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]

hurtful to a competitor

See this is where you seem to be falling down.

Sledging and similar is one-on-one or close to it. Saying something to one person is not the same as publicly signing your name to an opinion.

If you said something insulting and transphobic to some other cricketer, you'd be a bit of a scumbag, but at least only your victim (and maybe you, weirdly enough) would be damaged/hurt by it.

If you, on the other hand, started bellowing transphobia into a mic in a Twitch stream being watched by tens of thousands, then the harm you've done is far, far greater. You've hurt people who were watching that stream as well - a huge number of people - and like radiating damage outwards as your fans use this as an excuse to harm and demean trans people.

At some point, if the words are spread widely enough, the damage from them may well, ethically, morally and even in practical terms, be "worse" than a single swing of a baseball bat, particularly if it wasn't aimed to kill. Maybe worse than many swings.

What Gygax did wasn't to say something sexist to one person (I mean, he did that plenty too) - it was to public and proudly espouse his complete disdain for women, and to publicly and proudly suggest women were deleterious to gaming, and should be chased out of it. I know you've said you don't want to defend that, but I think you do need to acknowledge that intentionally saying horrific stuff in public to upset people is, in fact, messed up. Not just as an opinion, but the activity of intentionally seeking a public forum to explain just how disdainful you are of women, too.

 

[Bedrockgames]

See this is where you seem to be falling down.

Sledging and similar is one-on-one or close to it. Saying something to one person is not the same as publicly signing your name to an opinion.

I agree, which is why I said at the end of that post, to your point, this isn't really relevant to the Gygax quote and we are getting lost in the sledging example. It came about because I mentioned some of his quotes were said in anger, which I think is important to consider, and anger in sports got brought up and we got lost in sledging.

 

[Steampunkette]

But you are also hitting me with a baseball bat, not saying words. These things are not on the same level. The reason the baseball bat example is one where I would have no choice but to take it seriously is because it is basically attempted murder.

Hey, now, that's -definitely- unfair. Maybe Umbran is hitting you with a baseball bat as a joke! Doing it ironically to make people laugh rather than actually -trying- to do any kind of actual harm, much less actively trying to MURDER you.

You're making Umbran out to be evil, here, when it might just be a joke or a sarcastic swinging of a bat. You know he's moderated these forums for years and is actually a really cool and funny guy.

It also might be an -accidental- swing of the bat. Have you asked Umbran if he meant to hit you with the bat? You should probably hold off on such harsh accusations until you get the full story from both sides.

There's also the context to consider. Were you walking into the swing of his bat or was he aiming at you? Maybe he was aiming at a deadly scorpion that was on your shoulder! We might never know the full context.

Even if he did -intentionally- hit you with a bat, and there's no proof that he was trying to -murder- you! It just means he was hitting you with a bat! Maybe he was just angry and lashing out. Or frustrated!

Could have been exasperated with this conversation!

Or maybe he just didn't care who got hurt so long as he could swing the bat and it isn't -malicious- bat-swinging but just a general fondness for waving a bat around in the air.

Also I haven't handled the bat, myself, but are you sure it's not foam rubber or one of those plastic wiffle bats?

Even if it -was- a real bat (and I'm not saying it was!) or that he really did mean to hit you (and I'm not saying he did!) isn't there still a wide gulf between hitting someone with a baseball bat and attempted murder?

Maybe he just wanted to hit you a few times without killing you, did you consider that before you accused him of attempted murder? And maybe we should examine what it is that caused him to want to hit you with a baseball bat, too. After all, his motivations play a key role in this and I don't think Umbran's the kind of person who would hit someone with a baseball bat unless they really deserved it.

This is what you've been doing. You may not have intended that, but the above? Is a rough approximation of your previous posts.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Because very few people admit when they were wrong.

Again, Gygax admitted this plenty, and about stuff he dropped a lot of words on, like entire books. But not about sexism.

Why?

Probably because he thought he was right to be sexist, given even just a couple of years before his death he was saying he was a "biological essentialist" (which is pretty much straight-up a euphemism for at the very least a sexist, very often a misogynist, transphobe, racist, eugenicist, etc. - it literally never means anything good lol).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hey, now, that's -definitely- unfair. Maybe Umbran is hitting you with a baseball bat as a joke! Doing it ironically to make people laugh rather than actually -trying- to do any kind of actual harm, much less actively trying to MURDER you.

You're making Umbran out to be evil, here, when it might just be a joke or a sarcastic swinging of a bat. You know he's moderated these forums for years and is actually a really cool and funny guy.

It also might be an -accidental- swing of the bat. Have you asked Umbran if he meant to hit you with the bat? You should probably hold off on such harsh accusations until you get the full story from both sides.

There's also the context to consider. Were you walking into the swing of his bat or was he aiming at you? Maybe he was aiming at a deadly scorpion that was on your shoulder! We might never know the full context.

Even if he did -intentionally- hit you with a bat, and there's no proof that he was trying to -murder- you! It just means he was hitting you with a bat! Maybe he was just angry and lashing out. Or frustrated!

Could have been exasperated with this conversation!

Or maybe he just didn't care who got hurt so long as he could swing the bat and it isn't -malicious- bat-swinging but just a general fondness for waving a bat around in the air.

Also I haven't handled the bat, myself, but are you sure it's not foam rubber or one of those plastic wiffle bats?

Even if it -was- a real bat (and I'm not saying it was!) or that he really did mean to hit you (and I'm not saying he did!) isn't there still a wide gulf between hitting someone with a baseball bat and attempted murder?

Maybe he just wanted to hit you a few times without killing you, did you consider that before you accused him of attempted murder? And maybe we should examine what it is that caused him to want to hit you with a baseball bat, too. After all, his motivations play a key role in this and I don't think Umbran's the kind of person who would hit someone with a baseball bat unless they really deserved it.

This is what you've been doing. You may not have intended that, but the above? Is a rough approximation of your previous posts.

You know what, you have convinced me. I am not going to press charges against Umbran anymore

 

[mamba]

I really don't read the "I am sexist" remark as something I would take at face value. […] I do think he had sexist views and some of them may have come out in that exchange

then what are you even arguing about?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Simply because so few people are that cartoonishly villainous. To me it read as a build of of frustration and him basically saying "Fine, I am a sexist" and unloading. I do think he had sexist views and some of them may have come out in that exchange, but a declaration like this one, is something I take with a grain of salt.

And yet 27 years later he was posting that he was a "biological essentialist" (which as noted always means at least a sexist), which has fundamentally the same meaning.

So yeah I think that it's unreasonable for you to continue to deny this.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Again, Gygax admitted this plenty, and about stuff he dropped a lot of words on, like entire books. But not about sexism.

Why?

I don't know what he has retracted but if he has, fair enough. Maybe I am overstating the case in his case (though I would still say, there is a difference between admitting you were wrong about a game mechanic versus something that sheds light on character)

Probably because he thought he was right to be sexist, given even just a couple of years before his death he was saying he was a "biological essentialist" (which is pretty much straight-up a euphemism for at the very least a sexist, very often a misogynist, transphobe, racist, eugenicist, etc. - it literally never means anything good lol).

My reading of the biological essentialist thing is he felt boys and girls were different and had different interests. As far as I know he wasn't saying it in the context of race and ethnicity. I think he was incorrect to dismiss the role culture and environment plays and I think he had a very limited viewpoint because he ran a specific kind of D&D game and had built up a largely male audience (So I don't think he was seeing the number of women I was seeing interested in RPGs). So I think he was wrong about the actual point he was trying to make, I think it reveals the kind of sexism Heidi Gygax alluded to (it is the kind of thinking about boys and girls you saw a lot with the older generation).

 

[Bedrockgames]

And yet 27 years later he was posting that he was a "biological essentialist" (which as noted always means at least a sexist), which has fundamentally the same meaning.

So yeah I think that it's unreasonable for you to continue to deny this.

I have known plenty of older people who had views like that. Most of them, when asked, would deny being a sexist because they would still have seen that as a bad thing. Again, I am not saying sexism wasn't there. I am saying I tend to view that particular statement as being more a product of him being exasperated with people saying they think he is a sexist

 

[Gradine]