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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

IMO. I'm making no judgement on whether this should be how things are done, but I don't believe you have to call currently deceased people bigots to move forward. It's enough to say that someone today saying what they said back then, would be a bigot today.

I think it's worth noting some of them had views and behaviours which were out-of-line even in that era, though, even if you attempt to contextualize them this way.

Gygax had very odd views which were not normative for the era he operated in, in a number of ways. I think it's fair to say his attitudes towards women, and his ideas re: the acceptability of genocide towards "inferior" races made him a bigot in his lifetime, not only beyond. Like Colonel Chivington and thinking he had a point was seen as messed-up in the 1860s, let alone in like 2001/2002 dude. There dudes who regularly clashed with Native Americans who thought Chivington was a psycho in his attitude towards the same.

Your statement reminds of inept-yet-common defences of/apologia for Columbus, where people try to claim "Well he wasn't bad by the standards of that era! Stop judging him unfairly!", despite the fact that a guy literally on the same ship as him was busily writing that he'd never come across anyone as evil, depraved, and un-Christian as Columbus.

Plus, this cuts both ways - Gygax was a weird bigot it some ways, but doesn't seem to have been nasty or rape-y or the like in his actual behaviour, unlike a lot of men of his era. So I don't why it's wrong to acknowledge his actual views and say "Yo even for that era that was messed up".

 

[Remathilis]

There is a lot of different quotes. One of them was a response to a criticism in a Euoprean zine. He would still still have had to type it, but that one struck me as being written in anger and in a tone. So I take that into account in my reading. My sense of some of the forum posts are similar (how many of you have said something on a forum, even here, you maybe didn't believe, but out of frustration, because you felt boxed in by points in an argument, etc).

Again a lot of what he wrote wasn't written in a serious tone. For example, the Harot table is clearly a joke (and frankly a joke I think is funny). Menzter seemed to indicate as much as well. Words like "Brazen strumpet" are obviously intended for humorous effect.

But as I said, I tend to agree with Heidi's assessment of things. I think he was a man of his times, that is reflected in some of his writings. But I think the writings are all in a context, peopel who knew him have weighed in on that context and it is fair for folks to determine for themselves how charitably or harshly to read his work. I mean the DMG itself for example largely seems to be writing in a bristly tone where I think he is using a lot of hyperbole for example

The issue, of course, is that unlike a drunk tweet or angry forum post, Garys writing wasn't instantaneous. At the very least, he had the time to reread what he wrote and decide if he meant what he said. I mean, there is a chance he wrote his first draft, stuck it in an envelope and mailed it off without ever pausing to reread it. That reflects a man who is self assured and has no impulse control (and not the kind of person who you should be taking advice from) but I'm going to assume there was ample time for blood to cool before any of his writings were submitted. He meant what he said, even if he meant it as an edgy joke.

Listen, I've posted my fair share of edgelord humor. I get where something you meant in humor or irony comes off as awful. Gary is gone now, but the fact we can't point to an instance of him saying "you know, that was stupid of me and I regret saying it" tells me he didn't feel any of his humor missed the mark. All of the comments from Heidi and Frank are reflections of the man after his passing. At no point did he himself say these things were bad to say and didn't reflect his heart.

Which means they were either reflective or he was incapable of reflecting and learning. Neither is a great look.

 

[AnotherGuy]

why would a sane person be on X in the first place. Musk turned that into a shitshow and there is no reason to support Elon or his venture.

I'm not arguing for it or against it, it is human nature and an IRL experiment with participating test subjects

 

[Bedrockgames]

he night have exaggerated, but you do not write something like that while actually believing the opposite. If you write it at all, you are a sexist with low impulse control, end of story.

This also is nit the only instance, so why focus on this one case and ignore the others.

I am not saying nothing was there. And this is one of the passages I believe I said I found to be pretty course and not easy to defend. But I do think it is still fair for people to debate. That is why I mentioned Mentzer's remarks. He seems to thhink a lot of these statements are not reflective of his beliefs (and Heidi Gygax made a general statement to similar effect but didn't get into any specifics). I think those points of view are worthy of consideration.

But people do write things and not believe them all the time. Sometimes people believe the opposite of what they are writing. When you are dealing with primary sources you should be pretty skeptical of things and not always take them at face value (because people write for an audience, they write with ulterior motives, etc). In this case, I think he was a man of his time and many of these thoughts didn't fall from the sky. But I also do think tone, humor, a desire to provoke, etc, ought to be considered if you are trying to form a picture of the entire person

 

[mamba]

IMO. I'm making no judgement on whether this should be how things are done, but I don't believe you have to call currently deceased people bigots to move forward. It's enough to say that someone today saying what they said back then, would be a bigot today.

they are not being called bigots for being ‘currently’ deceased. Their work was called sexist in the foreword because it was being republished. That is about today

 

[FrogReaver]

they are not being called bigots for being ‘currently’ deceased. Their work was called sexist in the foreword because it was being republished. That is about today

Okay, but my response was to you saying something else. 'That moving forward requires calling actual bigots, bigots.' That's the only thing I was disagreeing with. I even provided an alternative that can be done while still moving forward and still calling out bigotry, instead of focusing on whether deceased people were bigots.

 

[mamba]

I think anyone who grew up around folks born before the war, knows how out of sync with the times many of their views often were by the early 2000s.

my dad was born in 39, I have been around people that age. Yes they are more conservative than I turned out to be (and I am still more conservative than my brother is, so that is not a generation thing to begin with), but Gygax was not a representative of how they all were, he was an outlier even back then

It did not take until the 2000s for him to be called out on that either, he was being called out in the 1970s

 

[FrogReaver]

my dad was born in 39, I have been around people that age. Yes they are more conservative than I turned out to be (and I am still more conservative than my brother is, so that is not a generation thing to begin with), but Gygax was not a representative of how they all were, he was an outlier even back then

I suspect some of this difference of opinion here may be a regional thing. South vs Northeast. West vs Midwest. Etc.

 

[mamba]

Okay, but my response was to you saying something else. 'That moving forward requires calling actual bigots, bigots.' That's the only thing I was disagreeing with.

it requires calling bigots that, yes. You do not need to bring up every bigot from the last 200 years though, calling out the current ones is fine.

Gary was not called out in an effort to name them all, but because his work was being republished, and that was the right thing to do

 

[mamba]

I suspect some of this difference of opinion here may be a regional thing. South vs Northeast. West vs Midwest. Etc.

maybe, doesn’t change who he was or that it was wrong