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.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

There was no "Pressure". Someone pointed out that I'd stumbled into something that was antisemitic. I learned what it was. And changed my direction of my own volition.

Because even unintentionally I don't want to spread antisemitism or make the space around me uncomfortable for people who have done nothing wrong.

I want to be willfully kind, not cruel even unintentionally. That's all.

I admire your kind heartedness. For real. It is my absolute favourite characteristic in others. I can't emphasise that enough. At the same time I would advise you to protect yourself from the over-easily heartbroken. You changed your life's work (perhaps an exaggeration, but still...) based on someone's random opinion? Nope. I think you should have stood up for what you wrote. Over to you for a rebuttal.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Got one. Two dogs, Hudson and Marvin. One cat, Ripley.

Separated. Two kids, one dog (Honey.. a toy Yorkie), one cat (a random ditch cat... Chico). So super messy... yet very friendly! Go figure. Like an American sitcom. I spend time with both kids (duh!), but my eldest and her (friggin) cat live with me.

I used to work for a company whose sole business was protecting clients from identification on line. I just got busted! There goes my resume...

I think I'll be okay.

I love my kids, more than I could ever have imagined. But that cat!!!! I literally just looked around to see what is what up to.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

the one thing to not tolerate is intolerance (in all its forms). Not sure if that is clearer, but I do not really know how to make it any clearer

Hmm... it seems like you might be agreeing my original post, despite your reponse.

 

[the Jester]

Have you heard of sarcasm?

Have you read the other stuff he said on the subject?

Look, I have a massive case of Gygaxian hero worship too, but even I can acknowledge the man's faults. I have, in my time, caught myself being sexist and racist and transphobic and homophobic and all the rest. The difference is, when I have realized that I am doing so, I have tried to correct course and be better. Gygax- in his own words- stood by his attitudes until, at least, a few years before his death.

That doesn't detract from all the amazing stuff he did, and the things I hero-worship him for. It doesn't mean that he was a bad person; he was, in my estimation, a person with some bad traits and ideas and some good traits and ideas.

I love how much he widened my vocabulary, and my game style still hews close to that championed by him during his years at the helm of DnD. I still use his definition of the campaign as a milieu, rather than the more modern usage as a series of connected adventures. I still have players with stables of characters, rather than just one. I still start every pc in my game at first level. None of that means that I have to ignore the man's self-declared flaws.

 

[Steampunkette]

I admire your kind heartedness. For real. It is my absolute favourite characteristic in others. I can't emphasise that enough. At the same time I would advise you to protect yourself from the over-easily heartbroken. You changed your life's work (perhaps an exaggeration, but still...) based on someone's random opinion? Nope. I think you should have stood up for what you wrote. Over to you for a rebuttal.

... I think you might be more precious with my work than -I- am. And I'm not sure how to feel about that.

I changed a few lines of text in a storytelling document.

I do more than that in most editing passes. Recently I wrote about the Kitax (you'll meet them sooner or later) and wound up having to rewrite about tenth of it in order to conform to word count structures.

 

[Maxperson]

I've been poking around and it looks like Musk really was/is into D&D

https://www.businessinsider.com/dungeons-and-dragons-brought-out-beautiful-parts-elon-musk-personality-2023-9.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think some people are suggesting something like that. Not everyone. But the post I was responding to didn't just call him a sexist, it suggested he was deeply sexist, as well as racist and an anti-semite. Those are pretty charged labels.

Who is suggesting that? Quote the post. Otherwise, you’re just strawmanning and concern trolling.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I admire your kind heartedness. For real. It is my absolute favourite characteristic in others. I can't emphasise that enough. At the same time I would advise you to protect yourself from the over-easily heartbroken. You changed your life's work (perhaps an exaggeration, but still...) based on someone's random opinion? Nope. I think you should have stood up for what you wrote. Over to you for a rebuttal.

I'd like to give you a counter-example that I think is both extremely important and quite revelatory. Perhaps you've heard of an obscure English author by the name of Charles Dickens?

Because yeah. Charles Dickens altered some of his work, in response to someone pointing out that one of his books leaned pretty hard on some really bad, harmful stereotypes regarding little people (that is, people with dwarfism). He didn't completely redesign the entire novel, but he listened to criticism and did, in fact, try to improve.

Is that "chang[ing] his life's work...based on someone's random opinion"? Because I would call it a compassionate, reasonable person listening to criticism and striving to do justice to a group that has been demonized, (literally) infantilized, and treated with mockery or disdain for centuries.

As I mentioned before, there absolutely are some opinions that I think don't merit equal treatment. For example, I don't think the opinion "HP Lovecraft's work is completely free of racist themes or language" is an opinion that carries any merit. It can only come from ignorance of the work, willful blindness, or a cherry-picking agenda. Likewise, the film Birth of a Nation, while being objectively one of the most important films in the history of cinematography, is also objectively one of the most virulently racist films ever made. There is no merit in the opinion "Birth of a Nation is perfectly fine, and anyone who gets upset about its content is just 'over-easily heartbroken.'"

Creators certainly cannot control what others do with their work, but they absolutely can, and should, control what is in their work. If someone writes a story that features "Gypsies" as exclusively thieves, scoundrels, liars, cheats, and ne'er-do-wells, it is 100% appropriate for someone to say, "Hey, uh...yeah 'Gypsy' is a slur for the Roma peoples, and it's...really hurtful to propagate vicious stereotypes about the Roma like that."

And a work that cannot stand unless it propagates harmful stereotypes is probably a work that should never have been made in the first place. The accidents of history may force us to just Deal With It (as with the Birth of a Nation example), but when the author is still alive and the legacy is still being created, we have a chance to fix things.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think you're appreciating the irony of your response here.

Mod Note:
Are you of the impression that this is a good direction for you to be taking this conversation? Because it looks to me like leaning into making this personal, which will not end well for you.

 

[mamba]

Hmm... it seems like you might be agreeing my original post, despite your reponse.

not sure, do you find Musk’s post to be tolerant?