TSR NuTSR Declares Bankruptcy

NuTSR, owned by Justin LaNasa, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which will liquidate the company's assets.

NuTSR's gross revenue so far for 2023 is $621.93 according to the documents filed in North Carolina. This is balanced against total liabilities of just over $384,000.

The company made the news over the last couple of years, emerging in 2020 when then-owners Justin LaNasa and Stephen Dinehart registered the defunct TSR trademarks and launched the new venture with the involvement of Ernie Gygax, one of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax's sons. Over the following months, NuTSR generated controversy after controversy, attempted to sue D&D publishers Wizards of the Coast via a crowdfunding effort, and in March 2022 eventually found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from them.

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)...

www.enworld.org

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As a consequence of the bankruptcy petition the current lawsuit between WotC and NuTSR is on hold, postponed until March 2024. NuTSR's website is still active.

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[LuisCarlos17f]

If a title promotes negative values it has to be boycotted. We can agree the bigotry isn't wellcome here, but you may be forgetting a very important lesson: we have to promote the good sense and the respect for the human dignity. Here I worry more about World of Darkness, because although White Wolf/Onyx Path is anti-racism and anti-homophobia their work is too coated with social darwinism and moral relativism, and this may be very dangerous, even when the audiences are supposedly mature.

Other point is publishers should worry about being ideologically neutral. The hobby are too expensive, and after a hard work of work or studies we don't to suffer a "preacher" labeling against ones with a different point of view.

I don't see a good future for that guy. Nobody with enough good sense would cause that type of troubles. Even the people with supremacist prejudices hide their ideas in the job. Even the psycopaths know they have to pretend and hide their "shadow". You have to worry about the prestige of the brand.

When you face lawyers hired by a megacorporation I wouldn't bet for the buddy who started the controversy. Epic failure in diplomacy check.

* Any new about "Star Frontiers: New Genesis"? If WotC is interested into a new d20 Future, maybe they wanted to recover that title.

I wonder the reaction of the people if instead rainbow the logo of the megacoporations showed a Cross of Burgundy in October 12nd, day of Hispanidad.

 

[Deset Gled]

* Any new about "Star Frontiers: New Genesis"? If WotC is interested into a new d20 Future, maybe they wanted to recover that title.

During a hearing, NuTSR agreed not to publish SF:NG until after the lawsuit with WotC was settled. According to the bankruptcy filing it is owned by NuTSR, so it should be held up in that for now.

However, in a very legally questionable move Lanasa has started to sell Dungeon Crawl, Those Pesky Goblinz, and other NuTSR owned titles under his other LLC "OSR Games". So it's anyone's guess if he's dumb enough to try and publish SF:NG under that brand, too.

 

[Parmandur]

I thought that was just a simple leveraged buyout, which is damaging enough without bonus shenanigans. (It's the root of why Discovery/HBO/Warner Brothers has gone insane.)

Yeah, it was a leveraged buyout. There was some level of financial kickback for stock holders and such, but it was above board and legal, in addition to being competently handled. Left Toys R Us unsustainable, but it wasn't...this.

 

[Shakeshift]

During a hearing, NuTSR agreed not to publish SF:NG until after the lawsuit with WotC was settled. According to the bankruptcy filing it is owned by NuTSR, so it should be held up in that for now.

However, in a very legally questionable move Lanasa has started to sell Dungeon Crawl, Those Pesky Goblinz, and other NuTSR owned titles under his other LLC "OSR Games". So it's anyone's guess if he's dumb enough to try and publish SF:NG under that brand, too.

There is no SF:NG game. I don't believe there ever was one. It was a fictional thing meant to intimidate Wizards of the Coast into backing off and paying off Lanasa.

Dave Johnson wrote some of the parts, but if you're familiar with his work it's always incomplete, incomprehensible, and wouldn't be a cohesive game that someone could roll characters for and play. Dave's not a real game designer, He's a wannabe with big aspirations and zero talent.

 

[Wincenworks]

There is no SF:NG game. I don't believe there ever was one. It was a fictional thing meant to intimidate Wizards of the Coast into backing off and paying off Lanasa.

There is technically a manuscript which arguably has unique elements of intellectual property in it, and since that was supposedly core to TSR LLC's business and specifically labelled as such, it should be listed in the assets... it's not. The trademarks are, but not the intellectual property for that document itself.

Hilariously the TSR Rating Meter is though, so I guess that tells us how well that went.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There is no SF:NG game. I don't believe there ever was one.

Sure there is. But I guess the value of that asset is zero. Who knew that Nazis in Space wouldn't sell well?

 

[Wincenworks]

Who knew that Nazis in Space wouldn't sell well?

Having read both versions of the document thoroughly, I can assure you that it's somehow even worse than that. It's "Nazis in Space, where the GM will randomly turn it into Nazis in Sword & Sorcery."

 

[DLIMedia]

There is no SF:NG game. I don't believe there ever was one. It was a fictional thing meant to intimidate Wizards of the Coast into backing off and paying off Lanasa.

Dave Johnson wrote some of the parts, but if you're familiar with his work it's always incomplete, incomprehensible, and wouldn't be a cohesive game that someone could roll characters for and play. Dave's not a real game designer, He's a wannabe with big aspirations and zero talent.

If SF:NG was fictional - which is distinct possibility, at least as you describe it - I'm willing to bet DaveJ wasn't in on the scheme. He got the opportunity to write something by someone that appeared to like his work and by God he did. Whether Justin was seriously going to do anything with that is up for debate.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Having read both versions of the document thoroughly, I can assure you that it's somehow even worse than that. It's "Nazis in Space, where the GM will randomly turn it into Nazis in Sword & Sorcery."

Apparently even Nazis have a threshold of how bad something is grammatically before rejecting it...

What an accomplishment for him. "Written so poorly, even Nazis won't buy it."

 

[Shakeshift]

Apparently even Nazis have a threshold of how bad something is grammatically before rejecting it...

What an accomplishment for him. "Written so poorly, even Nazis won't buy it."

I'm looking at all the SF:NG stuff right now. The part where people of 'dark-colored skin' can only have a maximum INT of 9 whereas the 'Aryan' race starts with all stats at 13 or higher no matter what seems fairly ironic considering how many spelling errors and grammatical mistakes both Justin Lanasa and Dave Johnson have in their own works.

Justin's spelling level and grammar seems downright embarrassing, and both of them identify as Aryan. It's amazing the levels some people will go to project their own fears.