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.

 

[Mannahnin]

They aren’t retweeting a post. Even then I don’t automatically assume a retweet is an endorsement.

A retweet is inherently an endorsement and agreement, unless accompanied by a comment disagreeing.

Just like a "share" on other social media. Or copying and pasting someone else's opinion or argument and republishing it yourself. You are propagating and implicitly endorsing the sentiment.

 

[mamba]

I said it's not a defense of sexism.

then it is pointless to bring it up, as I said

I'm saying open your eyes and fully understand what is going on so you can actually make an informed decision. Environmental factors are relevant

my eyes are open, if the factors are relevant, then they are a defense, which is how everyone but you is using them here.

It is more like you willfully press your eyes closed, no matter how much people ask you to open them

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I am on the road, but I just wanted to clarify one thing.

The term “goodwife” dates back to the 1300s. If you have any respect for Gygax, you can be reasonably sure that is why he was using it, not because of the Scarlet Letter. Also, this is why I hate this type of thing- people making something up that makes no sense to defend something just because.

It would have made more sense for him to have used it because of The Cruicible, by the way. But again, I actually respect Gygax enough to understand that he was using that archaic address because that was a term used in the 1300s and 1400s in England.

ETA- sometimes people need to pause before writing. That table is just fine because it was an homage to the Scarlet Letter? Just try thinking about that for more than three seconds. It doesn’t pass the laugh test.

 

[TiQuinn]

Now they have effectively picked a side and that is going to lead to greater splintering in the hobby

I say pick the option that loses you the least customers and doesn’t further divide the hobby

But is the hobby splintered? Is the hobby divided?

From what I’ve seen, this is not a culture battle - that assumes that a stance has not become the predominant one. Whether it’s WotC’s disclaimers, the work of Shannon Appelcline on DriveThruRpg history entries, or books by other authors of the time, the view that giving context to these works and pointing out when they use racial or sexist terms is the standard. This is common elsewhere in the arts, be it commentary before movies on TCM, or content warnings on old Disney cartoons.

I don’t see how a few people shouting amounts to a splintered community, no matter how much those few people want to be seen as a larger segment of the whole.

 

[Maxperson]

then it is pointless to bring it up, as I said

I get that you don't want to fully understand the situation with Gygax, but stop telling me that it's pointless to have full understanding before making a decision about the issue.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I don't think it does that at all. If the content of the text they are reprinting is that bad, it should be evident to people reading it. The idea that the book needs to warn us in advance, is something I think a lot of readers have been objecting to in the hobby. I can read a book from another time and assess it for what it is on my own

As a teacher of history, that argument is absolutely dumb. Things are not always evident to people, especially people who know nothing on a topic. There are plenty of young people who are getting stuff that says it isn't bad, as someone who actually has to deal with middle schoolers on a regular basis. So framing it early and immediately is important, as it generally is with all historical texts.

And really, if this were an honest argument, you wouldn't care that people are making light of it because it's already evident that it is bad. Who cares about people who complain that people are pointing this out? Those are people who don't think it's wrong! I find this to be a fundamentally dishonest line of argumentation.

Also this is put out by the publisher of the game and this is a still hotly debated topic among gamers.

"Oh my god, who in the Nine Hells cares?"

This sort of argument would have kept the Lost Cause in academia forever.

I don't think it is the same as Penguin books reprinting something or a university press putting out a cultural history of D&D. It is naturally going to lead to further divisions in the hobby and naturally going to cause them to lose customers

It doesn't matter who is printing it, the fact of the matter is the integrity of the text. Trying to say they aren't Penguin doesn't mean anything because even the companies that publish a product should be honest and forthright about their history. Companies shouldn't be encouraged to whitewash their own history, let alone demanded to do so. This sort of argument is inane.

Not everyone agrees with how content warnings are handled. The ones that have the most consensus are things like warnings for nudity and excessive violence. A book using outdated language is something people are still fiercely debating whether content warnings are warranted (and there is a lot of evidence content warnings don't work very well)

That's great that not everyone agrees on how they are handled, but in the case of such things in historical record this is bog-standard and fine. The people who "don't agree" are often the people who want to gloss over and not recognize how this stuff is bad anyways. Recognizing that there were these views and that they were bad isn't just a content warning, it's a framing device for how to view the work and the period. This is basically standard practice, especially when dealing with heady issues.

But they are the publisher of the game, releasing this as part of an anniversary celebration. Like I said. It is pretty milk toast academic media analysis. I don't agree with a lot of it, but I think it is fine that it exists. The appropriate reaction is to have a conversation like we are now. But I do think it wasn't a wise step by WOTC to do this. You can see that by how the fanbase has been turning on itself in recent years. Dividing your customers is never a good idea

So what? They can publish a game and also publish a history. I don't care who the publisher is, I care about that it's a historical record, particularly on a topic that you and others want to sanitize. I work in history, I deal with this stuff. Creating our own Lost Causes does not help the hobby, it only shields those regressives who don't have trouble with the work and would use not recognizing such things as regressive as tacit approval. It's done all the time ("No one had trouble with it back then, why do you have a problem with it now?") and this is just trying to continue it.

You call it milk toast and yet here you are asking to water it down even further to be even less valuable. If that's your argument, why do you even care what this product does? Honestly you're contradicting yourself by trying to both demean it as a record but then also talk about how we shouldn't publish something that can potentially divide the community. If it's fluff, who cares, right?

 

[Voadam]

I understand the point, but it's not quite the same. A gaming supplement, even if it is an old one, isn't necessarily above editing things in and out for different reasons, such as cultural sensitivity. Now if we edited a historical text account to not mention those things were there when it would be important, that'd be worse because the whole point of a historical account is to recognize these facts.

So I get bringing this up, but it's a bit of apples and oranges comparison.

A bit of apples and oranges in cultural religious sensitivity versus sexism and slavery racial sensitivity.

But here from what I can tell is this is presented as a complete set of OD&D plus drafts and notes but then it entirely cuts out supplement IV of IV. And this is lumped in with the sexism and slavery references in the preface.

This seems explicitly editing the text to remove the offending passages that Remathilis was bringing up as an option WotC did not use on the Gygax sexism stuff.

It stood out to me in reading the preface and how they dealt with the sacred figures issue.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Apparently to quite a few that would be defending sexism and/or sexists.


This is where the main disagreement lies. I don’t particularly think anyone should tell me how something should be viewed.


Having bad people agree doesn’t mean one is wrong.

I really have a hard time seeing the warning presented as telling one how to view material.

 

[Maxperson]

I am on the road, but I just wanted to clarify one thing.

The term “goodwife” dates back to the 1300s. If you have any respect for Gygax, you can be reasonably sure that is why he was using it, not because of the Scarlet Letter. Also, this is why I hate this type of thing- people making something up that makes no sense to defend something just because.

It would have made more sense for him to have used it because of The Cruicible, by the way. But again, I actually respect Gygax enough to understand that he was using that archaic address because that was a term used in the 1300s and 1400s in England.

ETA- sometimes people need to think before writing. That table is just fine because it was an homage to a Scarlet Letter. Just try thinking about that for more than three seconds. It doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Yeah. Harlot dates back to around that time period as well. Gygax loved to use period names for things. 1e made me look up and learn a lot about things that were used in the Middle Ages. I had no idea what an Iron Maiden was until I looked it up as a young lad. Good times!

 

[Justice and Rule]

I agree with you here. One thing I dislike though is that someone in the future can come across the reprint and easily believe it’s the same as the primary source, which then gives them a false view of just how bad things were in the previous era.

Probably not a good solution to that.

Sure, but that's the problem with selling it as a gaming product. Preserving old versions of it for reference is certainly proper, in the same way we have different editions and edits of different books. That's historical preservation. But the version they currently offer should be edited in such a way because it's still being sold as a piece of gaming material on a gaming site.

A bit of apples and oranges in cultural religious sensitivity versus sexism and slavery racial sensitivity.

But here from what I can tell is this is presented as a complete set of OD&D plus drafts and notes but then it entirely cuts out supplement IV of IV. And this is lumped in with the sexism and slavery references in the preface.

This seems explicitly editing the text to remove the offending passages that Remathilis was bringing up as an option WotC did not use on the Gygax sexism stuff.

It stood out to me in reading the preface and how they dealt with the sacred figures issue.

Again, a lot of that is because it's still a gaming supplement. I get the argument and it's not necessarily a bad one, but I don't think it's as directly relevant here. But I do understand where you are coming from.