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)

 

[Deset Gled]

Now Lanasa has been driven out of gaming! I hope you people are happy!

...seriously, I hope you're happy, because you should be.

"Well, men don't always know when they're happy. But I think so. And you?"

 

[LordEntrails]

However, its all almost certainly sealed up in confidence.

I think you're right. This part I've always wondered if such sealed outcomes are in the interest of society, but I understand how they are of interest to the parties.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think you're right. This part I've always wondered if such sealed outcomes are in the interest of society, but I understand how they are of interest to the parties.

Depends on how much you think always going to trial is superior, because a lot of settlements would never happen if they had to be made public.

 

[Wincenworks]

Yeah the confidentiality of settlements and arbitration is an often debating topic in law circles, with arguments for and against - but this is basically the exact kind of case confidential settlements are intended for.

It's a private grievance between Wizards of the Coast, and Justin LaNasa, they have reached some sort of settlement and so there is no further need to involve the court, and no other party that needs to be aware of the particulars. As mentioned, if they couldn't keep it quiet, there's a reasonable chance neither would settle - even though they clearly should since the outcome is inevitable and to continue on would be a waste of court resources.

 

[Umbran]

Interesting. I wonder what he had to bargain with. They had him pretty well beat to a pulp.

More like, what didn't he have to bargain with. You can't squeeze blood from a stone, and all that.

There is a contingent that probably would have rejoiced if the man were left destitute, but that doesn't necessarily leave WotC looking great either.

Quietly making it so LaNasa stops stinking up the hobby space might have seemed more in WotC's best interests, overall. So I think folks speculating that he's been ordered to just leave the business entirely might have the right of it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Some brief notes-

As someone who has negotiated and drafted a lot of settlements, I can offer a few thoughts. Of course, I have no more actual knowledge than anyone else.

Let's start with a basic principle- corporations are likely to settle without trying to extract every ounce of blood. Why? Two main reasons.
A. The company spends a lot more litigating this than the individual. A team of BigLaw Attorneys and their winged howler monkeys costs a lot of money to deploy. It's not just about getting money in the future (especially if you're litigating against an individual, not an asset-rich corporation), it's about stopping your costs now.
B. Certainty has a much higher value for corporations. Judges and juries can be unpredictable. Even the most BS claims can sometimes succeed. Even if LaNasa's claims are total BS, there is still some weird 1% world where the planets align and somehow some of WoTC's IP is thrown into doubt. Settle and remove the 1%.

From there, I would posit the following:

1. WoTC has all the leverage right now.
2. I assume that the settlement made it clear that LaNasa (and when I use his name, I mean all affiliated corporate entities) would have to disclaim any rights, abilities, or use of any of WoTC's marks, and transfer same to the extent that they registered them. And cease holding themselves out etc. There may be additional terms specifically related to the museum, but only to running it as a D&D museum, etc. Which is why it is being sold.
3. There is probably additional boilerplate (confidentiality, non-disparagement).
4. Unfortunately, I doubt that LaNasa is paying for this. It's probably just a "every one walks away and pays their own attorney's fees." If there is any payment from LaNasa to WoTC, it will certainly be nominal, and not anything compared to the money spent already litigating this.

Finally, I don't think any settlement prohibiting LaNasa from ever doing anything in the TTRPG sphere is likely. I do believe that the terms (drafted by WoTC's counsel) will be bulletproof as far as LaNasa ever trying to bootstrap TSR or WoTC's name or IP for his benefit.

Again, just my thoughts.

 

[LordEntrails]

To make sure my point was understood (and I think it was by some), it's not that I think this should have gone to court. But rather with the agreement being confidential, it might lack some of the power to deter others from replicating LaNasa's behavior.

Public clarity to the extent of the loss, if it is significant, serves to deter others from this type of behavior. Of course, if the 'cost' is not significant, others might see similar behavior as worth the risk.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

To make sure my point was understood (and I think it was by some), it's not that I think this should have gone to court. But rather with the agreement being confidential, it might lack some of the power to deter others from replicating LaNasa's behavior.

Public clarity to the extent of the loss, if it is significant, serves to deter others from this type of behavior. Of course, if the 'cost' is not significant, others might see similar behavior as worth the risk.

Well, you bring up interesting philosophical questions.

I'd start by saying that generally, the criminal system has an interest in public deterrence. The civil law system doesn't have that same interest. Torts (most civil law actions) are about compensation, not deterrence.

However, law & economics looks at the tort system as a form of deterrence as well- just not public deterrence. Instead, it's viewed as a way of making actions "cost" the correct amount.

Also also, there are punitive damages in some instances in civil cases, which are considered both a punitive measure and a means of deterring that type of act. That's why some states require a portion of punitive damages go to the state.

So, the general issue is that civil actions are between private parties. So they should be allowed to decide how to resolve it between the parties - in fact, the rules of procedure specifically encourage settlement. As a general rule, the parties can make their settlements private, although we see that in some case, public policy is such that certain types of settlements shouldn't be confidential (Congress passed a law two years ago making non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements unenforceable when it comes to sexual assault and sexual harassment).

Anyway, I think that no reasonable person would want to emulate LaNasa's behavior.

 

[Jer]

Anyway, I think that no reasonable person would want to emulate LaNasa's behavior.

If we were only worried about reasonable people I suspect that the courts would be less crowded.

I keep remembering that he started this by intentionally starting a trademark dispute through a severe misunderstanding of how trademark law works. This all could have been avoided by him literally just asking an IP lawyer if his clever plan would work and then actually listening to what his lawyer said. Sure the cost of a consult with a lawyer isn't nothing, but it's got to be less than what he's gone through.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

If we were only worried about reasonable people I suspect that the courts would be less crowded.

I keep remembering that he started this by intentionally starting a trademark dispute through a severe misunderstanding of how trademark law works. This all could have been avoided by him literally just asking an IP lawyer if his clever plan would work and then actually listening to what his lawyer said. Sure the cost of a consult with a lawyer isn't nothing, but it's got to be less than what he's gone through.

Well, yeah. I think the two most important things to note from your comment are this-

1. I doubt WoTC made him "pay." Which meant that we were denied karmic satisfaction, but ... he certainly did PAY. He paid attorneys. He paid in money, and time, and stress, and in watching the collapse of his various ventures. For nothing. Litigation is never costless.

2. You can never stop someone from doing something stupid. And you can never stop someone from filing stupid lawsuits.

I don't think public disclosure of the settlement terms would change what a reasonable (non-LaNasa person) would do, because they already wouldn't do it. And if someone is going to be stupid, ya can't cure that either.