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”.

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)

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Not-TSR just straight-up copying from Wikipedia, rather than coming up with anything of value, is on-brand. In contrast, Luke's memoriam shows real warmth and the ability to actually write (something Not-TSR certainly has demonstrated the absence of, time and again).

It looks like they just did a straight copy-and-paste of his info from Wikipedia (where it makes sense to include that info). Definitely comes off as weird here, though.

FWIW, I hunted down Luke Gygax's post about Kim Mohan's passing:

View attachment 269882

Sounds like Luke stayed in touch with him over the years. I haven't found anything on Ernie's social media about him.

Here's a link to the previous ENWorld thread about him: D&D General - Dragon Editor-in-Chief Kim Mohan Passes

Again, just copying from Wikipedia, makes it all the more glaring, makes it seem like they don't actually care.

I'm going to double down on my previous statement: It is extremely inappropriate for NuTSR to memorialize original TSR employees without the express permission of the artist or their family. Multiple (real) TSR alumni have come out saying they are explicitly against NuTSR, NuTSR's racist and anti-LGBT history, and Justin Lanasa specifically. This is just a dirty, scumbag move that shows no respect for the deceased, or the company name that NuTSR has stolen.

It certainly did for me. I struggled with a terrible temper before taking up aikido. That sense of calm and internal balance is probably what I carry with me most to this day from the years of training.

Martial arts can lead someone to be a better person. Let's hope

Now I know where Monty Python got their skit. That sounds positively baffling.

I don't know why people assume this. You're given only hours of hand to hand combat training in the military, and it's pretty worthless. It's pretty much the DIs just putting a helmet and gloves on you, giving you a large padded baton, and watching the recruits beat themselves in random chaos. It was literally just one afternoon and that was it.

Was going to say this. Sometimes martial arts will also use the 10th-1st Dan ranks in conjunction with their belt systems to give more uniformity, but even that's not necessarily uniform.

That ladder is not universal. Each form has it's own - in some red is the highest rank, in others it is the lowest. If it is traditional Taekwando, red is significant, while in Karate forms it often isn't.

Also, there are schools without honor, where if you are paying your money, you get your belt. Unless we know the form and the school, statement of his belt means very little.

 

[Faolyn]

I would like to point out:

He should've learned a very comprehensive fighting style and regimen during HIS TIME IN THE MILITARY.

Yeah, but Eastern martial arts are cool. Coz he's like a ninja now. (I doubt he cares about the difference between Korean and Japanese martial arts.)

Plus, this way he can say he's been trained in multiple martial arts, which is even cooler.

Now that he's out of the military and taking freaking Tae Kwon Do lessons from some franchise 'academy' that prides itself on, and I'm not joking, here, they pride themselves on this and put it on the front page of their website:

"Our unique curriculum has been proven to help youth and adults with behavior and mental disorders, weight loss, as well as overall health and well-being."

I... I just...

Clearly, they're not helping him much at all.

He may be going into this for weight loss or "overall health and well-being" reasons, though.

But probably more because he wants to look tougher.

 

[Ancalagon]

That ladder is not universal. Each form has it's own - in some red is the highest rank, in others it is the lowest. If it is traditional Taekwando, red is significant, while in Karate forms it often isn't.

Also, there are schools without honor, where if you are paying your money, you get your belt. Unless we know the form and the school, statement of his belt means very little.

In Shotokan Karate, a red belt is an "advanced beginner" so it's not very impressive. (it went white, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, brown 1, brown 2, black (and black went 1-10))

My school did not hand out belts (well, this one kid who had a serious disability... but that was compassion, not cash grab) but I've heard of such schools...

 

[Jeremy Thomas]

That ladder is not universal. Each form has it's own - in some red is the highest rank, in others it is the lowest. If it is traditional Taekwando, red is significant, while in Karate forms it often isn't.

Also, there are schools without honor, where if you are paying your money, you get your belt. Unless we know the form and the school, statement of his belt means very little.

For what it's worth, LaNasa claims it's Taekwondo.

Which, as we all know, isn't worth much because I don't think anyone would put it past him passing off a certification from one martial art for another.

 

[Drake2000]

In Shotokan Karate, a red belt is an "advanced beginner" so it's not very impressive. (it went white, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, brown 1, brown 2, black (and black went 1-10))

My school did not hand out belts (well, this one kid who had a serious disability... but that was compassion, not cash grab) but I've heard of such schools...

When I studied Shotokan, there was no red belt (or blue either). Maybe it was school and region-dependent.

When I moved to kung-fu there were no prismacolor belts at all, which I preferred.

 

[Sacrosanct]

When I studied Shotokan, there was no red belt (or blue either). Maybe it was school and region-dependent.

When I moved to kung-fu there were no prismacolor belts at all, which I preferred.

When I did Taekwondo, there was no red belt either. Apparently there are two organizations for Taekwondo, WT and IWF? And one uses red belts and the other doesn’t. (It’s right below black IIRC)

Side note, I thought I was pretty good at it until I sparred with the ROK (republic of Korea) soldiers lol. I lived in Korea for four years. All they do on their down time is play soccer and practice Taekwondo.

 

[Sacrosanct]

On a side note, I remember the first year of the UFC. Being a black belt might make you marginally better than an average person, but it doesn’t mean you are a badass in a fight. Fights are chaotic, and grapplers are gonna beat you every time. If someone wants to take a martial art to be a good fighter, go with jujitsu or similar. Those of you who also remember that first year know exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of karate black belts beaten in seconds

 

[Umbran]

In Shotokan Karate, a red belt is an "advanced beginner" so it's not very impressive. (it went white, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, brown 1, brown 2, black (and black went 1-10))

When I studied Shotokan, there was no red belt (or blue either). Maybe it was school and region-dependent.

When I studied Shotokan, I do not recall if there was a red belt - I'd have to go into the basement and dig around in a trunk to see. We did have blue, just before brown.

 

[Ancalagon]

Now I'm starting to wonder if I imagined the red belt

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, but Eastern martial arts are cool. Coz he's like a ninja now.

Sir Justin LaNinja? Oh noes!

 

[Drake2000]

Side note, I thought I was pretty good at it until I sparred with the ROK (republic of Korea) soldiers lol. I lived in Korea for four years. All they do on their down time is play soccer and practice Taekwondo.

I have seen some of those guys. Even at my overconfident best, my reaction to sparring with them would have been a strict

 

[WarDriveWorley]

Now I'm starting to wonder if I imagined the red belt

Mandela Belt?

 

[Umbran]

When I studied Shotokan, I do not recall if there was a red belt - I'd have to go into the basement and dig around in a trunk to see. We did have blue, just before brown.

It turns out our belts were: white, yellow, orange, blue, green purple, brown, black.
Each level had "with stripe" middle grades (white with yellow stripe, orange with blue stripe, etc), that were not generally used. Brown had stripe grades that were used.

 

[Kannik]

Our school/traditions didn't have belts, except for the kid's class, mainly because the parents expected them (but we didn't charge for tests or have an additional fee atop the nominal cost to buy the belt). Coming into the school from what I feel is a pretty typical north american understanding of "Asian martial arts" schools, it was interesting and somewhat surprising to learn that there were no standard belt progression, levels, or even expectations. For example, at some some schools, a belt only indicates how long you've been there, whether you practiced 12h a week or 2h, and with no link to your skill. This isn't a knock on them per se -- the whole belt thing is a very recent addition to martial arts training/schools, and as the idea gained traction (and expectation) each tradition made up their own thing.

Added to all this is the whole financial aspect to it -- it can be tough to run a school not at a loss. Doubly so in markets where commercial space is expensive. With limited and fickle audience (and competing with other options for one's time), limited hours you can operate (not so much during school/work, so evenings and weekends), and etc it's not exactly lucrative. While I do not favour belts and paid belt tests, I again don't knock schools that do so too harshly (unless I see the masters driving around in Porches or something).

FWIW, our kid's class top level belts were Blue, Purple, and then (of course) Black. Our kid's instructor (and, as it turns out and to wrestle this back to gaming, a fabulous DM/GM, holy cow playing his campaigns were awesome) used to nickname them his "bruisers".

 

[Kannik]

On a side note, I remember the first year of the UFC. Being a black belt might make you marginally better than an average person, but it doesn’t mean you are a badass in a fight. Fights are chaotic, and grapplers are gonna beat you every time. If someone wants to take a martial art to be a good fighter, go with jujitsu or similar. Those of you who also remember that first year know exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of karate black belts beaten in seconds

Putting aside the bit noted above about how belts are, in many ways, potentially meaningless (who knows what criteria were needed for those black belts who entered early MMA), there's a lot that goes into what may make a so-called "good fighter" beyond any particular style. Also worth noting that grapplers aren't dominating MMA as much as they used to, as everyone began incorporating grappling (and/or defending against grappling) into their MMA training regimens. And very much good to remember that ring fighting is different than fighting fighting, just as point sparring is different from ring fighting.

 

[Umbran]

This isn't a knock on them per se -- the whole belt thing is a very recent addition to martial arts training/schools, and as the idea gained traction (and expectation) each tradition made up their own thing.

There's new, and there is new.
The first, most basic, belt system seems to date back to 1883, but it only had two rankings - white and black.

The system of colored belts seems to date to the 1930s, with judo master Kawaishi Mikonosuke. He was hired to teach his art to French police, and devised the ranking system, perhaps to help match up sparring partners to similarly skilled opponents, perhaps to add an incentive to study.

It wasn't until 1956 and the establishment of the Okinawa Karate Federation that the colored belt scheme got broadly accepted.

So, old in terms of the centuries-long history of the martial arts? Maybe not. But, when the belt system predates almost everyone on these boards, maybe "very recent" is not a great descriptor, either.

 

[JackMann]

Looking through the page for the studio, it looks like red belt is the last one they have before black belt. Still doesn't have much to do with roleplaying games or the hobby.

 

[Morrus]

There's new, and there is new.
The first, most basic, belt system seems to date back to 1883, but it only had two rankings - white and black.

When I did jujutsu we only had green and black.

 

[Ancalagon]

When is the next court date? I imagine that bar more silly (... or worse...) posts from nuTSR not much is going to be happening for a few weeks?

 

[Deset Gled]

When is the next court date? I imagine that bar more silly (... or worse...) posts from nuTSR not much is going to be happening for a few weeks?

The list of upcoming court dates that I know of:

Expert Witness Disclosure/Reports under FRCP 26(a)(2) due by 4/17/2023
Rebuttal Expert Disclosure/Reports due by 5/8/2023
Motions due by 5/16/2023
Discovery completed by 6/16/2023
Dispositive motions due by 7/17/2023
Settlement Conference to be held or completed by 8/16/2023
Mediation held no later than 9/18/2023
Motions in Limine due by 9/18/2023
Pretrial Order due by 10/4/2023
Trial briefs/Proposed voir dire/jury instructions due by 10/9/2023
Pretrial Conference set for 10/11/2023
Jury Trial is set for 10/16/2023

We're essentially in the waiting period where both sides are supposed to be conducting research and discovery. We know that some subpoenas have already been sent out, but the process to get responses can take a long time. I doubt we'll see much in terms of "expert" witnesses in a case like this. So the next notable date is the deadline for motions on 5/16/23. I would expect to see at least a couple from both sides.

Edit: I forgot about NuTSR's other case, the personal suit against @tenkar. That one has a conference scheduled for Jan 6th, 2023.