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.

 

[Steampunkette]

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

That you suggested it was my "Aggressive" posting that made him think that, rather than that user supporting the "Good fight" against trans people which they openly mentioned in a post.

And do you think I should unblock him and subject myself to his positions and be willing to deal with potential misgendering and other microaggressions or should I keep him on my ignore list?

'Cause you've been -big- on never ignoring anyone, but I figured a clear case where I could wind up being outright harassed by someone who thinks I'm a man might sway your position.

But I'm open to being wrong.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's a strawman. The claim is that he was not a product of his time, not that other sexists wouldn't have written that. You are twisting what I am saying needs proof.

None of it maters because it doesn't matter if he was 'a product of his time'.

Whether there were one billion people who did and said scumbag things during a certain time period or one, that doesn't change the things they said or did. If someone sucks because they were a 'product of their time', that doesn't make them not suck, it just makes 'their time' also suck and in no way absolved them of their actions.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

That you suggested it was my "Aggressive" posting that made him think that, rather than that user supporting the "Good fight" against trans people which they openly mentioned in a post.

And do you think I should unblock him and subject myself to his positions and be willing to deal with potential misgendering and other microaggressions or should I keep him on my ignore list?

'Cause you've been -big- on never ignoring anyone, but I figured a clear case where I could wind up being outright harassed by someone who thinks I'm a man might sway your position.

But I'm open to being wrong.

You can't really argue with the marketplace-of-ideas crowd, because they're almost never in a position to get harassed as often or as viciously. To them, it's all just a game.

 

[Mannahnin]

None of it maters because it doesn't matter if he was 'a product of his time'.

Whether there were one billion people who did and said scumbag things during a certain time period or one, that doesn't change the things they said or did. If someone sucks because they were a 'product of their time', that doesn't make them not suck, it just makes 'their time' also suck and in no way absolved them of their actions.

And as Ruin Explorer and other people have repeatedly pointed out, the idea that he was just a man of his times collapses completely given that he got criticism from OTHER WARGAMERS at the time. And evidently not a trivial amount, that he could ignore and dismiss. Enough that he was sufficiently put out by it to get all huffy and defensive and impatient and to shout and stamp his feet (metaphorically) doubling down in print.

 

[Zardnaar]

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're cherry picking things though.

1968-1992 results on side only won 4 years.

My position is what broke things (that we are dealing with now) was Vietnam. That was the big catalyst directly responsible for now.

For both of us our country men disappointed us recently. In both cases the majority disagreed with us. Here it was 53%.

Broadly speaking around 35% saw things my way. By tgat I mean 35% agree with around 60%.

You see things how you want things to be I see things by looking at the numbers.

Nothings set in stone I don't know how tomorrow will turn out. It's going to be different I don't know how different.

You're vastly over estimating your views popular support in 2024 let alone Gary's time.

Without hyperbole read classical literature
Very different world. Hitler was born into the age of Empires. No UN settling disputes on the battlefield with poison gas was done.

Several posters here have been out right purity testing. We'll we see the results of that recently. I know Older generations they fail those purity tests bt they vote the right way so now what?

Online nuance lacking. Communism is everything to the left of hunting poor people for sport, Fascism is everything to the right of Mao Zedong.

I love American cultural influence. Nothing will go wrong nope. It's fine everything is fine.

 

[Zardnaar]

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 indicting much the same attitude 30 years later).

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.

Elons basically a professional billionaire troll.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Did we just reach 'both sides'-ing sexism?

 

[mamba]

Gygax was a public figure he's far from the worst or even somewhat typical for his generation.

yes, he is not the worst, not being the worst does not mean you are free from criticism

 

[Bill Zebub]

Mark Kern, not Mark Hern

 

[mamba]

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

no one is arguing about whether Elon was right or wrong, he just set the thing in motion, other than that he plays no role in it