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)

 

[Shakeshift]

Ernie is like standing water in a house's foundation. It all gravitates towards the lowest and easiest area, and slowly erodes away at the foundation until the damage it inflicts is too great to ignore.

I know Ernie wants to be a part of the Gygax legacy, but he's been "less than energetic" about doing anything other than coasting for the majority of his life. He loves tanning booths and getting drunk. I know he's been trying to keep his nose clean for years now, but he's still a long way from getting a nod of approval.

In a desperate attempt to grab some of dad's glory, he's actually joining up with a man who DIRECTLY is fighting his brother, trying to ruin him. That's not acceptable. Luke is his brother, and no matter how he feels about not being a part of his brothers' SUCCESSFUL convention, joining a group that is actively and aggressively trying to destroy his brother is unacceptable. Ernie may be pleasant to people, but that doesn't excuse what he's doing. It's still a crappy thing to do. Ernie will always be inferior compared to Luke, and the blame for that is squarely ON Ernie for letting it play out that way. Ernie trashed his own rep in the gaming industry. The TTRPG world is all but done with him.

 

[John Dallman]

So in order for them to have an actual approved and final product in time for the convention, they would have had the proof copy in their hands back in January. So where are the photos of that?

Where in this process is it necessary to pay the print company?

Would I be correct in guessing that a new publisher without much in the way of references or credit history trying to get lots of books printed in China is going to have to pay a substantial fraction of the cost up-front?

 

[Jer]

Hold on - on page 14 in the filing it states

Wizards has also licensed its TSR and Star Frontiers IP to OneBookshelf to sell fan-created content using this IP.

Really? Is there a license for Star Frontiers fan works on DTRPG? I've never heard of such a thing and I would like to know more about it. This is big if true!

 

[adamantyr]

Where in this process is it necessary to pay the print company?

Would I be correct in guessing that a new publisher without much in the way of references or credit history trying to get lots of books printed in China is going to have to pay a substantial fraction of the cost up-front?

Printers don't take IOU's. In order to get the book published, it would be payment in full, after proofs are approved.

That is probably why LaNasa hasn't released a single physical product yet. Even Cult of Abbadon, which we know the actual module is finished. He was probably hoping to get enough pre-orders to justify the printing costs. Or just dangle it out there and see how many pre-orders he'd get from suckers who will never get the module or their money back.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Edit, nevermind, I misread.

 

[Maxperson]

It gives Ernie an out

And "Giant Corporation sues son of creator of D&D" would be news

whereas

"Giant Corporation sues some douche whose previous claim to fame is making his female employees wrestle in grits" is not

Yeah. I thought the same thing when I looked at the Answer. By leaving Ernie out and focusing on TSR and LaNasa, WotC accomplishes everything they want or need to. There's no reason to add in a Gygax which would create negative ripples through a lot of the D&D community.

 

[Shakeshift]

Yeah. I thought the same thing when I looked at the Answer. By leaving Ernie out and focusing on TSR and LaNasa, WotC accomplishes everything they want or need to. There's no reason to add in a Gygax which would create negative ripples through a lot of the D&D community.

Honestly, Gygax is a name that doesn't carry a lot of weight with the majority of D&D players in 2022. Gary's been gone for almost fourteen years now, and his last contribution to the game was almost forty years ago. Young gamers don't really care about who built the game, only that the game exists. They're into influencers, but not long-gone relics of an age all but dead now. That's why Ernie's status as a "celebrity" always makes me chuckle. Being the son of a game designer who got tricked out of his own company by his enemies forty years ago? REALLY? That's what constitutes a celebrity? That's a long stretch.

 

[adamantyr]

Honestly, Gygax is a name that doesn't carry a lot of weight with the majority of D&D players in 2022. Gary's been gone for almost fourteen years now, and his last contribution to the game was almost forty years ago. Young gamers don't really care about who built the game, only that the game exists. They're into influencers, but not long-gone relics of an age all but dead now. That's why Ernie's status as a "celebrity" always makes me chuckle. Being the son of a game designer who got tricked out of his own company by his enemies forty years ago? REALLY? That's what constitutes a celebrity? That's a long stretch.

Gygax's name would potentially register with a more mainstream news network, though. I've noticed ENWorld has stopped calling attention to LaNasa and TSR on their main feed, which is for the best. Plus, in all honesty, we don't even KNOW what Ernie does for the company.

 

[billd91]

In a desperate attempt to grab some of dad's glory, he's actually joining up with a man who DIRECTLY is fighting his brother, trying to ruin him. That's not acceptable. Luke is his brother, and no matter how he feels about not being a part of his brothers' SUCCESSFUL convention, joining a group that is actively and aggressively trying to destroy his brother is unacceptable. Ernie may be pleasant to people, but that doesn't excuse what he's doing. It's still a crappy thing to do. Ernie will always be inferior compared to Luke, and the blame for that is squarely ON Ernie for letting it play out that way. Ernie trashed his own rep in the gaming industry. The TTRPG world is all but done with him.

But he’s been a part of his brother’s conventions, at least with respect to being a celebrity DM/participant. Now, making an income off that, may be another story…

Honestly, Gygax is a name that doesn't carry a lot of weight with the majority of D&D players in 2022. Gary's been gone for almost fourteen years now, and his last contribution to the game was almost forty years ago. Young gamers don't really care about who built the game, only that the game exists. They're into influencers, but not long-gone relics of an age all but dead now. That's why Ernie's status as a "celebrity" always makes me chuckle. Being the son of a game designer who got tricked out of his own company by his enemies forty years ago? REALLY? That's what constitutes a celebrity? That's a long stretch.

It probably doesn’t carry a lot of weight with most players now. But it still does with quite a few older gamers for some reason. And that leads to unfortunate entitlement issues.

 

[Shakeshift]

The entitlement philosophy is a really bad look for Ernie, as his contributions to 1st edition gaming are almost nonexistent compared to Tim Kask, Ed Greenwood, Tracy Hickman, Kim Mohan, Larry Elmore, Jeff Grubb, Margaret Weis, Clyde Caldwell, Erol Otus and a hundred other writers, artists, and editors. Ernie did nothing for the genre. He swapped all the letters in his name around. That's about it.

As soon as he made the social gaffe in 2021 with the whole trans issue, the SMARTEST thing Ernie could have done is apologize immediately and profusely, and then do something else to move on past the issue. Instead, he gave an apology which was NOT an apology, and then went on a self-pitying rant that ended with him saying how much he wanted to take a loaded Thompson submachine gun to his bullies. Not exactly the best way to handle the situation, and after that, his street cred in the industry (with 5th edition gamers) is officially gone. They will never accept him into their social universe, and rightfully so. Ernie has made nothing but nonstop bad decisions, fueled by a sense of entitlement which doesn't really exist.

D&D doesn't exist because of Ernie Gygax, it survived in SPITE of people like Ernie Gygax.