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.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Right, I didn't mean to speak for her in any way.

Just one of many of my own observations of his conduct. How he actually was is more important to me than how others think he was. Especially when the main body of evidence is a single quote made sarcastically and hyperbolically.

You know for sure it was sarcastic and hyperbolic? Because unless you read his mind when he wrote it, I don't think anyone knows that. I wouldn't even necessarily trust Gygax himself if he'd explicitly said (afterward) that it was hyperbolic.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Well, I'm not darjr, but I felt a sentiment in that direction because you had quite clearly missed the point of the poem.

It's calling out actual narcissistic behavior, by making it plain and explicit. It isn't excusing or diminishing anything. It's putting, in pithy and explicit form, the process by which narcissistic people control, manipulate, abuse, and hurt those close to them. It is, in fact, a poetic form of DARVO: "Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender." This is a term from the actual psychological study of people who have hurt others (e.g. sex offenders), which describes the three main steps that abusers take when responding to criticism. First, they deny that there was a problem (the poem lists several different methods of denial). The final line is the attack ("you deserved it"). Reversal of victim and offender, I admit, is less obvious, but the middle portion plausibly looks like it ("it's not my fault" -> "it is your fault", which is victim-blaming, as is the final line.)

The poem is calling out the bull$#!+ that people with narcissistic personality disorder inflict on their victims.

It sure is. And I sympathise with that.

What you're missing is that this 'quality' was attributed to posters in this thread, for no sensible reason. I get peoples' personal hurts... not an excuse for indiscriminately attaching those labels to all and sundry, particularly when it is off topic.

No one in this thread did anything to warrant this sort of ammo, nor the sort of ammo you're trying to introduce frankly.

Bringing your past into a present discussion, which only tangentially has anything to do with you, and nothing to do with the posters you are responding to, or the discussion at hand... not cool. Doesn't do anything but inflame the discussion.

 

[Morrus]

You can take your patronizing attitude and bury it with Gygax, please and thank you!

OK, you are going to far now. Once you've stooped to namecalling, the conversation is pretty much over. Dial it back, please.

This goes for everybody. There are people I consider to be very wrong in this thread, and people I agree with. But we will remember we're on EN World, not the YouTube comments section, please.

 

[Jahydin]

Somebody definitely needs to write a "What did that foreword [FORWARD!] actually say?" article because I feel like 99% of the discussion about it is about what people who don't have the book imagine it says. Because it makes some observations about a work; it doesn't call people names or 'slander' anybody or call anybody a misogynist. And it doesn't, as Musk seems to have imagined--he clearly hasn't read the book, just saw a tweet about it--"trash" Gary Gygax. It certainly doesn't, as some people have feverishly imagined, call the fanbase bad for liking older editions of D&D.

I did!

“Note that the ‘Rules for Fantastic Medieval War-Games Campaigns’ that make up original D&D were created by and sold to a wargaming community that was almost exclusively white, middle-class men.”

“The rules compiled here offer little by way of roles for other players, nor indeed for anyone who wouldn’t easily identify with a pulp sword-and-sorcery hero,” said the designer. “Especially before 1974, the rules made light of slavery, in addition to including other harmful content.”

Later on in the preface, Tondro likewise warns readers, “Some language in the first iteration of D&D presents a moral quandary. The documents reproduced in this book include many pages of charts and tables alongside lists of monsters, spells, and magic items. But that game content also includes a virtual catalog of insensitive and derogatory language, words that are casually hurtful to anyone with a physical or mental disability, or who happen to be old, fat, not conventionally attractive, indigenous, Black, or a woman.”

“Some people have charitably ascribed this language to authors working from bad assumptions,” he continues. “In the 1970s, historical wargamers in America were predominantly white, middle-class men; it isn’t surprising that they would dub a class of soldiers the ‘fighting-man’. But when, in the pages of [the expansion module] Greyhawk, the description of the Queen of Chatoci Dragons includes a dig at ‘Women’s Lib’, the misogyny is revealed as a conscious choice.”

Further, Tondro asserts, “It’s an unfortunate fact that women seldom appear in original D&D, and when they do, they’re usually portrayed disrespectfully. Slavery appears in original D&D not as a human tragedy that devastated generations over centuries, but as a simple commercial transaction.”

“The cultural appropriation of original D&D ranges from the bewildering (like naming every 6th-level cleric a ‘lama’) to the staggering; [the reference book] Gods, Demigods, and Heroes (not reprinted in this book) includes game statistics for sacred figures revered by more than a billion people around the world,” he then recalls. “Were players expected to fight Vishnu, one of the principal deities of Hinduism, kill him, and loot his ‘Plus 3 sword of demon slaying’?”

Closing out the preface, Tondro ultimately opines, “Despite these shortcomings, D&D has always been a game about people choosing to be someone unlike themselves and collaborating with strangers who become friends. It has slowly become more inclusive, and as the player base has become more diverse, the pool of creators who make the game expanded to include people with a broader range of identities and backgrounds. As these new creators make the game more welcoming, the game has attracted new fans who, in turn, continue to make the game more inclusive. The future of Dungeons & Dragons, here at its fiftieth anniversary, is bright.”

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

You can take your patronizing attitude and bury it with Gygax, please and thank you!

Do what you gotta do! I found your attitude in this thread pretty self-absorbed frankly. I still think you're a cool person, despite that, because I can appreciate the other qualities in others.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You know for sure it was sarcastic and hyperbolic? Because unless you read his mind when he wrote it, I don't think anyone knows that. I wouldn't even necessarily trust Gygax himself if he'd explicitly said (afterward) that it was hyperbolic.

Fwiw, I think it was sarcastic. Pretty much everyone I talked to who knew Gary said that’s his thing. When threatened or attacked, he reacts with sarcastic hyperbole as a way in his mind to justify why what he said or did wasn’t really THAT bad.
“Oh, you think I’m sexist, well if I was, I’d say THIS AWFUL THING, and I didn’t, so I’m not sexist.”

That seems to be par for the course for him from what I’ve gathered. Of course, everyone will have a different assessment as we’ve seen.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

For the record, I think Musk's burn in hell remark is pretty stupid. I suspect he was being hyperbolic

You can't just say he said something dumb you still have to try to defend him.

 

[Morrus]

Do what you gotta do! I found your attitude in this thread pretty self-absorbed frankly. I still think you're a cool person, despite that, because I can appreciate the other qualities in others.

I literally just warned about this. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that you simply hadn't seen it before posting, but that's the only warning.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It sure is. And I sympathise with that.

What you're missing is that this 'quality' was attributed to posters in this thread, for no sensible reason. I get peoples' personal hurts... not an excuse for indiscriminately attaching those labels to all and sundry, particularly when it is off topic.

No one in this thread did anything to warrant this sort of ammo, nor the sort of ammo you're trying to introduce frankly.

Bringing your past into a present discussion, which only tangentially has anything to do with you, and nothing to do with the posters you are responding to, or the discussion at hand... not cool. Doesn't do anything but inflame the discussion.

Have you not seen people:

• Flat-out denying that Gygax ever said these things
• Claiming that, whatever he actually said, it wasn't as bad as people say it is
• Claiming that, even if he actually did say it, it wasn't unusual for his time/age group/etc.
• Ascribing any bad things he said to his age, upbringing, or religion/ethnic group/etc.
• Claiming that, whatever he actually said, he surely didn't mean it, it was hyperbole, or a mere fit of pique, etc.
• Dismissing anyone that takes the criticism seriously and wishes to talk about it (this being the thing darjr would have added to the list)

Because I've seen literally every single one of those things in this thread. Sometimes repeatedly. The only thing on the list that hasn't actually happened is the "then they deserved it" line. (Any speculation I could make as to why that is would be casting aspersions at the very least, but it doesn't surprise me that that line is the one people haven't been willing to cross.)

 

[Jahydin]

Also, regarding:

A more charitable interpretation could be he was cognizant of how that was going to be taken by Women's Lib, but since it was based on Tiamat, a female dragon, he was sticking with it.