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)

 

[GraphPaper Architect]

Since you're here, sir, a question. I know there were fake "Michaels" running around on the internet for a time after your name was first dropped as the new PR guy -- there was considerable disbelief at first as to whether you even existed -- so maybe I ran into one of them.

But I asked someone claiming to be you about Ernie's initial interview that set the whole thing off (with the gender identity/concept of gender comment), and got the response (I kid you not) that video of Ernie saying that was "a Deep State deepfake."

May I safely assume that was a fake Michael? If it was by chance really you, were you making a joke? It seems unlikely that you would actually have been convinced of such fakery even if Justin and co. were being on good behavior around you at first.

Hi Deadstop,
You are correct that would be a fake.
There were multiple fake accounts of me, and I think there are still some on Twitter. The one that shows the NuTSR logo in orange is a fake, and Twitter refuses to do anything.
I would never joke about such a thing.
Thank you for asking.

 

[GraphPaper Architect]

Yep. And for full disclosure @Graph Paper Architect , it's why I asked you the question to clarify where you stood, because you had defended LaNasa publicly as their CCO after he had sent that nasty letter to Tim Kask, so at some point you knew what kind of person he was. You then announced your departure (thanking Justin for all he did) 3 days after Darlene released her statement.

So I hope you can understand why I asked the question. I suppose I have a follow-up. Were those two things contributors to your leaving? The timeline seems to suggest that, but I don't want to assume.

Hi Sacrosanct,

Short answer: I never defended Justin's posts, or actions, towards customers, clients, or TSR Alumni. Yes Mr. Kask, and Darlene's posts were a factor in my leaving because it was only when I confronted Justin the following week that I learned the truth.

Darlene Artist posted her NO on Thursday January 6th.
Tim Kask posted about his message from LaNasa on Sunday January 9th.
I resigned on Thursday January 13th.

When I became aware of these posts, I confronted Justin about them because from what I was always told by him, was that things were going great, Darlene was on board and he was just waiting to hear back from her about the specifics, Justin also said that Tim Kask was on board and looking forward to editing materials.

When I would ask for contact information for these and other individuals or organizations that were supposedly on board with NOTSR I would be told by Justin, I didn't need to contact them, that they preferred to work directly with him and they didn't want to be contacted by me.

There should be absolutely no defense of Justin LaNasa's posts by me out there. I do not recall ever stating to anyone that his posts or behavior were appropriate.

@Deadstop Did bring up that there were, and still are some, fake Michael accounts out there that may have said something to that effect, but I most certainly never attempted to justify or defend Justin's actions at all.

Finding out that Justin had been lying to and gaslighting me the whole time, was a big part of my decision to leave, and coupled with the then usage of language by Justin that indicated prejudice attitudes, it became painfully clear what was really going on.

Thank you for asking

 

[Faolyn]

As a fan, the whole thing is just....really sad. I mean, I'd love to have a D&D museum, and that house would be a great place for it. But I have no idea what they are doing. I'm no expert, but if I were doing a museum, I'd:

• actually have important items there from the history. There is a treasure trove of rare items (Frank and Jim Ward have been ebaying them) that no one else has. Those things should be in the museum. For someone flashing wads of cash, Justin should have been buying up those things and make the museum stand out, rather than displaying items a lot of other gamers already own and his own Frankenstein creations (like the black covered AD&D books). I would want to go to a museum to see original draft notes from the company, not to see a copy of 1e mass produced books. I mean, knowing that Frank and Jim have a ton of original unique stuff and are selling it, the first thing I'd do is approach them to see what they would be willing to sell
• run it like an actual business, on the up and up, and not shady backroom deals with "volunteers"
• If it's a D&D museum, then it has things from every edition of D&D and pop culture, not just pre-1985 stuff. Is it a D&D museum, or personal shrine to Gary?
• for all that is holy, treat people politely and have a professional public attitude.
• stay away from white nationalists, neo-nazis, and other hate groups. Seriously, how hard is that?

But alas, I'm not in charge lol.

Honestly, even such a museum likely wouldn't last that long. Geppi's Entertainment Museum, run by the guy who is CEO and President of Diamond Comic Distributors, and which was located in downtown Baltimore literally right to the convention center where the Baltimore Comic Con is held, only lasted 12 years. And Geppi had a ton of money invested in it. I went several times; it was really cool. And comics are more wildly read than D&D is played.

 

[Faolyn]

Also I have a relative who ascribes to a racist UFO cult ck conspiracy theory that now rings a bell with some of the things in NG from Dave Johnson.
Someone on rpg.net suggested it might be a copy paste from a UGO setting.
Maybe Dave Johnson based his racist game on that racist UFO conspiracy theory?

They probably have the same roots, at least. I don't know if the Nordic aliens were actively meant to be racist at first, but even if they weren't, it's super-easy to see how they could be co-opted for racist purposes. And I wouldn't put it past Johnson to simply copypaste someone else's work.

 

[Deset Gled]

For a company that feels it's important to use Facebook to post about the Federal Reserve, Nazi elves, and anti-LGBTQ memes, it's pretty disappointing that NuTSR has let Gygax Day go by without any comment.

 

[adamantyr]

For a company that feels it's important to use Facebook to post about the Federal Reserve, Nazi elves, and anti-LGBTQ memes, it's pretty disappointing that NuTSR has let Gygax Day go by without any comment.

I noticed that too. Not even a post from Ernie on his own FB account.

I saw the NoHateInGaming Twitter account posted a praise of Gary, which got some vicious responses.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

actually have important items there from the history. There is a treasure trove of rare items (Frank and Jim Ward have been ebaying them) that no one else has. Those things should be in the museum. For someone flashing wads of cash, Justin should have been buying up those things and make the museum stand out, rather than displaying items a lot of other gamers already own and his own Frankenstein creations (like the black covered AD&D books). I would want to go to a museum to see original draft notes from the company, not to see a copy of 1e mass produced books. I mean, knowing that Frank and Jim have a ton of original unique stuff and are selling it, the first thing I'd do is approach them to see what they would be willing to sell.

At least one item on display should be a mimic. Ideally, several different ones…rotated in and out of the collection, randomly.

Also, they should sell 10’ poles.

 

[vecna00]

As a fan, the whole thing is just....really sad. I mean, I'd love to have a D&D museum, and that house would be a great place for it. But I have no idea what they are doing. I'm no expert, but if I were doing a museum, I'd:

• actually have important items there from the history. There is a treasure trove of rare items (Frank and Jim Ward have been ebaying them) that no one else has. Those things should be in the museum. For someone flashing wads of cash, Justin should have been buying up those things and make the museum stand out, rather than displaying items a lot of other gamers already own and his own Frankenstein creations (like the black covered AD&D books). I would want to go to a museum to see original draft notes from the company, not to see a copy of 1e mass produced books. I mean, knowing that Frank and Jim have a ton of original unique stuff and are selling it, the first thing I'd do is approach them to see what they would be willing to sell
• run it like an actual business, on the up and up, and not shady backroom deals with "volunteers"
• If it's a D&D museum, then it has things from every edition of D&D and pop culture, not just pre-1985 stuff. Is it a D&D museum, or personal shrine to Gary?
• for all that is holy, treat people politely and have a professional public attitude.
• stay away from white nationalists, neo-nazis, and other hate groups. Seriously, how hard is that?

But alas, I'm not in charge lol.

Yes please!

 

[Deset Gled]

But I get the feeling that what the Hobby Shop Museum actually is is more like a roadside novelty attraction. Like a "come see the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" sort of thing. There's no archival work going on or any real preservation work going on, they just happen to own a building where the hobby started and they figured they could make some money off of it. it's a carnival side show operation, not an actual museum.

For anyone who doesn't know, Justin Lanasa has been running tourist-trap businesses like you describe for years in North Carolina.

In addition to his tattoo shop and vape shop, he has a for-profit museum called the Museum of the Bizarre in Wilmington, NC. It's cheap to get in (I think $3), and the kind of place you take your kids to get 5 minutes out of the sun or rain if you're on vacation there. There are a number of videos online that show quick walkthroughs. It's exactly the kind of kitschy place you would expect. A combination of fake movie props, collectible odds and ends, and pseudo-historical stuff like hair from dead presidents. By itself, I would consider it mostly harmless.

Justin also used to run a pirate-themed tour service called Pirates on the Cape Fear. It shut down a number of years ago. Pirates on the Cape Fear sets sail in downtown Wilmington | WilmingtonBiz

I think an injunction would require the product to actually be sold. However, as they claim the "1st edition" comb-bound sold out months ago, that may be enough basis for one, even though it was an outright lie.

NuTSR's trademark on Star Frontiers was officially "published for opposition" on June 21, 2022. Based on the date, I believe they gave up on the ashcan edition from last year and are claiming Dave Johnson's Alarms and Journeys 13 as the formal first printing with the mark. I think WotC would avoid filing for an injunction against this to avoid the Streisand Effect. It's a no-name rip-off virtual magazine that no one has ever heard of; best to not give it the attention.

 

[Steampunkette]

nuTSR did make a Gygax Day post. With a lovely drawing of Gary as a youthful man.