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.

 

[Morrus]

I have not read everything she has written on the subject or even her Harry Potter novels but from what I've seen I think she is fighting the good fight. This isn't a political thread though so if you want to discuss in depth send me a personal message. I don't want to make the guardians mad.

Too late. Why did you think it was OK to post that here? This community is a safe space for trans people, and we have no tolerance for those who would deny them the right to even exist. 7 warnings, huh. With one just a few days ago. You know the rules, but you're choosing to ignore them. Now there are consequences.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't for even one second believe Gygax was "in a very emotional state" for entire period in which he:

A) Read Europa.

B) Carefully typed up his letter of response on a typewriter (or by hand, but I suspect the former).

C) Found an envelope, addressed the envelope. Found a stamp, licked the stamp, stuck the stamp on.

D) Walked down the driveway to the mailbox, put the letter in the mailbox.

E) For the entire period until the mailman came and took the letter from the mailbox, during which, if he regretted or did not fully support what he wrote, he could have taken that letter out of the box (something people absolutely did do).

So, yeah you might want to remember he didn't just slap this into a forum, or scream it into a mic. He carefully created and sent this response - and as a letter-writer, probably thought about it pretty carefully before even typing it up - I remember writing letters - I'm that old!

So yeah if he'd screamed that into a mic, I might think well, maybe he didn't mean it, but he wrote this up very carefully and intentionally, and sent it, and had a million opportunities to y'know, not send it. I know back when letters were still a thing I started writing quite a number of letters I didn't send - I think most people did. Its the ones you do send that matter.

1) This isn't one of the statements I am inclined to defend
2) I disagree it wasn't said in anger. It looks like a very angry and frustrated response to me. People can type out angry responses and mail them. It used to happen all teh time (magazines would often print outraged and angry letters). And it happens on forums routinely (granted we aren't using snail mail but it takes time to post).
3) In terms of regret, I don't know how the man felt. My impression is he was probably very proud and stubborn and didn't seem the sort to retract many statements. I've certainly been guilty of being prideful and stubborn on forum threads so I can understand a person being reluctant to admit they said something out of anger or frustration that didn't capture the full architecture of their views

 

[mamba]

I am sure some trolls believe what they say. I don’t think all or even most do: my impression is they are trying to get the reaction. Still not a great thing but it does impact how I would assess a persons worldview

clearly it does, my take is they believe it and they want a reaction from the other side, plus they might also like to have ‘plausible deniability’

« We are what we pretend to be, so we should be careful about what we pretend to be. »

Kurt Vonnegut

this

 

[Voadam]

In the intro they mention transactional accepted slavery in the od&d books. The closest I can think of would be the 1e AD&D MM having prices for things like selling the young of giant beavers, which are intelligent speaking monsters similar to non intelligent griffins and things. Is this a drafts thing or are there things in the books I am not aware of?

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Honestly, folks... embrace this in your IRL lives. Don't get worked up or offeneded or get quiet when someone says something you don't like, or offends you, or whatever. Own the situation. Not in the sense of you become 'the winner', as that is the human nature response. Just say: well, that makes no sense/is goofy/whatever is appropriate to the comment. Have the 'social confidence' to bring that up immediately. But don't do it in a pathetic way. Show that you are in control... which doesn't mean to be angry and self-righteous! A mistake I think a lot of folks make. Show genuine respect for who you are speaking to, and their position. Don't play games and be coy (a common reaction of human beings, particularly those of a more introverted bent)... actually consider their thoughts, and why they have them.

Be a good person, don't play games, be direct. Profit. Thank me later.

 

[Maxperson]

there were plenty of people born that year who were not sexist. There were plenty sexist people born in 2010. How long do we have to wait until being born that year no longer excuses it?

I'll take a stab at that.

First, it's not an excuse. It's a reason for why he was that way. It doesn't excuse away his actions, but does allow us a greater understanding for why he was that way.

Second, that reason is viable during the period when more people were born and raised that way than not. You can't help the way you were raised, and as I pointed out in my other post, societal pressures such as how you were raised and how the folks you interact with were raised and act, are powerful and hard to overcome.

Being born in 1938 meant that there were a ton of people born who were sexist and raised their kids to be sexist. Yes there were people who weren't and were raising their kids like that. Yes there were people who went to college during those years, learned a different way and changed. But the majority of folks by a very large margin were still sexist.

 

[Umbran]

Again though, we are talking about evaluating what a person believed.

Yes. In my example, they believed it was okay to belittle women. Abusing people "to get under their skin" is STILL ABUSE.

If women are belittled, that's sexist behavior. Trying to rationalize it away is leaning into "the ends justify the means", and that's pretty ugly most of the time.

I don't subscribe to this view.

{car mechanic's voice}
Yeah, well, that's your problem right there.
{/car mechanic's voice}

It seems overly simplistic. I would still say it is bad if someone is belittling people. But I think there is still a big distinction to be made here.

You realize that reads like, "Well, I think there are a lot of ways we can justify and rationalize abusing people,"?

But if someone is saying something soley to provoke a reaction, like the sports example we gave above, then that means these aren't automatically sincerely held beliefs. And that matters.

Yeah - it means that they don't understand that harm done is harm done, no matter their reasons for doing so. They are willing to excuse harm, when it is a thing they really want. They think so little of the group in question that they think it is okay to cause that harm for their ends...

Which sounds a lot like they actually think less of those people, so... yeah, they hold those beliefs, but don't realize it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You realize that reads like, "Well, I think there are a lot of ways we can justify and rationalize abusing people,"?

That isn't what I am saying Umbran

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah - it means that they don't understand that harm done is harm done, no matter their reasons for doing so. They are willing to excuse harm, when it is a thing they really want. They think so little of the group in question that they think it is okay to cause that harm for their ends...

Which sounds a lot like they actually think less of those people, so... yeah, they hold those beliefs, but don't realize it.

This doesn't really make sense to me. When people speak we are meant to try to read their intentions. This is why irony is a thing. If someone says something soley to provoke a reaction, even if it is directed at me, and includes something I might be sensitive about, I am going to read it differently than if they are clearly giving voice to what they genuinely believe on the subject.

 

[FrogReaver]

How far down the rabbit hole do we need to follow the « man of his time » argument before it becomes an excuse?

Sure, Mr. Smith was more racist than most people in the 1970s, but he was in line with white heterosexual male Calvinist Protestants (Western Convention) from Peoria born in the 1940s. So he was a man of his time?

Sure, but You’ll notice I kept to large geographical regions in the U.S. And I did so solely in respect to what was normal at the time. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable observation or nuance to bring into the conversation.

Speaking of, for the most part we are only comparing to u.s. or western civilization viewpoints on women at the time (which I think is fair even if missing a bit of context). But If you count Middle East, Russia, China, India, etc then I think the norm at that time would be much different.