real people are saying, not the company that's trying to gaslight us all into thinking they're the saviors of gaming and we were all horribly corrupt, knuckle dragging neanderthals before they came around.

That said, who do you know, in actual real life, that was HURT by Gygax's words? Not a challenge; I'm just curious and willing to listen.

It's not actually contrary, though. It's shifting the goalposts.

"Gygax was a sexist" isn't about his moral character, it's about his actions and statements - his actual history. The actions he did, the things he wrote, and the impact they had on his game.

"Gygax was a good dad to his daughter!" isn't contradicting any of that. It's making a completely unrelated claim.

This is a hugely popular cognitive distortion whenever somebody's bigoted behavior is criticized. To point out that because he wasn't a complete monster who was always and consistently doing horrible bigoted things does not remove from the world the things he did and said.

You've been shown examples of the damage it's done, but you've also been shown concrete evidence of his behavior.

Why be so invested in absolving him of accountability? What does him being a good father have to do with you and how you live your life? There's so many people out there worthy of a passionate defense, in desperate situations, where they really are victims of a kind of mob justice. This is not one of those situations.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Seed the wind, reap the whirlwind

Is your point that what Peterson and Tondo said is true but they should be too scared to say it?

The sheer size and scope of Musk's X is so vast that we must fear its Eye-of-Sauron-like beam hitting us regardless of what is true or what is not?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Is your point that what Peterson and Tondo said is true but they should be too scared to say it?

The sheer size and scope of Musk's X is so vast that we must fear its Eye-of-Sauron-like beam hitting us regardless of what is true or what is not?

No, some of it was stripped of context so I wouldn't say it's true, but I do say either way it was better to let sleeping dogs lie, none of the things that they don't like are relevant to today and the stuff that is relevant to D&D today is stuff they didn't object to so focus on that.

So

1. Don't take things out of context or even lie about things in some cases.

2. Let sleeping dogs lie, folks wanted a celebration not a smug attack on their heroes.