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.

 

[CellarHeroes]

He throws a dozen bombs as ridiculous and trollish as this D&D thing every day. And the way the algorithm works there now, he'd have to go looking, and pretty hard, to see any pushback. Paid accounts get their replies pushed to the top, and they're overwhelmingly Elon fanboys and bots. So he's likely already said about 20 eye-wateringly bigoted and/or just plain moronic things by now that'd get more traction.

Which makes me wonder why the good folks here have spent over 100 pages paying attention to Elon.

Just let the guy shake out his sillies. Next year he won't be able to post as many of these crazy things, because that wouldn't be an efficient use of his time or the taxpayers' money.

 

[Gradine]

Gary's positions were outright outnumbered by the US population's positions in the 70s.

He specifically called out not caring if women were paid less than men. But the ERA went through both houses of Congress in 1972 and it contained a provision on that basis. (as an Amendment it needed 2/3rds in both houses)

Taking a look at the average age of congressmen, here:

Generations of American Leaders: Average Age

View attachment 387187View attachment 387188
We can see that the average congressperson who voted for the ERA was -Older- than Gary Gygax.

And since each of those elected officials were elected by thousands upon thousands of voters, each....

Well. As you can see, MOST of the country disagreed with Gary Gygax on the topic. Making him an outlier.

To be clear, I'm not looking to discuss the ERA or other political positions, only to use the historical record to prove Gygax was out of step.

You are correct, but also, you are showing your homework to a brick wall. Consider alternative courses of action

 

[Mannahnin]

Which makes me wonder why the good folks here have spent over 100 pages paying attention to Elon.

Just let the guy shake out his sillies. Next year he won't be able to post as many of these crazy things, because that wouldn't be an efficient use of his time or the taxpayers' money.

We haven't.

Elon just provoked another round of the same argument we had four months ago, when Rob Kuntz provoked basically the same discussion.

We've spent 100+ pages arguing with each other, because there are a handful of people in our community who steadfastly refuse to believe Gary about himself, and will goalpost shift and accuse the rest of us of calling him a monster (which none of us have done) or trying to judge his innermost heart (which we haven't), or excuse Gary's behavior as being impulsive and emotional but not heartfelt (which is both obviously false and curiously hypocritical, since they're offended by our alleged judgement of Gary's heart of hearts, but they're pretending they have such insight), or as being typical of a person of his time (which is also dubious at best), or as being untrue to what his family and people who knew him say (also false; his own daughter's statement admitted both that he was sexist and that she hasn't actually read all the texts being referenced), or vaguely question the qualifications of the writers but insist that they're NOT arguing that not being "professional historians" means they're NECESSARILY talking out their backsides, or completely forget the existence of evidence and words which were shown to them in the last discussion, or try to goalpost shift semantic arguments about what constitutes "average" for 1975 (despite it being irrelevant when Gary made public statements indicating much the same attitude 30 years later), or dismiss his behavior as being irrelevant because he was SUCH a good dad and husband and treated people well interpersonally (err... tell me you haven't listened to When We Were Wizards without telling me you haven't listened to When We Were Wizards), or bring up the debunked "Tiamat is female so Gary was totally referencing mythology" defense yet again, or affirm that he was a totally good dude because he was friendly and avuncular at gaming conventions in the 2000s and they had a chat with him over a cigarette and a laugh over his hilarious shirt which read "porn star".*

Elon has mostly just come in for an occasional sidelong potshot. Do you know how I know that he doesn't actually know or care about the history of D&D or this issue? Because it took a YouTube videogame troll to bring it to his attention, four months late.


*(Ok, a couple of these examples may also have come from FB discussions).

 

[Gradine]

Again, it's always worthwhile to consider the possibility that they disagree with the assertions that he was sexist because they agree with all (or at least some) of the things he said

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Which makes me wonder why the good folks here have spent over 100 pages paying attention to Elon.

You clearly weren't here for the threads back in the day on whether dragonborn should have breasts.

ENWorlders can turn almost anything into a 100-page thread.

 

[Steampunkette]

You clearly weren't here for the threads back in the day on whether dragonborn should have breasts.

ENWorlders can turn almost anything into a 100-page thread.

I stand firmly in the "Dragonborn should have breasts" category and in fact raise you "All dragonborn should have breasts" because it's even funnier that way.

All dwarves should have beards, and all dragonborn should have breasts!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Which makes me wonder why the good folks here have spent over 100 pages paying attention to Elon.

We're just showing off that we can write so much more than you can on twitter (no, I won't call it the other thing).

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Gonna bring these back up for you, @Ulorian - Agent of Chaos, since it's been a few more pages and maybe you just didn't notice they were back there.

Lemme know!

??? I did know that. Did I say something to imply otherwise?

 

[Mannahnin]

??? I did know that. Did I say something to imply otherwise?

Do you still think she shouldn't Ignore such people?

 

[Gradine]

Do you still think she shouldn't Ignore such people?

Well how else will he get to find rampant transphobia being thrown around "kind of funny"