Elon Musk Calls for Wizards of the Coast to "Burn in Hell" Over Making of Original D&D Passages

Elon Musk, the owner of the app formerly known as Twitter, is calling on Wizards of the Coast and its parent company Hasbro to "burn in hell" for the publication of Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons. On November 21st, former gaming executive turned culture warrior Mark Hern posted several passages from Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons on Twitter, criticizing the book for providing context about some of the misogyny and cultural insensitivity found in early rulebooks. These passages were pulled from the foreword written by Jason Tondro, a senior designer for the D&D team who also worked extensively on the book. Hern stated that these passages, along with the release of the new 2024 Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D's "40th anniversary" (it is actually D&D's 50th anniversary) both "erased and slandered" Gary Gygax and other creators of Dungeons & Dragons.

In response, Musk wrote "Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash E. Gary Gygax and the geniuses who created Dungeons & Dragons. What the [naughty word] is wrong with Hasbro and WoTC?? May they burn in hell." Musk had played Dungeons & Dragons at some point in his youth, but it's unclear when the last time he ever played the game.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash E. Gary Gygax and the geniuses who created Dungeons & Dragons. What the [xxxx] is wrong with Hasbro and WoTC?? May they burn in hell.

- Elon Musk​

Notably, Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons contains countless correspondences and letters written by both Gygax and Dave Arneson, including annotated copies of early D&D rulesets. Most early D&D rules supplements as well as early Dragon magazines are also found in the book. It seems odd to contain one of the most extensive compliations of Gygax's work an "erasure," but it's unclear whether Hern or Musk actually read the book given the incorrect information about the anniversary.

Additionally, Gygax and Arneson are both credited in the 2024 Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. The exact credit reads: "Building on the original game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and then developed by many others over the past 50 years." Wizards of the Coast also regularly collaborates with Gygax's youngest son Luke and is a participant at Gary Con, a convention held in Gygax's honor. The opening paragraph of the 2024 Player's Handbook is written by Jeremy Crawford and specifically lauds both Gygax and Arneson for making Dungeons & Dragons and contains an anecdote about Crawford meeting Gygax.

Musk has increasingly leaned into culture war controversies in recent years, usually amplifying misinformation to suit his own political agenda.

 

[Bedrockgames]

and that is where you go wrong, they both believe it, one is just not as open in admitting it

I am sure some trolls believe what they say. I don’t think all or even most do: my impression is they are trying to get the reaction. Still not a great thing but it does impact how I would assess a persons worldview

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Also, it wasn't until I saw the statement isolated in Mamba's post about Rowling "Fighting the Good Fight" that I realized I was talking with someone who thinks that I'm a man trying to sneak into women's spaces rather than a woman.

So one more for the ignore list. WOO!

I don't know what you're referring, but please don't ignore people... and please don't think of it as a victory when you do. What's this post about Rowling's (incomprehensible to me) fight against transgender folks?

 

[Steampunkette]

Just to give everyone in this thread a tiny bit of happy, here is my dog Finn being shocked about it snowing for the first time this year in our area.

Enjoy a bit of cuteness as a palate cleanser.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I am sure some trolls believe what they say. I don’t think all or even most do: my impression is they are trying to get the reaction. Still not a great thing but it does impact how I would assess a persons worldview

In contrast with her generation, which had spent most of its time online learning to code so that it could add crude butterfly animations to the backgrounds of its weblogs, the generation immediately following had spent most of its time online making incredibly bigoted jokes in order to laugh at the idiots who were stupid enough to think they meant it. Except after a while they did mean it, and then somehow at the end of it they were Nazis. Was this always how it happened?
-Patricia Lockwood, from No One Is Talking About This

(By the way, Patricia Lockwood is such an amazing writer. Highly recommend.)

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

There are ways to be exposed to viewpoints you don't agree with without having to give the people who espouse those viewpoints a platform, or access to you, personally.

I'll give this the benefit of the doubt; what ways would those be exactly?

But more importantly, how does that excuse going out of one's way to create silos of thought and barriers to communication? What problem is being solved here?

 

[Emerikol]

I will say that I feel unhappy both on this thread and on the twitter thread. I'm a man without a place when it comes to all of this stuff. I am certain I could make everyone mad in every camp easily with my views. It does show the great divide in this country. I'm done with this thread. It just makes me sad.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Just to give everyone in this thread a tiny bit of happy, here is my dog Finn being shocked about it snowing for the first time this year in our area.

Enjoy a bit of cuteness as a palate cleanser.
View attachment 387173

He looks like a young dog. I was expecting a picture with a bit more bananas when running into snowflakes for the first time. You got one of those?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am not saying this is a good thing. I am saying if someone is angry in the heat of a discussion and feels cornered and says "Yes I am a sexist" I am going wonder more about the sincerity of the remark than if it had been said in a less emotional state.

I don't for even one second believe Gygax was "in a very emotional state" for entire period in which he:

A) Read Europa.

B) Carefully typed up his letter of response on a typewriter (or by hand, but I suspect the former).

C) Found an envelope, addressed the envelope. Found a stamp, licked the stamp, stuck the stamp on.

D) Walked down the driveway to the mailbox, put the letter in the mailbox.

E) For the entire period until the mailman came and took the letter from the mailbox, during which, if he regretted or did not fully support what he wrote, he could have taken that letter out of the box (something people absolutely did do).

So, yeah you might want to remember he didn't just slap this into a forum, or scream it into a mic. He carefully created and sent this response - and as a letter-writer, probably thought about it pretty carefully before even typing it up - I remember writing letters - I'm that old!

If he'd screamed that into a mic, I might think well, maybe he didn't mean it, but he wrote this up very carefully and intentionally, and sent it, and had a million opportunities to y'know, not send it. I know back when letters were still a thing I started writing quite a number of letters I didn't send - I think most people did. Its the ones you do send that matter.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I will say that I feel unhappy both on this thread and on the twitter thread. I'm a man without a place when it comes to all of this stuff. I am certain I could make everyone mad in every camp easily with my views. It does show the great divide in this country. I'm done with this thread. It just makes me sad.

What do you mean? No need for feeling that way! What's on your mind? I highly doubt that whatever badness you're picturing matches reality.

 

[FrozenNorth]

2) There's a guy on the internet who has come up with an incredibly evocative response to such things, but it is also incredibly vulgar*. It amounts to - if you are an insincere member of a group, you are still a member of that group.

It’s even older than that:

« We are what we pretend to be, so we should be careful about what we pretend to be. »

Kurt Vonnegut