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)

 

[Sacrosanct]

I would say that there is a difference between the following-

Harping on what Justin LaNasa does on his own posts (re: misspelling and grammar) is uninteresting.

Harping on what he is doing ... on official posts for the company, which (theoretically?) publishes books, is another thing.

I make typos all the time when I am writing quick posts here on enworld; a lot of times, I am typing quickly and forget to put in words (for example). But if I was posting something in an official or professional capacity, I would ensure that it was ... professional and official, which Justin LaNasa consistently does not do. How can you possibly trust the products when the company has posts like the one referenced?

Sure, but that's not what is happening. Look at my post above (6002 I think). It's gone beyond pointing out mistakes from an official capacity and gone to looking for any little thing to nitpick about to the point where the nitpicks aren't even accurate.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but that's not what is happening.

I think if you now try to generalize, and paint everyone with the same brush, your argument is going to be quickly dismissed.

 

[Fifth Element]

Misspellings don't matter. (And neither are discussions of your experiences at Cons relevant to this thread.)

Misspellings don't matter. The fact that they would claim a misspelling was not actually a misspelling but an attempt by an enemy to discredit them, does matter.

 

[LordEntrails]

I agree. Let's bully Justin into submission! He doesn't deserve to be part of our hobby! Kick him out! Did he misspell "there"? Bring out the pitchforks! Where is the tar? I've got the feathers. We can do it, we've got mod support!

Let's not. Yes poor spelling and grammar are representative of the quality of his products. But there is nothing new there. Sure, post his latest mishap (even stupid spelling), but turning it into pages and pages of harassment is just harassment. (edit: and yes, point out when he lies about misspellings, cuz documenting his lies are important.)

Harassment is uncool, and supposed to be against the forum rules. I'm going to try and be better than a bully.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think if you now try to generalize, and paint everyone with the same brush, your argument is going to be quickly dismissed.

I'm not generalizing. I gave specific examples. In two posts.

 

[Bolares]

I agree. Let's bully Justin into submission! He doesn't deserve to be part of our hobby! Kick him out! Did he misspell "there"? Bring out the pitchforks! Where is the tar? I've got the feathers. We can do it, we've got mod support!

I'm all for that honestly

 

[Sacrosanct]

I agree. Let's bully Justin into submission! He doesn't deserve to be part of our hobby! Kick him out! Did he misspell "there"? Bring out the pitchforks! Where is the tar? I've got the feathers. We can do it, we've got mod support!

Let's not. Yes poor spelling and grammar are representative of the quality of his products. But there is nothing new there. Sure, post his latest mishap (even stupid spelling), but turning it into pages and pages of harassment is just harassment. (edit: and yes, point out when he lies about misspellings, cuz documenting his lies are important.)

Harassment is uncool, and supposed to be against the forum rules. I'm going to try and be better than a bully.

Let me clarify. I'm not against pointing out errors or especially his behavior. But what I've seen in the past week, is some folks are so...invested in trying to get at Justin that they're busting him for things that aren't even issues (as I mentioned in post 6002). If we're getting to that point, perhaps a step back is needed, because that, IMO, is bullying. And with all the legit things he gives us to talk about, I don't see any need to start looking for stuff to make fun of him for.

 

[Deset Gled]

Sure, but that's not what is happening. Look at my post above (6002 I think). It's gone beyond pointing out mistakes from an official capacity and gone to looking for any little thing to nitpick about to the point where the nitpicks aren't even accurate.

I'm not the one reporting on typos right now, but I can give you my perspective as someone who has made more updates in this thread than I ever expected.

Most of us who are reporting on NuTSR aren't professionals. We're just random people making note about things that happen on the internet. I'm amazed every day this saga is still going on. If I go a few days without posting any news about what Lanasa is doing, it might be because Lanasa has been quiet, but it may also be because I'm busy with work or family. When I have spare time to hunt for more news, I'm going to dig into whatever I happen to find. Sometimes that means a deep dive into an unexpected topic. Sometimes that means being particularly critical of the last thing to come out of Lanasa's mouth. And unfortunately, that can sometimes come across as more nitpicky than intended.

There are definitely times that I post things Lanasa has done that I don't think would be newsworthy if it was any other person. Typos like this are a good example. But I'll report on them here for a couple reasons. First, it's documenting the story as it happens. NuTSR deletes so much from FB and Twitter that you have to report when it happens, because it might be gone tomorrow. Second, it's surprising how much stuff that seems minor gets bigger later on. Like right now, the typo of "gameing" is a small deal, but William Gentry's response that it was another "photo shop" attack on NuTSR is a bigger deal than the typo itself, and the screenshots are the only real proof about who's lying. And third, as someone who's just reporting what I find, I'm often completely caught off guard by what generates conversation here and what doesn't. My post about another Justin Lanasa getting arrested lead to a couple pages discussion, while my report on Michael Yach's legal conviction got nothing.

You're right that we shouldn't become bullies just because that's what Lanasa is. But there are inevitably going to be times when things head into gray areas. It's a weird line to walk. Personally, I don't mind being told when I've crossed it, but it can be disheartening to be attacked for it.

 

[Bolares]

Let me clarify. I'm not against pointing out errors or especially his behavior. But what I've seen in the past week, is some folks are so...invested in trying to get at Justin that they're busting him for things that aren't even issues (as I mentioned in post 6002). If we're getting to that point, perhaps a step back is needed, because that, IMO, is bullying. And with all the legit things he gives us to talk about, I don't see any need to start looking for stuff to make fun of him for.

I was mostly joking on my last comment, but while I mostly agree with your point here, I'm not really sad if Justin gets bullied. He is a witness tampering bigot of a bully, and with all the bandwith I have for caring about people right now, Justin is not particularly high on that list.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I was mostly joking on my last comment, but while I mostly agree with your point here, I'm not really sad if Justin gets bullied. He is a witness tampering bigot of a bully, and with all the bandwith I have for caring about people right now, Justin is not particularly high on that list.

I guess my perspective is that I don't need to bully him, because I'm getting plenty of schadenfreude at watching his battle with WotC unfold. Believe me, as a fan of the OSR myself, I want nothing more than for him to go away because he's brought so much toxicity to a fandom I like. And as a veteran myself, I have a real visceral issue with his false claims (stolen valor is a pretty big deal to vets). Right now he's flailing helplessly, digging holes deeper. It's almost depressing to watch, in a way. If I had sympathy for him. I just don't want us to start falling down to bullying ourselves, and I'm starting to see signs of that.