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.

• 1974. TSR1 creates D&D.
• 1997. TSR1 is bought by WotC (WotC is bought by Hasbro in 1999).
• November 2012. Jayson Elliot registers the TSR2 name as a trademark to launch Gygax Magazine. Luke and Ernie Gygax are involved.
• November 2015. Gail Gygax sues TSR2. Luke and Ernie Gygax are forced to leave. Gygax magazine is forced to close by Gail Gygax. The company continues to sell the Top Secret RPG under the name TSR2.
• October 2020. The Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum claims ownership of various TSR logos and tries to license them to OSR publishers.
• June 19th 2021. TSR3 announces itself with a press release. It claims to be the original TSR1 back again, under the leadership of Ernie Gygax, Gary's son, announcing that "the band is back together". Also involved are Justin LaNasa and Stephen Dinehart. Their flagship product is "GIANTLANDS" by James Ward and Stephen Dinehart.
• June 22nd 2021. TSR3 announces it is rebooting Star Frontiers, a game which WotC owns and is currently selling online. They registered the trademark back in April 2021.
• June 24th 2021. Ernie Gygax does a YouTube interview, and I transcribe it. The interview begins a controversy which rages online and includes digs at newer gamers, WotC, and trans people.
• June 25th 2021. It transpires that TSR2's Jayson Elliot forgot to renew the trademark registration, at which point his former partner Ernie Gygax, along with Justin LaNasa & Stephen Dinehart, swept in and grabbed it before notifying him. They offer to let him use it for a nominal fee.

• 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.

• 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.

• July 2nd 2021. TSR3's Twitter account claims now to be run by a new Public Relations Officer called Michael.
• July 6th 2021. TSR3's Michael has not been heard of since he announced himself prompting a widespread online search for him.
• July 7th 2021. TSR3 rebrands its website 'Wonderfiled'(sic) as Stephen Dinehart publicly blocks WotC and Hasbro on Twitter and announces he is "breaking up with them" because of politics.

• July 9th 2021. Yet another TSR website appears! This one we call TSR 3.5. TSR3 has split into two -- Wonderfiled (later Wonderfilled), and TSR Hobbies. Stephen Dinehart runs the former, which features the GIANTLANDS project, while Ernie Gygax and Justin LaNasa run the latter.
• July 9th 2021. With the new TSR3.5, the company claims that an unnamed individual was running the Twitter accounts of the company, it's affiliate companies, and the individuals involved with the company, and that all posts on any of those social media accounts should now be considered "invalid".
• July 26th 2021. TSR3.5 announces TSR CON to be held on the July 4th weekend in the Horticultural Hall at Lake Geneva, WI, the name location as Gen Con launched in 1968. TSR announces that "TSR CON will always be here" (it never takes places there).

• September 27th 2021. TSR3's Michael K. Hovermale shows up here on EN World.
• October 14th 2021. Michael Hovermale announces that their Star Frontiers game became available and then sold out before they could announce it. Nobody can find anybody who bought this product.
• October 15th 2021. LaNasa calls EN World a 'very big company' and publicly accuses me of making all this up. I publicly ask TSR's representative, Michael K. Hovermale, three times what I've allegedly made up, but get no reply.
• October 20th 2021. TSR Con is moved from the July 4th weekend to March 24-27, the exact same dates as Gary Con. The venue is moved from the Horticultural Hall to the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. A graphic on its website promises that they will not be checking vaccinations or asking people to wear face masks.

• December 6th 2021. A record is found showing that WotC is taking action against TSR3.5 - an administrative procedure to cancel its registration of the trademarks it is using, citing - among other things - fraud.
• December 7th 2021. After a long quiet period, TSR3.5 launches an IndieGogo campaign to "stop Wizards of the Coast". It files for a court declaration of its ownership of the TSR trademarks. The crowdfunding campaign will go to fight the legal battle, with any left over being donated to the Gygax Memorial Fund.
• December 9th 2021. TSR3.5 voluntarily dismisses the suit it filed two days before. The IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign is still running.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

(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)

 

[LordEntrails]

Oh no, if Underground is "old"...then what does that make me?

Grumpy

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh no, if Underground is "old"...then what does that make me?

i don’t know about YOU, but that game came out while I was studying for the Texas Bar Exam. So I’m clearly old.

Also, there’s this tagline from the game in the wiki: It's 2021, and the Dream is Dead

Soooooo…

 

[jdrakeh]

Underground was strangely prescient in many ways.

 

[pantsorama]

First of all, if the company made a billion dollars from it last year, it's worth 3-4 billion if it's up for sale. Three or four billion dollars would make ANYONE consider that retirement option.

Agreed with that he loves games, but running a corporation worth 1.06 billion is WAY above Ernie's paygrade. It's more stress and corporate machinations than he's ever going to want to deal with, which is why I said that he'd sell it at the first opportunity that presents itself and just retire. I would say that he'd choose that option over being CEO of any corporation, because as much as he wants his father's legacy to continue, he's not going to do what any corporation is going to ask of him to do as CEO. At Ernie's age, he's going to want to enjoy whatever years he has left, and that's not going to carry over to the corporate side of things in any capacity.

It's a moot point anyway, since there's no direct way for Ernie to become the heir to TSR unless they bring in some of the more obscure "Hail Mary" legal options that I've seen being bandied about by legal experts online.

Not that I think you don't know this but I think it bears pointing out.

There is no way any court would award all of D&D to anyone. Civil cases and contract law are based on the idea of making the aggrieved party whole, not make one company another's "butler". In no way does taking the massive value that WotC has added and giving it to someone else make anyone whole. At best someone might get control of the marks & copyrights, a prohibition on WotC coming near RPGs again and substantial damages. At best (and that is a major pipe dream anyway).

Point is - IF NuTsr won everything they would only have cash and IP. No marketing, no R&D, no Cash Runway, no workforce, no infrastructure, no legal, IT, HR etc. They WOULD STILL HAVE TO MAKE A PRODUCT. At which they are known to be horrible at doing, when they do it at all. In other words, if NuTsr won (they won't, but if), then that would be it for D&D.

 

[Mannahnin]

Point is - IF NuTsr won everything they would only have cash and IP. No marketing, no R&D, no Cash Runway, no workforce, no infrastructure, no legal, IT, HR etc. They WOULD STILL HAVE TO MAKE A PRODUCT. At which they are known to be horrible at doing, when they do it at all. In other words, if NuTsr won (they won't, but if), then that would be it for D&D.

Good points, though as a reminder to casual readers, of course they're also points about a theoretical lawsuit re: ownership of the company. Which isn't the one that's been filed.

 

[Shakeshift]

Good points, though as a reminder to casual readers, of course they're also points about a theoretical lawsuit re: ownership of the company. Which isn't the one that's been filed.

Correct, and I don't think for one second that it would ever go that way. MY assumption is that it's Justin Lanasa and Ernie that are thinking that way, and how they're going to have a big fancy law case and in a fell swoop, they're going to win over the jury with Justin's clever lies and a sad story about evil corporations and when the jury takes pity on Ernie and Justin and they're gonna "take back" Dungeons and Dragons (with the help of a judge) for Ernie to fulfill his greatest wish and be happy ever after.

Ernie is just gullible enough that he believes in that sort of naive' nonsense, because it's like a wish being dangled in front of his eyes. He never had to work for it, and someone else is magically doing all the legwork for it (paying the lawyers, doing the research etc...) and Ernie is the one who benefits at the end.

I know some of you have a soft spot for Ernie, but this last year has really shown many of us what a contemptible person really looks like. His pedigree nonwithstanding, Ernie's steadfast loyalty to Justin Lanasa really shows everyone what Ernie deserves out of this whole fiasco.... nothing. Ernie deserves nothing.

 

[Gradine]

I think my least favorite phase this thread goes through at regular intervals is the Ernie pity party/apologia. To say nothing of his connection with Lanasa, dude dug his own hole with those stupid transphobic jokes, never apologized, and then proceeded to dig himself ever deeper.

The way he "gets out of this" is the same way for every bad actor: apologize, take ownership of harm caused, promise to do better, and then actually do better.

That is all, of course, in addition to extricating himself from Lanasa's black hole

 

[Bolares]

I think my least favorite phase this thread goes through at regular intervals is the Ernie pity party/apologia. To say nothing of his connection with Lanasa, dude dug his own hole with those stupid transphobic jokes, never apologized, and then proceeded to dig himself ever deeper.

The way he "gets out of this" is the same way for every bad actor: apologize, take ownership of harm caused, promise to do better, and then actually do better.

That is all, of course, in addition to extricating himself from Lanasa's black hole

Yeah, and he doesn't even try to do the first step. I predict that at the moment he does the first minimal move to separate himself from Lanasa, he will be immediatelly forgiven by everyone. It's always the same old story for straight white men... always.

 

[Mannahnin]

Didn't I see that he was still allowed to run games at GaryCon?

 

[darjr]

I think my least favorite phase this thread goes through at regular intervals is the Ernie pity party/apologia. To say nothing of his connection with Lanasa, dude dug his own hole with those stupid transphobic jokes, never apologized, and then proceeded to dig himself ever deeper.

The way he "gets out of this" is the same way for every bad actor: apologize, take ownership of harm caused, promise to do better, and then actually do better.

That is all, of course, in addition to extricating himself from Lanasa's black hole

Agreed. He also had a lot of folks I thought he trusted telling him point blank he was wrong.
And still he only dig deeper.