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.

 

[Maxperson]

What's weird, is I can see where he's coming from. I grew up in an era when toys were pretty strictly segregated by sex and it seemed perfectly natural that boys liked GI Joe, Atari, and football while girls like My Little Pony, Barbie, and not playing video games. But then I saw evidence to suggest otherwise and adjusted my worldview accordingly.

Here's the thing, by the time Gygax made that post in 2002, he must have been aware of how many teenage girls and young women had gotten into role playing games with the introduction of Vampire the Masquerade back in 1991. I know my experience is just one anecdote, but Vampire was the first time I saw anything approaching parity between boys and girls in a role playing game. Gygax had the evidence right there that girls and women were interested in RPGs and still clung to his beliefs.

Yeah. Kids raised in the 70's-90's generally had very traditional gender toys. Boys had army men, sports stuff, tonka toys, etc. Girls had dolls, play cooking sets, etc. There were specific kinds of clothing, colors, jobs their parents spoke to them about, etc. Basically they were indoctrinated to like certain things and not care about others.

There were of course exceptions, but the bulk of parents raised their kids that way. It wasn't until the 90's that the rudder started to turn on on those things and not until the 2000's when it really got to nearly full steam. kids raised from the 90's would be game playing age in the early to mid 2000's and the kids form the 2000's would be game playing age in the mid 2010's.

I started playing D&D in 1983 and the first girl I played D&D with was in 1985. There were about a 8 or 9 more that I played with through the 1990's. None of them had their interest held by the game for longer than a few months, and most quit after a session or two.

In the 2000's through 2010 I played with about 20 more women, so almost double the number from the first 17 years. Some of them quit after a few sessions. Most played for a few months at least. 4 or 5 played for at least a year. Their interest held for as long as the guys I played with. Most guys who played the game didn't last more than a few months. Some lasted a year or more. The rudder had shifted and the societal pressures that pushed girls towards the "girl" things were gone or at least very minimized from what they were.

Last year or the year before I went to a game convention in Los Angeles. While I was there I was curious about the D&D games being played and went to see what was happening. When I got there I noticed about 10 tables of D&D going on. One table had a male DM and 5 male players. One table had a female DM and 5 female players. The other 8 tables had a mix of male and female players. All tables had minorities with a few of them being predominantly minority players. It was a really great thing to see.

Going back to Gygax and his statement. While the differences in male/female brains is minor, it does exist. I can see where Gygax might get it wrong back then and think those differences were behind what he was seeing with female players and the game, rather than societal pressures, which can be very strong and hard to overcome.

 

[Older Beholder]

Originally I was told I'd 'Burn in Hell' just for playing D&D.
Now, we're meant to be taking advice on what will get you to Hell, from this guy...?

 

[Maxperson]

On a related note. I just went to the store to get my son some children's cough medicine since he is coming down with a cold. When I went to the self-checkout with it, I got flagged to show my I.D. to the store associate. I double checked the cough syrup, because I didn't want to give him alcohol and sure enough, it said alcohol free since it was for kids.

When the store associate arrived I asked her, "Why do I have to show I.D. for this?" She responded, "Because it has alcohol." I showed her the label that said alcohol free and said, "But there's no alcohol in this." Then she told me, "A lot of kids were coming in here to buy that because it has alcohol in it." I then repeated, "But it has no alcohol in it and showed her the label again." At that point she looked very annoyed that I didn't believe her that about there being alcohol in it and walked away.

I was reminded about things said in this thread and in articles read recently about people refusing to change their minds about something, even when presented with facts.

 

[teitan]

The whole twitter thread is like a playground fight of toddlers throwing "DEI" and "Woke" at anyone who gets involved.

My favorite are the accusations of being paid to defend WOTC... and Soros money.

 

[Gradine]

Look, I'm just asking questions. There's room for disagreement. I'm just going to deny or ignore everything you say and insist you provide evidence, and then I'll tell you your evidence is bad or wrong or biased or incomplete and demand you give me more evidence, while obliquely making dog whistles to needle you into overreacting so you look foolish and this entire discussion gets shut down, which is definitely not what I wanted to have happen in the first place.

 

[Steampunkette]

On a related note. I just went to the store to get my son some children's cough medicine since he is coming down with a cold. When I went to the self-checkout with it, I got flagged to show my I.D. to the store associate. I double checked the cough syrup, because I didn't want to give him alcohol and sure enough, it said alcohol free since it was for kids.

When the store associate arrived I asked her, "Why do I have to show I.D. for this?" She responded, "Because it has alcohol." I showed her the label that said alcohol free and said, "But there's no alcohol in this." Then she told me, "A lot of kids were coming in here to buy that because it has alcohol in it." I then repeated, "But it has no alcohol in it and showed her the label again." At that point she looked very annoyed that I didn't believe her that about there being alcohol in it and walked away.

I was reminded about things said in this thread and in articled read recently about people refusing to change their minds about something, even when presented with facts.

Worth noting:

Cold medicine WITHOUT alcohol can still get you messed up and hallucinating.

Diphenhydramine is an antihistamine that can cause hallucinations and such and was a common "OTC Drug" for teens in the early 2000s to get a little messed up for fun when they couldn't get their hands on something "Better".

Dextromorphan, found in a lot of OTC Cough syrups like Robitussin DM, is an opiod. It helps deal with aches and pains and throat soreness from coughing. Also helps you sleep, usually, though it can mess you up and, again, was used for recreational purposes.

Sizzurp, Purple Drank, Lean, etc were common drug cocktails starting in the late 80s early 90s under various names, also built off cough syrup. So. Y'know.

It not having alcohol might not be the reason you got asked to show your card. And even if she was being foolish about it containing alcohol, it still contained drugs that people abuse for fun.

On an unrelated note:
I'd also like to soften my earlier statement about people saying terrible things while angry/drunk/etc.

Sometimes they're not -actually- being bigoted, and it's subconscious biases or cultural taboos coming to the surface. So it's gonna have -some- wiggle room for vehement apologies after saying something offensive...

But we NEVER see that with anything Gygax puts out there. In fact we see the opposite, or at best exasperation and rolled eyes that he expects some kind of negative backlash about his continuously held and repeatedly expressed sexist opinions.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So... she said he was sexist.

Because being a man born in 1938 has nothing to do with anything. I mean, heck, would we say someone born today in this era, where women's rights are under attack and men are putting up the slogan "your body, my choice" should be judged as not actually very sexist? Maybe only a little sexist. Because... there are virulent sexists currently in positions of power?

if you look at her full quote his birth year is a relevant qualifier. She makes it pretty clear I think in her phrasing. So she is saying sexist but qualifying it. Which I think is fair

 

[Bedrockgames]

"I didn't mean to beat my wife officer, she just made me so angry. In my heart of hearts I would never want to cause her any harm, I swear it."

If that didn't make my point clear. Anger is not an excuse. It may be an excuse for something said that you later apologize for, but "I was so angry I printed hateful content to get back at them" doesn't make your opinions not hateful ones. In fact, it kind of makes it worse, because you don't even believe it. You just wanted to hurt people and were looking for an excuse.

Read what I said in the quoted post. I think I was pretty clear that something said in anger Doesn’t mean it has no consequence or significance. It certainly doesn’t make violence okay. What it does is change my view on how sincere the belief expressed is (if a frustrated person shouts ‘I hate you’, they may truly be fed up and expressing a sincere belief but it is also likely they just reached for the most hurtful barb in the moment and don’t really mean it. This matters if we are trying to evaluate what a person thought or felt

 

[Gradine]

Here's a thought, maybe the reason these folks won't agree that he was sexist is because they think he was right

 

[MGibster]

Look, I'm just asking questions. There's room for disagreement. I'm just going to deny or ignore everything you say and insist you provide evidence, and then I'll tell you your evidence is bad or wrong or biased or incomplete and demand you give me more evidence, while obliquely making dog whistles to needle you into overreacting so you look foolish and this entire discussion gets shut down, which is definitely not what I wanted to have happen in the first place.

Mom?