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)

 

[Mistwell]

Benoist only did the maps, AFAIK

No. Benoist wrote literally the entire friggen thing. The only role Ernie played is in reviewing it, and ideas. We've gotten updates for 5 years now from Benoist, and his writing it and the process they used.

(well, was supposed to do the maps). Ernie was, supposedly, responsible for everything else. And Ernie is a direct partner in nuTSR.

Is he? I am not even clear on that. Is his name on any partnership document? Tenkar's been posting lots of that kind of stuff and I have yet to see that. But maybe he did?

So I can see how people might draw some connections. But, yes, the Marmoreal Tomb Kickstarter existed before nuTSR did and Troll Lord Games picked it up when Benoist and Gygax totally fumbled it (although those two boat anchors are still weighing it down).

Benoist is one of two reasons it's coming out, with Troll Lord being the other. Benoist wrote it all, with pressure from Troll Lord Games to finish it. Troll Lord edited it and formatted it and are printing and distributing it.

 

[adamantyr]

My brother backed the Marmoreal Tomb Kickstarter. It's good that Troll Lord Games is getting it done for the backers. That said, much like Goodman Games with Judge's Guild stuff, finish it and then never work with or associate with these people again.

 

[RFB Dan]

While the state of WI does not have filing documents available online for viewing, North Carolina does. And according to their documentation, the sole LLC manager is Grits.

If Ernie was a partner in NuTSR Justin should have had him listed here.

 

[RFB Dan]

As an aside though, apparently WotC didn't 100% complete the OG-TSR merger until 2009. Not completely on-topic but interesting all the same. I'd wager that Hasbro/WotC kept it open until they finally cleaned up the 22 years of liabilities that built up down in Lake Geneva

 

[jdrakeh]

No. Benoist wrote literally the entire friggen thing. The only role Ernie played is in reviewing it, and ideas. We've gotten updates for 5 years now from Benoist, and his writing it and the process they used.

I wasn't aware of this. I was under the impression that Ernie was responsible for most of the writing (based on Kickstarter comments, Ernie being billed as the KS creator, and the project title bearing his name) and that both Ernie and Benoist had been very poor at giving updates before Troll Lord stepped in.

Is he? I am not even clear on that. Is his name on any partnership document? Tenkar's been posting lots of that kind of stuff and I have yet to see that. But maybe he did?

Ernie made some remarks about having invested monies into LaNasa's business ventures that seemed to heavily imply partnership in the context that they were made.

Benoist is one of two reasons it's coming out, with Troll Lord being the other. Benoist wrote it all, with pressure from Troll Lord Games to finish it. Troll Lord edited it and formatted it and are printing and distributing it.

I wasn't under this impression at all. Based on Kickstarter backer comments, Benoist seems to have been one of two parties attributed with weighing the product down, not getting it out (the other was Ernie). Those same comments seem to attribute all forward progress to the Troll Lords.

 

[darjr]

@Mistwell @jdrakeh wasn't the adventure something Ernie ran at the old TSR store?

 

[Audiomancer]

You mean, calling it “private information” instead of some sort of falsehood? Yup.

(Yoda voice) A lawyer, I am not…
but how can you claim that something is “private information” when you were offering it for sale on your website (even if it’s not clear that any copies were actually sold that way) AND you were handling it out as a freebie at a convention?

I mean… I suppose they could have forced every recipient to sign an NDA or something. But I am highly confident that the NUTS-r guys aren’t that smart.

 

[jdrakeh]

@Mistwell @jdrakeh wasn't the adventure something Ernie ran at the old TSR store?

That was my understanding, yes.

As I said, it has been my understanding from following the Kickstarter that Ernie was responsible for the writing and Benoist for the maps, with Benoist being blamed (by Ernie and backers alike) for most of the delays on that front (i.e. that incomplete maps being worked on by Benoist were holding up the project).

To be honest, Mistwell's claim in this thread is the first time that I've heard of Benoist being responsible for most of the project and being its savior in any way, shape, or form. Prior to this thread, I've seen the Trolls hailed as the only reason the Kickstarter may see publication.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

OMG, I don't want to distract from the legal discussion, but Tenkar just posted a video showing a PDF of the SFNG beta that was made for TSR Con. Two of the subraces of "Humanoids" are literally "N-words*" (with an intelligence cap and high strength) and "Nordic" (blond haired, blue eyed, and bonuses to all attributes).

I can't even.



*Not that N-word, but another common derivative of it. Not sure if it's safe to post or not.

Ok up this I was thinking “Christ! Not 10 degrees of Kevin Bacon are you a racist game again!”

Personally I think some folks dig and stretch to make the connection.

This? Is straight embarrassing. I am an oft skeptic of what I say is overzealous prosecution. This is next level.

To make use of those words and comparisons is no accident. It’s so obvious that if it was, you would see it and correct it.

I don’t even care that purple people are dumber. What is mind blowing is you use terms used in our world in the SAME negative ways they have been used IRL?!

How does one think this will sit with customers? Why such an unforced error? Yeah, something is south of cheese here. I get bad sympathy embarrassment when people do dumb stuff. This triggers that feeling of cringe….

 

[Sacrosanct]

While the state of WI does not have filing documents available online for viewing, North Carolina does. And according to their documentation, the sole LLC manager is Grits.

View attachment 254411
If Ernie was a partner in NuTSR Justin should have had him listed here.

Yeah, and he's telling Ernie and others that they are partners knowing full well they aren't. It's why Ernie offered shares to another person before even though he has no authority to do so, and doesn't even realize he's being swindled. It's a way for Justin to maintain complete control. There's irony there about keeping Ernie Gygax jr out of owning shares in a company that uses TSR as their business name, but I doubt he's noticed.

However, in this case, Justin's greed is going to bite him in the butt, because by keeping all legal control, he's also the only one responsible for the lawsuit, and the only one who has pierced the corporate veil (as described earlier in this thread). Ernie can walk away scott free if he wants.