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!

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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)

 

[Deset Gled]

Ernie asked them to take it down, apparently...

He also just wants to game and doesn't care what else happens in the world, so... yeah...

By his own admission he could have taken it down himself if he wanted to. And/or posted something resembling an apology. Oh well.

And I see he's still trying to pretend he's a "volunteer" instead of an employee, an investor, and half of the brand name.

 

[Faolyn]

I see Ernie prefers the "bury head in sand" version of the True Neutral alignment.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I love the trio tag team of sacrosanct, faolyn, and luke gygax vs comically inept wrestler Ernie and his angry manager lanasa.

Thats a hell of a wrestling match!

 

[Willie the Duck]

But even then, even if one had the data/evidence, IS IT WORTH DOING? In what way does it enhance the game?

I don't think those differences should be reflected in-game, though, because you're generally playing exceptional people anyway. Particularly in point-buy systems, the solution is easy: if you don't think your lady PC should be as strong as a man, just don't max out Strength. Problem solved. Still, that's one more reason to not have ability scores that cascade into other parts of the system.

Fundamentally this. Most games aren't clearly wedded to 'realism' in the first place (more verisimilitude with genre fiction of myths, folklore, and pulp and fantasy literature), and among those that are, most don't treat their character creation system as a demographics simulator. Throw in that the attribute and related derived stats systems are usually pretty abstracted from a specific level of individual qualities. Regardless, if you are trying to play Greek heroes and the person who wants to play Hippolyta alongside Jason and Theseus and Orion is stuck with some game quality that makes it cripplingly hard to play a fighter-type, you've sacrificed the game quality in service of some other master.

I'm strongly of the notion of not having such rules, and then a sidebar saying, effectively, 'if you think it unrealistic for there to be a female hero with <score> over <value>, don't choose to play a female hero when you roll a <score> over <value>.'

 

[Umbran]

Look at the past 20 tears of professional sports records.

With respect, Danny, this has two issues:

1) Professional athletes are not a representative sample of humanity.
2) Professional sports (and the process of selecting and creating professional athletes for it) would itself have to be without gender bias for this to be a meaningful statement.

 

[Jer]

I'm strongly of the notion of not having such rules, and then a sidebar saying, effectively, 'if you think it unrealistic for there to be a female hero with <score> over <value>, don't choose to play a female hero when you roll a <score> over <value>.'

I agree, but the thing is rules like these aren't for the people who don't want to play that kind of character. Because they're not going to. Rules like these are for the people who don't want other people to play that kind of character. It's about gatekeeping the kind of fun that is allowed at a table or in a ruleset - and honestly these days it just might be just about being an aging edgelord trying to get a reaction out of people on the internet or doing some "vice signaling" rather than any kind of actual gaming purpose tbh.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, it looks like the rainbow shield image and accompanying posts are down. I doubt NuTSR would ever admit it, but I suspect this was not by their choice. Based on other internet rumblings it sounds like a lot of people reported the thread as hate speech.

I can still see and comment on them *Edit, nevermind, I just realized I was commenting on another post and not the original

 

[Willie the Duck]

I agree, but the thing is rules like these aren't for the people who don't want to play that kind of character. Because they're not going to. Rules like these are for the people who don't want other people to play that kind of character. It's about gatekeeping the kind of fun that is allowed at a table or in a ruleset - and honestly these days it just might be just about being an aging edgelord trying to get a reaction out of people on the internet or doing some "vice signaling" rather than any kind of actual gaming purpose tbh.

Oh, for sure. The full text would really be 'if you think it unrealistic for there to be a female hero with <score> over <value>, don't choose to play a female hero when you roll a <score> over <value>. If someone else wants to play a female hero with a <score> over <value>, that is their prerogative. If them doing so unbearably damages your gaming experience, this is a problem that system rules cannot resolve.' and the last part is just trying to be polite (my real thoughts would be 'if them doing so unbearably damages your gaming experience, you have issues that I have no interest in addressing').

All of this is beating well around the bush. The people that include such language in their modern* games are doing so to take a stance in a culture-war battle. I do think it does have a gaming purpose though -- it makes it such that only the people with whom they would want to play would likely pick up said product (although since these guys seem to have infinitesimal audiences actually interested in their products as games instead of as statements, I don't think any of their rules have an actual gaming purpose).
*I'll buy that the original AD&D gendered stats was just unconscious bias, 'it just makes sense'-ism, not really having a solid idea about where on the realism-hero fantasy spectrum the game really was, and not really thinking anyone (certainly not the women Gary didn't seem to think bought the books) wanted to play powerful female warriors. Given the reaction at the time and since, no one else can make that claim.

 

[Mannahnin]

Given the rather drastic changes trans people can achieve with HRT, even at an adult age, I think it's disingenuous to say that there aren't any differences in athletic capabilities between men and women. As for how much is nature and how much is nurture, that's up in the air, but there are clearly some differences.

I don't think those differences should be reflected in-game, though, because you're generally playing exceptional people anyway. Particularly in point-buy systems, the solution is easy: if you don't think your lady PC should be as strong as a man, just don't max out Strength. Problem solved. Still, that's one more reason to not have ability scores that cascade into other parts of the system.

Right. Even to the extent that there are differences (which is often exaggerated) between average men and average women, statistics clearly show that the range of individual human variation is much wider than the difference between the two genders is in aggregate. Even compare the average athletic woman to the average nonathletic man, and she's going to be physically superior. Pro athletes are well above the curve for the other gender, and there's no reasonable justification to limit the physical capabilities of an individual fantasy heroine compared to a fantasy hero.

By his own admission he could have taken it down himself if he wanted to. And/or posted something resembling an apology. Oh well.

And I see he's still trying to pretend he's a "volunteer" instead of an employee, an investor, and half of the brand name.

As opposed to two weeks ago, when he was saying "we have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars" in the business and museum.

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

 

[CleverNickName]

A while ago, BoredPanda posted a photo series (from Howard Shatz's book, available on Amazon) titled, "Athlete." The project is a study in body types and gender expectations, through the lens of professional sports, and tries to answer the question "what does an athlete look like."

There are dozens of pictures in the book, but here are just a few excerpts to prove a point:

The point is, obviously, there is no single "athletic build." A figure skater has a dramatically different build than a water polo player, regardless of their chromosome configuration. Both Tara Lipinski and Maureen O'Toole are professional athletes, the top performers of their fields, and they don't even wear the same hat size. Maureen O'Toole and Wolf Wingo, on the other hand, are both water polo athletes, and have...very similar builds, with only 3" of height difference between them.

This whole "sex modifier" thing is a terrible idea, has always been a terrible idea. It is not supported by science, nor is it supported by history. But then, I suppose that's not really the point. The point is that this is fantasy, something that is malleable and detached from reality. It can be A Thing in a make-believe world, if certain writers want it to be. And thankfully, most people already know how offensive it is to reduce someone's sex to a number purely for the sake of comparison and categorization.