TSR The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR

Because the Saga of TSR3 has been ongoing for a while, with many landmarks, I thought I'd do a quick timeline for those who haven't had the time (or, frankly, inclination) to keep up with the whole palaver.

As multiple entities refer to themselves as TSR, I will use the nomenclature (1), (2) etc. to distinguish them. However, all the companies below simply use the term "TSR".

The principle people involved with this story are Ernie Gygax (one of Gary Gygax's children), Justin LaNasa (a tattooist, weapon designer, and briefly a politician who refers to himself as Sir Justin LaNasa*), Stephen Dinehart (co-creator of Giantlands with James Ward), and -- later -- Michael K. Hovermale, TSR3's PR officer.

Also linked to TSR3 is the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Much of TSR3’s commercial business appears to be conducted via the museum.

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  • Late June 2021. TSR3 embarks on an astonishing social media campaign where they tell people who don't like Gary Gygax not to play D&D, call a trans person on Twitter 'disgusting', thank the 'woke' because sales are up, insult Luke Gygax, and more. They also block or insult those who question them on Twitter.
  • Late June 2021. Various companies distance themselves from TSR3, including Gen Con, TSR2 (who rebrand themselves Solarian Games), GAMA, and various individuals such as Luke Gygax, Tim Kask, Jeff Dee, and more. TSR3 responds to being banned from Gen Con by claiming that they created the convention.
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  • June 30th 2021. TSR3 blames the widespread pushback it is getting on WotC, accusing it of mounting a coordinated assault on them. In the same tweets they claim that they created the TTRPG business. Ernie Gygax and Stephen Dinehart then deactivate their Twitter accounts. Months later it transpires that this is the date they received a C&D from WotC regarding their use of their IP.
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  • December 11th 2021. The president of the Gygax Memorial fund publicly declares that they were never consulted, and would refuse any donation from TSR3's crowdfunding campaign. TSR3 quietly removes the references to the GMF from the IndieGoGo page.
  • December 29th 2021. TSR3.5 refiles its lawsuit, this time in the correct jurisdiction. LaNasa and TSR ask for a trial by Jury.
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  • January 8th 2020. Wonderfiled[sic]'s Stephen Dinehart threatens to sue Twitter user David Flor for his negative review of Giantlands on the platform.
  • January 10th 2022. TSR3's Justin LaNasa sends TSR alumn Tim Kask a profane message, telling him to "Go suck Lukes/wotc/balls you f*****g coward" and accusing him of having been fired from TSR for stealing.
  • January 11th 2022. Michael K Hovermale claims that the first edition of TSR3's Star Frontiers: New Genesis game was released and has sold out. He says “It was a very small limited run released and sold on the DHSM [Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum] website. It is no longer available, and probably won’t be reprinted.” As yet, nobody has publicly revealed that they bought a copy.
  • January 14th 2022. Michael K. Hovermale resigns as TSR3's Chief Creative Officer and Public Relations Officer after 6 months in the position.
  • March 4th 2022. WotC strikes back with a lawsuit naming TSR, Justin LaNasa personally, and the Dungeon Hobby Shop museum. WotC seeks a judgement that TSR hand over all domains, take down all websites, pay treble damages and costs, hand over all stock and proceeds related to the trademarks, and more. TSR has 21 days to respond.
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  • March 22nd 2022. TSR gets an extension on that WoTC suit. Two waivers of service of summons granted to both Justin LaNasa and the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. He now has 60 days from March 4th to serve an answer or motion, or suffer default judgment.
  • March 26th 2022. TSR CON takes place at the same time as Gary Con. TSR claims " lol, actually we asked just about every one of the 800 people stopping by, TSR CON, and about 60% had no idea Gary con was going on, and we tried pushing them to go over and attend."
  • March 28th 2022. TSR3 posts images of 'rebound' copies of AD&D 1E books it is selling for $650 each.
  • May 17th 2022. Evidence emerges of Nazi connections via TSR3's Dave Johnson. Public Twitter posts include concentrated hateful imagery and messages over a long period of time.
  • May 17th 2022. DriveThruRPG removes all Dave Johnson Games titles from the platform.
  • May 17th 2022. A jury trial date is set for the TSR/WotC lawsuit for October 2023 (few suits like this actually make it to trial in the end).
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  • July 19th 2022. A leaked version of a beta version of TSR's 'Star Frontiers: New Genesis' game emerges on the internet. The content includes racist and white-supremacist propaganda, including character races with ability caps based on ethnicity, and various homophobic and transphobic references. Justin LaNasa immediately threatened to sue blogger Eric Tenkar, who shared the information publicly ('Mario Real' is one of LaNasa's online pseudonyms). Various evidence points towards the document's genuine nature, including an accidentally revealed Google drive belonging to NuTSR.
  • July 22nd 2022. A video shows a Google Drive that appears to be owned by nuTSR, which contains a list of enemies of the company, usually with the word "WOKE" in caps being used as a pejorative.
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(screenshot courtesy of the @nohateingaming Twitter account)

  • August 30th 2022. Wizard Tower Games announces that they have received a subpeona from WotC regarding TSR and Justin LaNasa. Former NuTSR employee Michaal K Hovermale confirms that he has also received a subpeona.
  • September 5th 2022. Justin LaNasa sends out customer data, including addresses and credit card numbers. LaNasa responds by publicly claiming the evidence is photoshopped and slandering those who revealed it as liars.
  • September 8th 2022. WoTC files an injunction to prevent LaNasa or his companies from “publishing, distributing, or otherwise making available Star Frontiers New Genesis or any iteration of the game using the Marks”.
  • June 8th 2023. NuTSR files for bankruptcy. The case between WotC and NuTSR is postponed until March 2024.

Have I missed anything important? I'll continue updating this as I remember things, or as people remind me of things!

To the best of my knowledge, TSR3 is not actually selling any type of gaming product.

*if anybody has any link to LaNasa's knighthood, please let me know!

Websites
Various websites have come and gone. I'll try to make some sense of it here so you know what site you're actually visiting!
  • TSR.com is the original TSR website. For a long time it redirected to WotC. The URL is no longer in use. (WotC)
  • TSRgames.com was TSR2 until summer 2021. The site is still running, although TSR2 is now called Solarian Games. (Jayson Elliot)
  • TSR.games was TSR3 until summer 2021. It now goes to Wonderfiled(sic)'s website. (Stephen Dinehart)
  • TSR-hobbies.com is TSR 3.5, launched summer 2021 by Justin LaNasa and Ernie Gygax. (Justin LaNasa)
 

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Kind of makes me wonder how much, if anything, Leason is getting paid, if he can even afford to move out.

These are very good questions. I don't have real answers, but I can review the facts I have.

  • Jeff Leason is definitely not rich, but by all accounts he was also not homeless or destitute before he moved into the DHSM.
  • The NuTSR saga, including the shady dealings with stealing the trademark, Ernie's problematic interviews, and the anti-trans tweets that eventually lead to Wonderfilled splitting away from NuTSR, all started well before the DHSM opened around Sept 4, 2021. So Leason had multiple dealings with Lanasa and knew what shady stuff he was getting into when he moved in and became the curator there.
  • From all available sources, Leason lives on the second floor of the DHSM. We don't know if he gets paid anything beyond that.
  • Leason has an "Editor" credit on Lanasa's psuedo-game book "Tales and Tots", from 2019.
  • According to an interview with Ernie, both Leason and Ernie were originally expecting to own some share of the DHSM. From court documents, we now know that Lanasa is the sole owner and manager of the DHSM. So it is likely that Leason expected to have a capital stake in the museum but currently doesn't.
  • Jeff Leason has significant vision issues. I believe he is blind in one eye and has problems with the other. Here's a post from Ernie about it:

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And from the comments section on that post:

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  • There is a rumor that Leason receives disability payments, and someone (most likely Lanasa) tried to get them taken away.
  • However, AFAIK that information is only a rumor at this point. We don't know how much Leason got as a disability payment, when exactly this happened, or how it was resolved. Here is a post from @Jedion357 about it that I found from July 2022.

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Putting all this together, Leason is deserved some sympathy. He was probably swindled by Lanasa a bit. But I still think he deserves blame, too. Just like Ernie, Leason helped enable Lanasa from the start, and continues to do it to this day. Leason could shut down the DHSM at any time, just like Ernie could disavow NuTSR at any time. Leason does have a bit more at stake that Ernie. But as a legal tenant he has protections that would prevent him from being unjustly evicted if he quit, and he's had plenty of time to make an exit strategy if he wanted to. The fact that Leason benefits financially from the DHSM and his relationship with Lanasa (and had plenty of knowledge about what he was getting into before he moved in) limits the amount I can feel sorry for him.
 
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However, it's also a possibility that we're seeing the first signs of Justin buckling to reality and starting to negotiate with Hasbro.
Quite possible given OSR Games LLC is the only company who's timing doesn't suspiciously line up with Justin getting notice of pending legal action, then deciding to take the initiative and sue Wizards of the Coast himself.

If he's being advised that he has to dissolve the other companies as part of the agreement - would not be surprised if he is prepping and also thinking that maybe if he does it on the sly he can keep the followers, traffic and even some of the products.
 

Apparently Justin's got a new logo for his Totally-Not-TSR movement!

As usual, they're incapable of picking one font and sticking to it.

And as usual, he picks something he can get into a lawsuit over. Anyone else claiming to be part of the "OSR" movement will now have LaNasa's sights pinned on them.

Of course, the community has been using "OSR" as a term of art for decades, such that it is probably not appropriate for trademark, but he'll probably lean into how most folks won't have the resources to want to fight over it.
 

Of course, the community has been using "OSR" as a term of art for decades, such that it is probably not appropriate for trademark, but he'll probably lean into how most folks won't have the resources to want to fight over it.
I'm thinking a lot of them are pretty committed and will just keep using the term regardless. LaNasa would have to go after them one by one. Maybe a lot of them would give in to a C&D, but some probably won't. And if just one holds to it and goes to court, seem like LaNasa would lose again.

But, we will have to wait and see.
 


I think the most likely scam is to try and make them pay for a "license" to keep using the tern.

Though it may just be as simple as an attempt to signal to the more regressive elements of the OSR community. "Look, guys, I'm OSR too. They're attacking me, which means they're attacking you too. Buy my products, buy my pre-orders, in order to fight back against the decadent left that's infiltrated our hobby."
 


And as usual, he picks something he can get into a lawsuit over. Anyone else claiming to be part of the "OSR" movement will now have LaNasa's sights pinned on them.

Of course, the community has been using "OSR" as a term of art for decades, such that it is probably not appropriate for trademark, but he'll probably lean into how most folks won't have the resources to want to fight over it.
In true LaNassian fashion, his logo is "Old School Rules", when OSR is actually "Old School Renaissance." and is how everyone (including myself) have used the term. Hard to enforce a C&D when he himself is using something different than everyone else.
 


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