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.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The book is a celebration of the history. The foreword clarifies the attitudes that were wrong then, as now, and reminds the readers of the game's current, more inclusive environment. As a society, we can get better. A nice reminder these days when the world can seem bleak.

History always remains relevant. We can't learn and move forward without those past experiences shaping (hopefully) better decisions.

Okay, but hear me out: what if we ignored history when it says things we don't like about people we like?

Like, never examine anyone sufficiently famous so we can always feel good about them and never, ever reexamine our formative media and ideals? Maybe even never progress in the attitudes those people held or as a society?

Sounds good, right? Right?

 

[Morrus]

The ear, and alot more, of the most powerful, least restrained, gives no ***** President since Johnson, while controlling one of the most influential social media companies in the world with global reach, and power over the government agencies that govern his business dealings with the US government (he's a major contractor with the US and other governments like the provincial Ontario government already). Don't understate his worrying level of power right now.

I think Musk is an actual D&D fan, so it might be legit anger, it might not be, it doesn't really matter, when he buy Hasbro without anything anyone can do to stop him just to make a point and a extra buck and if you think Chris Cox gutted WotC, wait till Musk gets it and pulls a Twitter on it and reducing Hasbros work force to like a third of its size. This is a very real risk, I don't want that, too many innocent people hurt.

Right. We’re supposed to cower and fear Musk? Because of that “RAW POWER” you so admire? People should be intimidated into silence?

I am so glad you don’t have any of that “RAW POWER”. Now that’s a scary thought.

This fetishisation of him is a bit weird, man.

 

[abirdcall]

You know what's funny? Some of WotC's biggest rivals have already left Titter for Bluesky

Tabletop creators leave X for Bluesky in droves

Bluesky has already grown to to 21.2 million users

www.polygon.com

I wouldn't call them rivals.

The other TTRPG companies all benefit from WotC.

I would say D&D's biggest rivals are things like hobby board games and Warhammer and such.

 

[overgeeked]

Larry Correia

The guy who started the Sad Puppies? LOL.

 

[Voadam]

Elon plays D&D.

 

[Steampunkette]

Worth noting:

Studies in 2022 showed about 33% of all accounts on Twitter were bots. Some were follow-bots, some were propaganda bots, and some are sales bots. And then, of course, there were the "Silly Bots" that just posted meme BS like "The F word posted before every other word in the English language" or seek out accidental Haiku in other people's posts.

By January 2024, Internet 2.0 did a random survey of over 1 million Twitter accounts and found 65% of them were probably (above a 50% chance based on post history algorithm) bots.

Twitter actually has really stable numbers for US users...

Currently there's 586 million Twitter Users on the daily. Which means Twitter added 165 million users between 2023 and 2024. After adding 53 million between 2022 and 2023, 6 million in 2021 to 2022, 15 million in 2020-2021, and 35 million from 2019 to 2020 during the Covid Pandemic which saw most people trapped in their homes.


Either the X rebrand went over CRAZY WELL to the point of completely overshadowing the already massive gains during Covid 19's pandemic protocols...

Or it's pretty much just all bots being added at this point.

 

[Remathilis]

Worth noting:

Studies in 2022 showed about 33% of all accounts on Twitter were bots. Some were follow-bots, some were propaganda bots, and some are sales bots. And then, of course, there were the "Silly Bots" that just posted meme BS like "The F word posted before every other word in the English language" or seek out accidental Haiku in other people's posts.

By January 2024, Internet 2.0 did a random survey of over 1 million Twitter accounts and found 65% of them were probably (above a 50% chance based on post history algorithm) bots.

Twitter actually has really stable numbers for US users...

View attachment 386964

Currently there's 586 million Twitter Users on the daily. Which means Twitter added 165 million users between 2023 and 2024. After adding 53 million between 2022 and 2023, 6 million in 2021 to 2022, 15 million in 2020-2021, and 35 million from 2019 to 2020 during the Covid Pandemic which saw most people trapped in their homes.


Either the X rebrand went over CRAZY WELL to the point of completely overshadowing the already massive gains during Covid 19's pandemic protocols...

Or it's pretty much just all bots being added at this point.

It's scary how much Dead Internet Theory went from meme to reality.

 

[Jahydin]

Is it possible to know and respect someone, while also conceding that they held beliefs you oppose, or even beliefs that you find morally wrong?

Absolutely.

Is it possible to recognize that a person did or said bad things, but also was on the whole a force for good, without letting that "on the whole" part basically mean that anybody who does lots of good gets automatically forgiven for the concerning things they said or did along the way?

Also agree.

If the foreword wrote something to that effect I think there would be less of an issue. You know, like, "Despite Gygax championing women in the gaming industry, there were many insensitive missteps in his work that could be seen today as misogynistic, such as... ".

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Nah bro. We all survived the first time, and some of us are not even American. Will there be disruption? Yeah, but is it going to materially impact my life up here on the Canadian West Coast? Beyond some stock price shifts? No. It

So…. you’re against history books in general? What about history classes at school? Should they avoid mentioning any … err… history, too? Or is it just history you don’t like? Should the history books not exist at all, or should they doctor the history to make it more palatable? Is that all history, or just history that scary billionaires take an interest in? We need to know!

I don't consider this a legit history text book, but no I'm not against History books as long as they are fair, provide honest context.

I Ben has a right to publish his book, but if it picks fights with people, then he has to deal with that.

Honestly I don't think Tondo should have pulled WotC into this by doing the foreword and Ben should have been more honest about the context of the qoutes he used.

Look I'm not even one of the anger people myself, because I don't care about what Tondo or Ben think about Gygax, but I do care about the fallout. Honestly I find Ed Greenwood m, Jeff Grubbs, RA Salvatore, etc.. more interesting and their contributions more interesting. Without FR I would not be a D&D fan honestly, I was a FR fan long before any interest in Table Top or MtG, it was FR the triggered an interest in both.

I would love to see a history of FR behind the scenes, but written by someone who knows the context and truth behind things, like Jeff Grubbs should write that book, not Ben. Actually it should have been Kuntz who writes the history book on D&D's origins actually understands and knows alot of what went down and it's context and what went down with Gygax and Arneson and others involved. I think it'd be a fairer ABC more honest book.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

It's scary how much Dead Internet Theory went from meme to reality.

Tip of the iceberg so far.