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)

 

[Gradine]

Birds of a feather, etc etc

 

[Emrico]

The photos posted online so far from various sources show about a dozen attendees, including vendors. I suspect that at least a few more people were there, but nowhere near enough to justify renting the hall. Also, no hot food shown anywhere; I'm guessing they ended up with no catering.

I think my favorite photo so far is this one of Larry Elmore with a completely empty sign up board behind him:

View attachment 279892

And before anyone asks, the board was not empty because it was the start of the Con. It was confirmed on Facebook that Elmore didn't arrive until later in the day. From the photos posted, there were only a small handful of games played during the Con.

There were literally more players in one game of Chainmail I played in at GaryCon than in any photos I saw from TrashCon 2 at the Horticultural Hall. And I have proof!

 

[DLIMedia]

I was wondering if Dinehart was going to show up at Gary Con at all... seems like if he wanted to promote Giantlands he'd have been there. Jim Ward certainly was.

He was apparently booked to be a speaker at a seminar in Egypt.

Reportedly someone (Danielle?) was running a Giantlands game at GaryCon, but I've seen no further mention of it.

 

[darjr]

There were literally more players in one game of Chainmail I played in at GaryCon than in any photos I saw from TrashCon 2 at the Horticultural Hall. And I have proof!

I stopped by to wish the doomed elves luck.

 

[Retreater]

Admittedly we don't have any eye-witness reports... pics from TSR Con II so far are as could be expected; better turn out than I expected, actually. And apparently someone did take home at least some of the awards already, even though there was still one more day to go.

I'm your huckleberry.

On Friday afternoon, one of my friends and I took a trip through Lake Geneva to visit the Gygax plaque, see the house, and also Horticultural Hall. Wanting to take a picture of the landmark, we saw a sign boasting "TSR Con 2" that weekend. I looked it up online and saw that yes, it was being run by the NuTSR folks. And of course, I knew the history of this group. Aware of the risks, we decided to visit the con. (Plus, it was a great opportunity to see the inside of the Hall.)

I would describe the atmosphere as "depressing." There were numerous tables set up, but only two active games going on. One was a table of around 5 people, the other I'm guessing was a single family with a couple young kids. The family game was being led by a man with a very long beard wearing what appeared to be some kind of religious garb - kind of like a priestly cassock. He glared at us as we entered.

The vendor space included two folding tables. One displayed stacks of the Dungeon Crawl Boardgame and another book (you get to play goblins in it). The other table was a guy selling original fantasy novels (which he gave preview cards of with mildly sexist tropes) and - oddly enough - seasoning bottles that were somehow connected to the novels.

Other than that, there was to the left of our entrance a boardgame library - mostly dated stuff.

We were greeted by the fellow in center of the picture with Larry Elmore. He told us we were welcome to look around. If we wanted to play or run a game, we could pay $10 for the day. He bragged that we just missed Larry Elmore. We told him we were attending GaryCon and just wanted to check out this place. He then proceeded to talk about how GaryCon was inferior because they checked vaccine cards and required masks - and we told him they didn't this year. He then asked us how much we spent on GaryCon tickets, and suggested this con was a better value.

We left after a few minutes. It was a very dour atmosphere, full of sad people, who had decided to stay in a self-imposed exile while one of the best con experiences I've ever had was occurring 5 minutes down the street.

 

[GuyBoy]

@Retreater , I have no idea what you actually look like, but after opening the post with "I'm your huckleberry," and proceeding to gun down NuTSR so ruthlessly, I'll always visualise you as Val Kilmer.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm your huckleberry.

On Friday afternoon, one of my friends and I took a trip through Lake Geneva to visit the Gygax plaque, see the house, and also Horticultural Hall. Wanting to take a picture of the landmark, we saw a sign boasting "TSR Con 2" that weekend. I looked it up online and saw that yes, it was being run by the NuTSR folks. And of course, I knew the history of this group. Aware of the risks, we decided to visit the con. (Plus, it was a great opportunity to see the inside of the Hall.)

I would describe the atmosphere as "depressing." There were numerous tables set up, but only two active games going on. One was a table of around 5 people, the other I'm guessing was a single family with a couple young kids. The family game was being led by a man with a very long beard wearing what appeared to be some kind of religious garb - kind of like a priestly cassock. He glared at us as we entered.

The vendor space included two folding tables. One displayed stacks of the Dungeon Crawl Boardgame and another book (you get to play goblins in it). The other table was a guy selling original fantasy novels (which he gave preview cards of with mildly sexist tropes) and - oddly enough - seasoning bottles that were somehow connected to the novels.

Other than that, there was to the left of our entrance a boardgame library - mostly dated stuff.

We were greeted by the fellow in center of the picture with Larry Elmore. He told us we were welcome to look around. If we wanted to play or run a game, we could pay $10 for the day. He bragged that we just missed Larry Elmore. We told him we were attending GaryCon and just wanted to check out this place. He then proceeded to talk about how GaryCon was inferior because they checked vaccine cards and required masks - and we told him they didn't this year. He then asked us how much we spent on GaryCon tickets, and suggested this con was a better value.

We left after a few minutes. It was a very dour atmosphere, full of sad people, who had decided to stay in a self-imposed exile while one of the best con experiences I've ever had was occurring 5 minutes down the street.

I wasn't at Gary Con this year, but I was last year and stopped by the DHSM, and it was equally disappointing. During their "con hours", Ernie was hanging out at the resort; he wasn't even at this own convention.

The only bright spot in the whole thing was Duck Leason was a genuine very nice and friendly person.

 

[Deset Gled]

I'm your huckleberry.

On Friday afternoon, one of my friends and I took a trip through Lake Geneva to visit the Gygax plaque, see the house, and also Horticultural Hall. Wanting to take a picture of the landmark, we saw a sign boasting "TSR Con 2" that weekend. I looked it up online and saw that yes, it was being run by the NuTSR folks. And of course, I knew the history of this group. Aware of the risks, we decided to visit the con. (Plus, it was a great opportunity to see the inside of the Hall.)

I would describe the atmosphere as "depressing." There were numerous tables set up, but only two active games going on. One was a table of around 5 people, the other I'm guessing was a single family with a couple young kids. The family game was being led by a man with a very long beard wearing what appeared to be some kind of religious garb - kind of like a priestly cassock. He glared at us as we entered.

The vendor space included two folding tables. One displayed stacks of the Dungeon Crawl Boardgame and another book (you get to play goblins in it). The other table was a guy selling original fantasy novels (which he gave preview cards of with mildly sexist tropes) and - oddly enough - seasoning bottles that were somehow connected to the novels.

Other than that, there was to the left of our entrance a boardgame library - mostly dated stuff.

We were greeted by the fellow in center of the picture with Larry Elmore. He told us we were welcome to look around. If we wanted to play or run a game, we could pay $10 for the day. He bragged that we just missed Larry Elmore. We told him we were attending GaryCon and just wanted to check out this place. He then proceeded to talk about how GaryCon was inferior because they checked vaccine cards and required masks - and we told him they didn't this year. He then asked us how much we spent on GaryCon tickets, and suggested this con was a better value.

We left after a few minutes. It was a very dour atmosphere, full of sad people, who had decided to stay in a self-imposed exile while one of the best con experiences I've ever had was occurring 5 minutes down the street.

Thanks for reporting on this. It sounds exactly like I would imagine.

The guy you talked to (if I'm correct) was Mick McArt. He's the guy selling his novels and spices. Your note about the novels seeming sexist probably isn't wrong. McArt is very into traditional gender roles. He's also very anti-vax and anti-mask, as you seem to have encountered. I think it's bizarre that he would have to pay to be a vendor at the Con, and then end up helping run it. But that's Lanasa for you.

 

[adamantyr]

I'm your huckleberry.

On Friday afternoon, one of my friends and I took a trip through Lake Geneva to visit the Gygax plaque, see the house, and also Horticultural Hall. Wanting to take a picture of the landmark, we saw a sign boasting "TSR Con 2" that weekend. I looked it up online and saw that yes, it was being run by the NuTSR folks. And of course, I knew the history of this group. Aware of the risks, we decided to visit the con. (Plus, it was a great opportunity to see the inside of the Hall.)

I would describe the atmosphere as "depressing." There were numerous tables set up, but only two active games going on. One was a table of around 5 people, the other I'm guessing was a single family with a couple young kids. The family game was being led by a man with a very long beard wearing what appeared to be some kind of religious garb - kind of like a priestly cassock. He glared at us as we entered.

The vendor space included two folding tables. One displayed stacks of the Dungeon Crawl Boardgame and another book (you get to play goblins in it). The other table was a guy selling original fantasy novels (which he gave preview cards of with mildly sexist tropes) and - oddly enough - seasoning bottles that were somehow connected to the novels.

Other than that, there was to the left of our entrance a boardgame library - mostly dated stuff.

We were greeted by the fellow in center of the picture with Larry Elmore. He told us we were welcome to look around. If we wanted to play or run a game, we could pay $10 for the day. He bragged that we just missed Larry Elmore. We told him we were attending GaryCon and just wanted to check out this place. He then proceeded to talk about how GaryCon was inferior because they checked vaccine cards and required masks - and we told him they didn't this year. He then asked us how much we spent on GaryCon tickets, and suggested this con was a better value.

We left after a few minutes. It was a very dour atmosphere, full of sad people, who had decided to stay in a self-imposed exile while one of the best con experiences I've ever had was occurring 5 minutes down the street.

Man, I couldn't have kept a straight face... "This con is BETTER? Seriously?"

I wonder if anyone who had pre-ordered Dungeon Crawl and not received it showed up to claim their copy? As in "You never mailed it, so I'm taking it now. Nope, here's my proof of receipt, I owe you nothing, YOU owe me a game."

 

[Emrico]

Man, I couldn't have kept a straight face... "This con is BETTER? Seriously?"

I wonder if anyone who had pre-ordered Dungeon Crawl and not received it showed up to claim their copy? As in "You never mailed it, so I'm taking it now. Nope, here's my proof of receipt, I owe you nothing, YOU owe me a game."

Yeah, Trashcon 2 would've been a much better value. I'm just so mad at myself that I spent $240 on a gold Badge, got a bag of Swag worth at least $100 on check-in and got to play 32 hours of games over 4 days with Tim Kask, Mike Carr, Jayson Elliott, and a load of other talented game master. To think I could've paid $10 to play a game or two with about 10 whole people. How did I pass up that bargain??