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.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Odd how so many rocketbros idolize the works of Iain M. Banks, when anyone with the most cursory knowledge of him or his works groks that he would have utterly loathed the rocketbros.

Ayup. See also Thiel and JRRT.

I read five or six of them and remember almost nothing about them. Though I remember enjoying them when I was a teenager. I think the first book was about a kid who was a late bloomer magic wise and he was in danger of being kicked out of the kingdom because of it. I'm pretty sure I read Nightmare, but remember absolutely nothing about it. It's been a while, but I can't remember anything objectionable from those first few books, but I see there have been 47. Wow. That's a lot of books.

I was younger than that when I read them, and the problematic stuff went over my head as well.

 

[abirdcall]

I'll give this the benefit of the doubt; what ways would those be exactly?

But more importantly, how does that excuse going out of one's way to create silos of thought and barriers to communication? What problem is being solved here?

Your stance is firmly that people should be listened to so that we can learn and grow.

Please tell us, how have you learned and grown from interacting with people in this thread?

You've given out quite the lecture, but have you learned anything? People have taken a lot of time to teach you their perspective. Have you absorbed any of it?

If so, how will that change you going forward?

 

[Steampunkette]

Your stance is firmly that people should be listened to so that we can learn and grow.

Please tell us, how have you learned and grown from interacting with people in this thread?

You've given out quite the lecture, but have you learned anything? People have taken a lot of time to teach you their perspective. Have you absorbed any of it?

If so, how will that change you going forward?

Oh, I absolutely agree with this. In fact:

@Ulorian - Agent of Chaos it's been a full page since I explained -why- that person needed to be put onto my block list. I'd love to know if you think that I should give my time, energy, and politeness to people who would prefer I didn't exist, or if you've come to understand that I shouldn't have to spend my time patiently debating people who hate who I am.

 

[Gradine]

You mean RPGPundit's publisher thinks it's perfectly acceptable to say all manner of terrible things that you "don't believe" as long as it gets under the skin of the "right kind of people" (which, by the way, ask them who that is when you get a chance, the answer may- no, it won't surprise you). You don't say.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Just to reiterate: I said the foreword looks like pretty standard academic analysis of media. I think that type of analysis has a lot of flawed assumptions but there isn’t anything I wouldn’t expect to see. I don’t think it is the best approach to history but it is also just a foreword. Some parts particularly stand out to me as things I disagree about (the cultural appropriation claim and the conscious misogyny claim). I don’t have a problem with the foreword being written but I think people should be allowed to critique it and it should be expected people will not all agree on its conclusions because many of these are still contested in the hobby and by people who knew him.

On musk, I think like a lot of what Gary Wrote, it sounds hyperbolic but I dislike the phrasing. I just think consigning people to hell over this sort of disagreement, even if he isn’t speaking literally, undermines any point he is trying to make (but then I tend to take hell pretty seriously, I believe he is an atheist so it may be a less charged phrasing if he doesn’t believe in hell). I don’t know that musk weighing in helps because he is, whatever one thinks of him, a divisive figure.

In general I think people should be more open to having a civil discussion about the matter on both sides of the debate. The side that thinks Gary was sexiest isn’t going anywhere, the side that thinks he isn’t isn’t going anywhere either. We have to learn to live together in the same hobby space because these kinds of division cause us to dehumanize one another and weaken the strength of the hobby overall

Thanks for the response, it was more than I was expecting.
However, on the topic of civil discussion, that would be fine if it was a discussion of the topic at hand. This thread started about a report by Elon Musk on the foreword of the book. The thread rapidly shifts to a discussion of the character of Gary Gygax because some people will not engage with the text presented but seek to diminish the text and make the argument about Gygax as a person or a father and that is not engaging in a good faith discussion.

 

[Umbran]

That isn't what I am saying Umbran

Yep. I pointed out "what it reads like" rather than claiming what you meant.

The interesting bit will be to see if you can say what you mean without it reading like that. If you can't, that may be cause for some reflection on the content.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The interesting bit will be to see if you can say what you mean without it reading like that. If you can't, that may be cause for some reflection on the content.

I don’t think that is how it reads either

 

[Azzy]

Bigotry, racism, etc. are terrible things, and removing these things from the world is the duty of all people IMO. What you're doing here though... it's something different. The stance of purity you are taking. There is a difference between understanding what is right and acting towards that goal and demonising anyone who disagrees with you. Like, a really big difference.

Us and Them. This is the basis of the ills of the world, whether that be racism, classism, sexism. When you start seeing people who are different from you as objects of derision, or otherwise less human than you... no good comes of that.

Pure tosh.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Thanks for the response, it was more than I was expecting.
However, on the topic of civil discussion, that would be fine if it was a discussion of the topic at hand. This thread started about a report by Elon Musk on the foreword of the book. The thread rapidly shifts to a discussion of the character of Gary Gygax because some people will not engage with the text presented but seek to diminish the text and make the argument about Gygax as a person or a father and that is not engaging in a good faith discussion.

But that is because the whole conversation online after Musk’s remarks turned to this topic (including people like Mentzer weighing in). I think it is hard to talk about the foreword without drifting into the subject of Gygax. And I do think there is a tacit judgment of Gygax in the foreword (it isn’t directly calling him out but the conscious misogyny statement is going to cause people to connect dots and sons have seen it as a slight)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The thread rapidly shifts to a discussion of the character of Gary Gygax because some people will not engage with the text presented but seek to diminish the text and make the argument about Gygax as a person or a father and that is not engaging in a good faith discussion.

This always particularly vexes me, in part because I don't think it's always active bad faith, as much as a sort of blind and senseless defensiveness, where any criticism of a person must be equated to criticising every element of that person. You'd think, given all the truly awful people in history who loved their kids/pets, authors who made great works whilst having horrifying personal lives and so on, that people would be past it, but no, we have to deal with "WHY ARE YOU SAYING HE WAS A MONSTER?!?!?" when someone is calmly pointing out a sexist or racist belief.

What is interesting to me is that discussion can move on though. HP Lovecraft shows that. We've gone from a situation where, in the past, people always defended him as being a "man of his time" (untrue) or even "not racist" ("lol, lmao even" if the only response there), but I haven't seen anyone even try that nonsense for like five years - rather an acceptance has formed that yes he was racist, but maybe his work is interesting and influential nonetheless (and indeed quite a few PoC authors have talked about being inspired by Lovecraft, in different ways - some to reclaim or take a different perspective on, some simply to write more existential horror without the weird racism, and so on).