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)

 

[Steampunkette]

The most appropriate response to Justin Lanasa going forward:

Alternatively:

 

[darjr]

Nope, not going to do that. No.

 

[Dioltach]

I've never been to a con, but over the past few years I've heard all manner of stories about the distasteful behaviour of some well-known people there. So if that kind of person is allowed - in some cases, from what I've read, even after their inappopriate actions - how unpopular must JL to be banned in advance? The mind boggles.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The most appropriate response to Justin Lanasa going forward:

Alternatively:

Bless you for arming me against a certain bloc within my writer's group.

 

[Deset Gled]

I've never been to a con, but over the past few years I've heard all manner of stories about the distasteful behaviour of some well-known people there. So if that kind of person is allowed - in some cases, from what I've read, even after their inappopriate actions - how unpopular must JL to be banned in advance? The mind boggles.

I think what you're describing are situations where people get away with bad behavior because their fame, money, or history gives them privilege that they take advantage of. Justin LaNasa has no history, no product, and consequently none of the privilege. If he didn't have the illegally obtained TSR trademark behind him, he would be a nobody in the OSR. So banning him is pretty easy.

Ernie Gygax, and to a lesser extent Jeff Leason, do have the history and fame, so they continue to get away with it. If Ernie had any last name other than Gygax, his behavior over the past year could probably get him barred from a couple cons. Remember, his name is on the N&N version of SFNG as well.

 

[CleverNickName]

On a final note, it looks like the Google Drive that NuTSR shared when they accidentally doxed themselves was finally set to private. I guess they called tech support.

And it only took them, what? three and a half days?

 

[Faolyn]

And it only took them, what? three and a half days?

It probably took them most of that time to find the password.

 

[Emrico]

It probably took them most of that time to find the password.

And it took them that long even though the password is "password".

 

[Deset Gled]

I should have included this in the last FB update. Oh well.

Lanasa has been kicked out of the "GP Adventures Old School Roleplaying Group":

View attachment 254322

Now, Lanasa being kicked out of a Facebook group is not news. He's been banned from countless pages. But this time I think it's significant. GP Adventures LLC is the company formed by Ernie Gygax and Benoist Poire (hence, GP) to create the Marmoreal Tomb and Hobby Shop Dungeon (among other things). For Benoist to claim that GP Adventures is "not associated with the museum in Lake Geneva, nu TSR and any other ventures of Mr. La Nasa." is... well, I don't really know what to think. Ernie is never mentioned by name, but he's half GP Adventures. And Ernie is clearly still a big part of the DHSM, posts on their FB page, hosts events there, and has his name all over NuTSR products. The "Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum" account that Benoist banned is one that Ernie uses and has admin access to. Ernie is also co-admin on the GP Adventures FB group.

It's worth noting that Benoist was fine with Justin being Justin for a really long time. NuTSR has been cross-posting their anti-woke content to the GP Adventures FB page for months. And Benoist used to be a common poster on the NuTSR Discord under the username Benoir. He was one of the biggest defenders of Dave Johnson. His response to the "No Hate In Gaming" screenshots of Dave's nazi content was to say "Seems like a handful of leftists idiots who were never going to buy it in the first place aren't going to buy it?" and "I couldn't care less what someone's political beliefs are unless they greatly impact whatever he is producing." However, Lanasa deleted a few of Benoist's Discord posts around the time of the Stone/Phoenix drama (June 14), and I believe Benoist was kicked from the Discord. I guess the Benoist and Lanasa had a falling out?

I have an update on this topic. This FB post was also picked up by other FB pages, and Benoist made a personal response to the Unofficial SFNG page:

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Benoist Poire
Monday, July 25th 2022
I'm wondering. What's next? Are you going to ask Luke Gygax to disown his own brother, or to whip himself on the public space crying about how much he feels guilty to share blood with him, or - God forbid - to have feelings for him as a brother, including disentangling himself from the web La Nasa and his crappy behavior created across the board?
Are you going to ask Ernie's sisters to make public apologies about how they'd let him visit his nieces and nephews? Are you going to ask them to declare publicly much they hate and feel really, really bad about their elder brother to maybe, perhaps save some internet creds somewhere?
You do know that people are more complex than any single opinion they might hold, and that real life is about real people, not slices and posts here and there on the net you can create caricatures of them with, right?
I have a position extremely similar to Luke and his sisters. You can even ask them, if you want to: Ernie's not only my partner, he's my friend, my brother from my other mother, and you guys have no idea what kind of fire the both of us have gone through. I will not give him to the mob to tear apart. I'll be there for him, no matter what, because he's family. Given that he's the co-creator of the Hobby Shop Dungeon setting with me, he's admin on the group, but has never actually used his abilities as admin on the group.
GP Adventures and our creations including the Hobby Shop Dungeon series (HSD) have nothing to do with nu TSR and La Nasa. La Nasa, as far as I'm concerned, has been vile and vindictive and gauche in every dealing I've seen on the net. He's not a person I've ever talked to, and not a person I want to be associated with.
Ernie is still the creator of the dungeon of 1978 that was run in the Dungeon hobby shop location. He's still my brother, and my friend. If you're asking me to throw Ernie under the bus, I will not. If you're asking for explanations as to Ernie's behavior and why he's in the situation he's in right now, why don't you try asking him instead of brewing your own [naughty word] storm asking for blood? This "guilt by association" thing you've got going, it's crap and it's got to stop. That's an awfully blunt tool you're wielding. Almost as blunt as the angry mob you're agitating. I want no part of that.

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Nothing that I can see since then.

To respond to Benoist, there are a couple of issues with your response. First, there's the issue of your posts on the NuTSR discord supporting Dave Johnson's Nazi ideology and anti-semetic memes. You should probably consider apologizing for that. Second, the biggest issue with Ernie is that his association with Lanasa is ongoing. He continues to promote the DHSM and his name is all over NuTSR products like Star Frontiers New Genesis. No one can apologize for him or excuse his behavior while it's still happening. The connection must be severed before healing can begin. You can claim to be a separate business entity, but that's not the same as saying he should be forgiven. Also, many, many people have talked to him directly about the problems with Lanasa and the hatred spewed by NuTSR. His actions have made it clear that he cares more about keeping the museum than doing what is right.

Next, to respond to myself, this still makes me feel like Benoist is acting out because he's afraid of getting caught in the lawsuit with WotC. He's posting to promote the narrative that GP Adventures is not connected to NuTSR.

Why is this separation important? In the normal world, it's very, very easy to use corporate entities to keep thing separate. The fact that GPA is a stand alone LLC should easily protect it. However, NuTSR has shown they do a very bad job of following the rules. If they had, WotC would only have a lawsuit against NuTSR, not the DHSM, and not personally against Justin Lanasa. Lanasa screwed up badly by using his personal name and finances in many cases. Most specifically, we know that credit card payments for the DHSM are handled by an account named Port City Vapor, which is controlled by Lanasa personally and not an LLC.

Material from GP Adventures has been used to promote the DHSM: at TSR Con, on their FB page, at the RPD Mini-Con, and (I assume) by Ernie in person. This, by itself, is not enough to pierce the corporate veil. But if Ernie screws up and sells material from GP Adventures at the DHSM, then the DHSM must provide a paper trail to prove they were properly acting as a distributor and not as part of GPA. If GPA material is sold via a credit card sale that ties back to Port City Vapor, it is likely it will come out on discovery.

Remember this pic I posted before?

That's Ernie. The photo was taken as part of the RPD Mini-con event that I mentioned. An event Ernie ran, and used material from GPA. Ernie then took people from RPD to tour the DHSM after hours, and made them shirts using DHSM equipment. If GPA or the DHSM made any money from this event, there must be a paper trail separating the DHSM from GPA for these good and services. If that paperwork can't be provided, it means that the DHSM was being used by Ernie as part of GP Adventures (or vice versa), and the veil could be pierced.

Ernie and Lanasa certainly aren't folks that are known for paying attention to these important details. Any receipts could be exhibit A, and all the promotions that I mentioned above will be exhibits B through The End. And lets face it, WotC probably wants to do everything they can to avoid a lawsuit against a Gygax; it would be terrible PR. But I doubt they have any such reservations about attacking GP Adventures. Benoist has good reason to be scared.

 

[Jedion357]

I called the organizer of Total con and he was soft disinvite. I got the impression he didn't want the publicity of this but he was not going to allow LaNasa or TSR at his con.