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)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And it's official... Motion to Appeal filed.

View attachment 362455

ETA: Note the date...

I've done a review of the Court's opinion.

The issues, in no particular order-

1. The dismissal of (the wife) was proper, and that's going to be hard to appeal, especially because it was without prejudice and it was based on a lack of process.

2. The main issue that normally would succeed is that Courts normally will allow amendment liberally, but the Court explained in detail why the dismissal was with prejudice. First, LaNasa (I will refer to him as inclusive of Plaintiff DHSM, and with the understanding it is done by counsel) never responded to the argument that dismissal should be with prejudice, or requested leave to amend. Which is sufficient to dismiss with prejudice. Moreover the Court explains why, even if he had (which he did not) there is no reason to believe that a fourth amendment would state a claim (aka, futility).

3. Prima Facie. Just ... no. This isn't going anywhere on appeal. As every first-year associate is told, "It's never RICO, and it's never a prima facie tort. But it's more likely to be RICO than a prima facie tort."

4. IIED. Big nope on that as well. Under New York law (federal courts apply the substantive law of the state) this is always going to be loser; see Chanko (explaining that the standard for IIED was unmet in every case that the court had considered). In addition, defamatory statement will almost never support an independent IIED claim.

5. IMO, that leaves defamation. This is a slightly closer call given the motion to dismiss standards. While the Court does a thorough job going through the issues related to opinion and name-calling, and the pleading standards, there is at least some argument regarding the Court's analysis on the failure to plead an element issue (pp. 23-25). To try and simplify this for everyone-

1. The Court thoroughly trashed most of the allegations as being either (1) opinion, or (2) mere name-calling. My favorite example is as follows (I am putting this in spoiler because although it is from a court document, and the relevant language has appropriate asterisks, I am giving you a heads-up that it contains partially edited, but identifiable, vulgar language)-

Spoiler: Court opinion p. 22

{Although LaNasa alleged Defendant made statements such as} LaNasa was an “ignorant c**t” and that {Defendant} “just told {LaNasa} that she would grow a c**k so {LaNasa} could eat that c**k,” are unquestionably vulgar, they lack objective truth value and thus cannot be defamation.

That's called ... understatement, if you know what I mean. That said, if there was any possible daylight in the appeal, it's that the Court acknowledges that there is at least one statement that might be defamatory, but notes that LaNasa failed to plead the required falsity as a factual matter, instead just asserting it as boilerplate.

To illustrate the difference, imagine someone is bringing a defamation claim against a newspaper for a false allegation that they were being investigated by the law enforcement for unicorn murderin'. You would plead something like the following:

1. The Article makes the following defamatory statement about Bugs Bunny:
The ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force showed up at ACME headquarters and went to CEO, Wile E. Coyote's office, not to investigate Mr. Coyote, but to gather information on Bugs Bunny in order to charge him for multiple unicorn murders.
2. Mr. Coyote did meet with the ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force, but the discussion between Mr. Coyote and the Task Force agents was only the possibility of using ACME devices to catch unicorn murderers.
3. Mr. Coyote has stated that during the conversation about ACME devices, the only name that came up was Mr. Beep-Beep Roadrunner.

Now, imagine you have (1), above, and then the following instead-
2. This is a knowingly, malicious, and intentionally false statement.

In other words, you can't just assert it, you have to provide some minimal factual support.

That said, if there is even the smallest bit of support anywhere that can be found, that would be the way to appeal. But given everything I have seen from LaNasa and counsel, I find it hard to believe that this will be anything other than another painful experience with the legal system.

 

[bedir than]

I've done a review of the Court's opinion.

The issues, in no particular order-

1. The dismissal of (the wife) was proper, and that's going to be hard to appeal, especially because it was without prejudice and it was based on a lack of process.

2. The main issue that normally would succeed is that Courts normally will allow amendment liberally, but the Court explained in detail why the dismissal was with prejudice. First, LaNasa (I will refer to him as inclusive of Plaintiff DHSM, and with the understanding it is done by counsel) never responded to the argument that dismissal should be with prejudice, or requested leave to amend. Which is sufficient to dismiss with prejudice. Moreover the Court explains why, even if he had (which he did not) there is no reason to believe that a fourth amendment would state a claim (aka, futility).

3. Prima Facie. Just ... no. This isn't going anywhere on appeal. As every first-year associate is told, "It's never RICO, and it's never a prima facie tort. But it's more likely to be RICO than a prima facie tort."

4. IIED. Big nope on that as well. Under New York law (federal courts apply the substantive law of the state) this is always going to be loser; see Chanko (explaining that the standard for IIED was unmet in every case that the court had considered). In addition, defamatory statement will almost never support an independent IIED claim.

5. IMO, that leaves defamation. This is a slightly closer call given the motion to dismiss standards. While the Court does a thorough job going through the issues related to opinion and name-calling, and the pleading standards, there is at least some argument regarding the Court's analysis on the failure to plead an element issue (pp. 23-25). To try and simplify this for everyone-

1. The Court thoroughly trashed most of the allegations as being either (1) opinion, or (2) mere name-calling. My favorite example is as follows (I am putting this in spoiler because although it is from a court document, and the relevant language has appropriate asterisks, I am giving you a heads-up that it contains partially edited, but identifiable, vulgar language)-

Spoiler: Court opinion p. 22

{Although LaNasa alleged Defendant made statements such as} LaNasa was an “ignorant c**t” and that {Defendant} “just told {LaNasa} that she would grow a c**k so {LaNasa} could eat that c**k,” are unquestionably vulgar, they lack objective truth value and thus cannot be defamation.

That's called ... understatement, if you know what I mean. That said, if there was any possible daylight in the appeal, it's that the Court acknowledges that there is at least one statement that might be defamatory, but notes that LaNasa failed to plead the required falsity as a factual matter, instead just asserting it as boilerplate.

To illustrate the difference, imagine someone is bringing a defamation claim against a newspaper for a false allegation that they were being investigated by the law enforcement for unicorn murderin'. You would plead something like the following:

1. The Article makes the following defamatory statement about Bugs Bunny:
The ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force showed up at ACME headquarters and went to CEO, Wile E. Coyote's office, not to investigate Mr. Coyote, but to gather information on Bugs Bunny in order to charge him for multiple unicorn murders.
2. Mr. Coyote did meet with the ToonTown Unicorn Murdering Task Force, but the discussion between Mr. Coyote and the Task Force agents was only the possibility of using ACME devices to catch unicorn murderers.
3. Mr. Coyote has stated that during the conversation about ACME devices, the only name that came up was Mr. Beep-Beep Roadrunner.

Now, imagine you have (1), above, and then the following instead-
2. This is a knowingly, malicious, and intentionally false statement.

In other words, you can't just assert it, you have to provide some minimal factual support.

That said, if there is even the smallest bit of support anywhere that can be found, that would be the way to appeal. But given everything I have seen from LaNasa and counsel, I find it hard to believe that this will be anything other than another painful experience with the legal system.

The spoiler part is a good reminder that an enemy of an enemy is not a friend.
One misogynist yelling at another misogynist doesn't make a hero.

 

[Wincenworks]

4. IIED. Big nope on that as well. Under New York law (federal courts apply the substantive law of the state) this is always going to be loser; see Chanko (explaining that the standard for IIED was unmet in every case that the court had considered). In addition, defamatory statement will almost never support an independent IIED claim.

Looking at this standard, it seems it pretty much impossible to get IIED in New York without being able to cite blatantly criminal action, and that makes it weird that its in there given that Justin's lawyer is supposed to be a defense attorney and so should probably know how hard it is for people to claim IIED.

 

[Maxperson]

4. IIED. Big nope on that as well. Under New York law (federal courts apply the substantive law of the state) this is always going to be loser; see Chanko (explaining that the standard for IIED was unmet in every case that the court had considered). In addition, defamatory statement will almost never support an independent IIED claim.

It seems to me that if the court has never heard a case where the standard for IIED was met, given the sheer volume of cases over the last several decades(many of whom would have that cause of action in them), that there's a problem with the standard. There should have been at least some of those cases where IIED happened.

 

[Wincenworks]

It seems to me that if the court has never heard a case where the standard for IIED was met, given the sheer volume of cases over the last several decades(many of whom would have that cause of action in them), that there's a problem with the standard. There should have been at least some of those cases where IIED happened.

You would think so, but the conventional wisdom with torts is if they stop being ruled as happening - that means society has improved somewhat or all the relevant areas are now covered under statute or other actions.

For example in New Zealand, pretty much all torts relating to personal injury are now barred under the Accident Compensation Act. It's not that we don't injure each other, it's that the government pays for it. For that reason, while IIED is theoretically available here, there is pretty much never a successful instance of it.

The origin of the tort is a man who deliberately lied to a woman to make her believe that her husband had been beaten horribly, leading to her having a panic attack and having a miscarriage (he claimed it was a joke gone wrong). (Wilkson v Downtown, 1897) So it was already very niche and intended for obscure situations, and it's even more complicated in the US because it uses the Free Speech standard (instead of the UK's Freedom of Expression standard).
To succeed you must:

1. You have to show what they did was exceptionally bad. It can't just be a bad thing, it has to be something that essentially shocks the conscience.
2. You have to show they did this deliberately to inflict emotional harm on the person.
3. You have to show that the personal has actually suffered serious emotional harm.
4. You have to show that 2 led to 3.
5. It has to not be something that's better handled elsewhere in a statute or a more precise tort.
6. There's not strong policy argument for it not to apply.

5 - 6 are basically part of every tort, but often forgotten by newbie, lazy or reckless lawyers because they go unspoken in all the texts about the torts after Tort Law 101.

For example, if someone gives you anxiety by spreading a rumour that you caught an STD and spread it to everyone who works for you - even though that's quite possibly 1 - 4, it's better handled as defamation.

If someone spends two weeks hiding outside your house so that run up and hit you in the groin every time you step out, until such time you develop agoraphobia... they's harassment, assault and battery.

The Chanko case cited by Snarf as the standard basically stated that while 2 - 4 had been met, it was better handled as a breach of confidientiality because they weren't comfortable with broadcasting without consent (even if it was the last moments of someone's life) meeting the criteria for 1 due to messy reasons regarding right of the press to investigate, record, broadcast etc and their lack of responsibility in that it happened to be the last moment's of someone's life.

So basically like prima facie torts, it's intended as an obscure stop-gap for when something incredible happens which defies all the other possible remedies - so it's difficult to isolate any specific case where it should have applied, but very easy for careless lawyers who just read 1 - 4 and don't think about the history to go "Yeah we can definitely get that across the line of the preponderance of evidence" without realizing that they'll actually need to prove 5 and 6.

I personally can't think of anything someone would do to meet that criteria in the modern day that wouldn't be criminal, and even then it would rely upon 1. the victim having the resources to sue and 2. the defendant being someone worth suing - even with the costs etc taken into account.

 

[Deset Gled]

It's been awhile, but here are some social media updates.

Dave Johnson, the literally nazi, is back again with a new social media presence. In what is basically his SOP, he is calling himself a publishing company, is retweeting antisemitic content, and is pestering Frog God Games. While this may seem repetitive at this point, it's worth remembering that Dave Johnson is still a part of NuTSR. Most recently, he is one of the authors of their 3rd RPG product, Those Pesky Orcz, published under the Adamantite Games name in April of this year.

Videos covering his return from @tenkar and @Wizard Tower Games

Spoiler: Hiding in-line video, NSFW language, coverage of antisemitic content

At the same time, a troll by the name of vgapmi1895 has continued to harass the anti-NuTSR crowd on Youtube, and more anonymous emails have been received. It seems like nothing recent rises to the the level of witness intimidation, so it is unlikely we'll see any followup about it in the pending legal cases. Here's a video talking about it from @Wizard Tower Games

Spoiler: Hiding in-line video, mild NSFW language

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ahhhh, Dave Johnson & Justin LaNasa…Dos Pesky Jorkz.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm not surprised. Hate-posting/hate-watching is probably the only way his videos manage to get shared these days.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Given the amount of law, and law-like substance, on this thread, I thought it might be helpful to post some links to a few lawsplainers I wrote during the OGL debacle that are generally relevant, and might be interesting to the people reading here who didn't catch them the first time around.

How to Do Your Own Legal Research: Worried about the OGL?

Greetings, fans of turning discussions about unicorns and dragons into protracted legal-ese (all three of you). As you might remember, I have previously cautioned people against tackling complicated legal issues and/or going pro se (roughly translated as “I like to lose without knowing why”)...

www.enworld.org

Law is Hard: Worried About the OGL (Part 2)

Now, my good readers, we have come to the second in the occasional series on the Law (having been roused due to the OGL nonsense). In order to understand why the law can be so gosh-darned difficult to understand at times, we must first answer a more simple question, as first posited by the Hon...

www.enworld.org

Why do lawyers write like that: Worrying about the OGL (Part 3)

So we are now on part 3 of the occasional series on the law- again, this is a general explainer about litigation, but has application to TTRPGs due to the current kerfuffle over the OGL. How to Do Your Own Legal Research: Worried about the OGL? Law is Hard: Worried About the OGL (Part 2)...

www.enworld.org

Understanding the In Terrorem Effect of Litigation

So this part of my ongoing and series of law-splainer threads tangentially discussing legal issues and related to nuTSR and the OGL kerfuffle. For prior threads, see the end of the post. Disclaimer: This is about litigation in the United States of America. Not other common law countries (the...

www.enworld.org

Boilerplate Language: Worrying about the OGL (Part 4)

Well, I made a promise to @LordEntrails ... so, you're welcome, I guess? I've previously posted some explainers on some fancy lawyerin' topics, and the two that are relevant to this brief(er) post are as follows: Why do lawyers write like that? Why does litigation cost so much? One of the...

www.enworld.org

 

[DLIMedia]

Now IANAL, and I could be misinterpreting this, but it looks like the agreement they had - where WotC paid the estate $15K in exchange for the trademarks - has been approved?