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.

 

[Zardnaar]

My beef with Amazon is the adds on prime movies. But I am still a member because Amazon is simply too convenient

I refuse to use Amazon. Never used Twitter.

 

[Umbran]

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

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

Mod Note:

Both of you. Politics. Stop it.

As several folks over time can attest to, agreeing with me (or any other mod) in principle does not mean we won't threadban you.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think with purity tests people just start to feel unwelcome after a while and switch sides. I don't personally get this. Maybe I am just stubborn, but I don't see why I'd change my opinions on things simply because people with whom I share those opinions are kind of jerks about it

Maybe it's that people who are sure that their side is right and the other is wrong don't get repulsed, while those who realize both sides have a point do?

Dunno.

EDIT: The Red Text is coalescing. I'm going to step out of this.

 

[Zardnaar]

Mod text nevermind

 

[Bedrockgames]

Most people don't care to much one way or another.

The ones you need to convince don't care. If you insult them why expect them to support you?

Preaching to the choir only goes so far.

This is why I am an advocate of engaging and being kind

 

[Steampunkette]

Cut. I was typing while you posted, sorry.

Suffice it to say: About 85% of the population disagreed with Gygax in the 70s. That's a MASSIVE rebuke of "Product of his Time".

 

[Mannahnin]

Digging it up isn't going to help. Doesn't solve anything. Doesn't improve anyone's life directly in any concrete way.

You've really come in a second time, to a hundred+ page thread, to claim complete ignorance of the context?

It's the 50th anniversary of D&D.

WotC decided to publish a 578 page prestige format hardcover book about the creation of the original game, reproducing a bunch of primary source texts, some of them very rare and new to most of us, as a celebration of the game.

Those original texts include a few obnoxious or shocking things to a modern reader. So the historians writing included a content warning and firm moral statement about the attitudes inherent in those bits of original content, rather than censoring. They didn't insult or degrade anyone.

Rob Kuntz and some reactionary bad actors flipped out, personally attacking the historians and claiming the disclaimer/content warning was libelous.

Ben Riggs dug up more receipts to prove that Rob and his flying monkeys were definitely incorrect.

The only reason there was a fight was because Rob and the reactionaries objected to truth.

The same reason we're having a controversy again now, four months later, since Elon "non-stop anti-woke tweeting machine" Musk has just had the book brought to his attention by a bigoted YouTube troll.

 

[Clint_L]

Thanks to this thread, I added a lesson to my Theory of Knowledge class. We looked at Frankfurt's essay "On [BS]," and now students are making a poster exploring the way that online stories often fly ahead of the truth, finding their own real life situation to illustrate the issue. Maybe some of them will choose this example - if so, I will report back!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm willing to bet imaginary money that by pure page count the #1 most discussed subject on this site is Gary's sexism.

and how much 5E Rangers suck.

Then you are going to lose money.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What people are doing isn't working though. If it's a strategy game you're losing.

Purity testing which some here are doing has totally backfired out in the real world. Keep doing it if it makes you feel better but it's flow on effects resonate around the world. Eg my country is getting worse and we're about 30 years ahead of USA.

Just a friendly reminder that @Zardnaar is just wrong about this.

When my mom arrived in the US, she couldn’t open a bank account in her own name. She had essentially no recourse if she was harassed on the job. She couldn’t get an abortion in a lot of states.

Things may have gotten worse lately. But there have been victories. Remember that.