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)

 

[Shakeshift]

I mentioned that a while ago. It would not shock me at all. Almost like Justin is trying to manufacture drama, because any attention is good attention.

At this point, I don't really care anymore. I'm just gonna wait until the lawsuit pans out, because that's the only "real" thing we'll see happen from all of this. Anything prior to that isn't really newsworthy. I just wish he wasn't getting so much attention from his antics.

So if a layperson wants to see how the lawsuit with WotC is going, how does one get transcripts of what happened in the courtroom on any given day during the trial?

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

So if a layperson wants to see how the lawsuit with WotC is going, how does one get transcripts of what happened in the courtroom on any given day during the trial?

You wait for someone to leak LaNasa complaining about them on Discord.

 

[LordEntrails]

So if a layperson wants to see how the lawsuit with WotC is going, how does one get transcripts of what happened in the courtroom on any given day during the trial?

Depends on the court. But in general, reach out to the court and make a records request. Probably will take some weeks for the transcripts to be available and might cost you money.

 

[Morrus]

Justin Lanasa is fairly pathological. Like most people who have stunted emotional growth, he probably flits between heavy activity cycles of drama and then no activity cycle whatsoever.

People who have Borderline Personality Disorder are the same way. It would certainly explain the loyalty tests that people fail. People with BPD are obsessed with tests of loyalty. If you fail with them in a loyalty test, they throw you out of their circle and never want to see you again. They're always performing passive-aggressive "tests" on even their closest friends to make sure their loyalty is sincere. It's downright paranoid.

Look, I've already asked you not to do this. When you just make up fictional psychological diagnoses of people, you're not acting any better than they are. I asked you to stick to commenting on actual words and actions, and you acknowledged it. You were also warned by Umbran for personal insults directed at Ernie Gygax. This is now the third time, so now I'm going to ask you to stop posting in the thread at all.

 

[adamantyr]

So on Friday TSR LLC has posted their answer to WotC's counterclaim lawsuit.

Most of it is boilerplate type responses, denial, can't confirm or deny, etc. I've attached it so anyone with a background in legal can have a look and fill us in.

 

[Mistwell]

The important bits:

• Dave couldn't do the con because he contracted COVID, is clearly still sick, and even says in his last video that he's still "shaky and weak". But he's filming himself maskless in a public restaurant! Seriously, screw you. You are literally spreading death.

OK, I am not in any way defending anyone at this horrid company (and if it matters to anyone - I think they all suck and are pretty bad people), but I did want to comment on this bit because it has implications for many others reading your post who have recovered from Covid and who have nothing to do with this company.

He probably isn't spreading Covid. If he first announced he was positive 9 days prior, that means he contracted it at least 12 days prior (probably even earlier than that). According to the most recent guidance, and most doctor advice, he likely isn't contagious anymore. In fact he likely hasn't been contagious for several days at that point. Maybe even for a week.

The general contagion window seems to be up to two days before your first symptom, and up to three days after your first symptom. Beyond that, once your fever has gone away, mask indoors for 5 days further (though you're likely beyond your contagion window during those 5 days). I don't know when his fever disappeared (or if he even had a fever) but it seems the odds are he's outside of even that mask window at the 10th day after his first symptom.

You can still struggle with Covid after effects and no longer be contagious. Most do. Being shaky and weak after recovering is not atypical. That doesn't make you contagious - you might be the safest person in the room with the highest antibody count. He may well be within his doctors advice and fully cleared to be out and about, but still feeling shaky and weak.

Not that you shouldn't condemn him for other things. I just didn't want to give people the impression that they will be judged as "literally spreading death" if they go out after recovering from Covid at that point because their doctor says it's OK to do so.

But I am not a medical doctor. Please ask your doctor and don't take my advice on these sorts of things.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So on Friday TSR LLC has posted their answer to WotC's counterclaim lawsuit.

Most of it is boilerplate type responses, denial, can't confirm or deny, etc. I've attached it so anyone with a background in legal can have a look and fill us in.

Briefly (and I may do something longer on this later)-

The "Answer" doesn't really provide much; it's boilerplate.

The affirmative defenses are .... more interesting. I don't think that they are very good.

Viewing them in order-

1. Failure to state a claim. Okay, this is pled a LOT. But ... it's not an affirmative defense. Briefly, this has to do with "burdens." The Plaintiff has the burden to prove their case. Affirmative defenses, on the other hand, are the Defendant's burden. What they mean is that even if Plaintiff proves its case, Defendant is not liable (or wholly liable) for reasons. If the complaint fails to state a claim, you raise it in a motion to dismiss. Otherwise, it's always the Plaintiff's burden to state their claim.

2-5. Equitable defenses. General rule of thumb; if the first defenses you see pled are equitable defenses, it's usually a pretty weak defense. It's interesting that they just went ahead and pled them all (and also seem to have laches and waiver somewhat confused). I don't see anything in these defenses other than rote "throw something in the air and see if it sticks."

6. Lack of standing. This is a bit confusing- most people think of standing in the "federal" sense (whether a party has Article III standing). Here, the allegation seems to be that WoTC is not a proper party for the consumer laws; this may or may not be the case, but the majority rule for these laws is that companies my bring actions for deceptive and unfair competition.


What is most important, to me, is not what this responsive pleading does, but what they didn't do. From a litigation standpoint, you would normally want to get the individual with assets out of the litigation through any means possible immediately - at a minimum, at least try to file a motion to dismiss. That this was not done would normally indicate (IMO):

1. That they don't have much money to fight the litigation; or
2. That they are negotiating a settlement; or
3. That the attorneys don't know what they are doing; or
4. That the attorneys know what they are doing and realize that they can't extract him individually out of the litigation.



As always, this is only IMO.

 

[adamantyr]

Thanks, Snarf!

I feel like it's probably #2, although #3/4 is possible. It does have a feel of "Answering just so can draw this out."

 

[pantsorama]

Yeah. From what I have seen, LaNasa/nuTSR have what I call the "Gold Fringe" theory of the law.

Maritime Law, for the fail.

 

[Deset Gled]

So on Friday TSR LLC has posted their answer to WotC's counterclaim lawsuit.

Most of it is boilerplate type responses, denial, can't confirm or deny, etc. I've attached it so anyone with a background in legal can have a look and fill us in.

I get that there are legalese reasons for their responses, but it's hard to deny that some of them sounds quite silly. For example...

In response to Paragraph 4, the Counterclaim Defendants deny that TSR maintains its principal place of business in North Carolina.

The company filed for corporation in NC. The sole manager and owner lives in NC. They initially filed suit in NC. I'm guessing this is a desperate attempt to claim NuTSR is based on Wisconsin, and detangle it from LaNasa's personal assets in NC?

WotC:
11. TSR, Inc. owned intellectual property rights, including but not limited to
intellectual property rights relating to the name “TSR” and its Dungeons & Dragons and Star
Frontiers products, among many others.

NuTSR:
The Counterclaim Defendants do not have sufficient information by which to admit or
deny the allegations in Paragraph 11. To the extent Paragraph 11 calls for legal conclusions
with respect to whether TSR, Inc. owned certain intellectual property rights, no response is
required. To the extent a response is required, the Counterclaim Defendants deny the
allegations in Paragraph 11.

NuTSR is going to deny (or claim ignorance) that the original TSR owned the rights to D&D and Star Frontiers?

The Counterclaim Defendants do not have sufficient information by which to admit or deny
Wizards’ allegation that it has produced, advertised, and sold Dungeons & Dragons products
“continuously since acquiring TSR, Inc.” To the extent a response is required, the
Counterclaim Defendants deny this allegation.

The guy that literally runs a museum dedicated to the history of D&D doesn't know that WotC are the guys that have been making D&D for over 20 years?