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.

 

[Steampunkette]

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?

Hah! No. No.

I'm going to ignore that person because the alternative is allowing someone who thinks I'm a man access to my thoughts, time, and energy. And they don't get those things if they have no respect for who I am as a person.

I get that you like the idea of perfectly open communication, Ulorian, but freedom of speech protects people from government.

It doesn't protect them from Rachel.

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?

He's full grown, actually. It's just the first snow of -this- year.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

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

Well, that was a bit odd and nihilistic.

~ Ulorian

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.)

I do agree people can slide into real bigotry through trolling. I don’t think that is always what happens (and so have seen more people slide in that directions after social ostracism, or being marginalized for trolling behavior). Again this is one reason I think engagement is very important. The less engaged we are with one another the more extreme I believe we can all become. Generally though I think it is importing to drill down into what people mean and what they believe, when these things arise (which I do think is taking place here, and that is a good thing). I don’t want to take a person at their worst troll post and define them by it (I want them to still have the power to define themselves out of that)

 

[Gradine]

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!

Yeah, I was about to say, definitely a red flag.

That is a GREAT point.

It's also why a bunch of family members are so upset about their family cutting them off:

Who do they get to abuse at Thanksgiving if all their favorite victims refuse to speak with them? People whose whole personality revolves around drinking other people's tears are in a sore spot if there's no one around they can make cry.

And this is what makes the two-way ignore so excellent, and why I find arguments against them to also be red flags. This is not, and has not ever been, about having a civil conversation about differences of opinion. It is about continually victimizing the already marginalized with needles and jabs under the very thin veneer of "civility" and remaining ever so close to the line of breaking the rules. See: telling a transgender person that one of the most notorious and vicious transphobes is "fighting the good fight". But please continue to debate me in DMs! I needed your sweet outrage to fuel me.

Please.

You take away their oxygen and they become powerless. This thread was probably doomed from the start, but it's nice it's lasted long enough to know where some "members" of this community truly stand.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Rowling has called for policies and attitudes that directly harm trans people. She's used a ton of vile and horrific abusive terminology towards trans people in general. She'd like'd posts where specific trans people are horrifically abused. She even supported fringe political extremists last election because they had policies which were really nastily anti-trans*.

This is why I will not spend a cent on anything she would gain from, nor I even engage with anything that promotes her work. She will use her wealth and fame to promote bigotry. I do not want in any way to be complicit in that. To me this is very different thing than some long dead bigot, or even an alive one, whose bigotry is limited to some out of touch offensive comment.

Granted, whilst I used to like her work, I was never a massive fan nor was it in any way formative to me like it was to many people, so this is rather easy decision for me to make.

 

[Maxperson]

The anger is the point. They want us angry. It feeds them, sustains them, drives them until for more.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Hah! No. No.

I'm going to ignore that person because the alternative is allowing someone who thinks I'm a man access to my thoughts, time, and energy. And they don't get those things if they have no respect for who I am as a person.

I get that you like the idea of perfectly open communication, Ulorian, but freedom of speech protects people from government.

It doesn't protect them from Rachel.

He's full grown, actually. It's just the first snow of -this- year.

Someone thought you were a man? That's actually kind of funny. And sad for that person. I can't even imagine what led someone down that path. Probably a mixture of strong stances you take with some weirdness in their background. Either way, nothing to do with you or a reflection on you. I hope you understand that right? All the weirdness is from over there on this one.

Honestly, I would not have blocked that person just so I could find out what the 'heck' was going on in that mindspace.

 

[Steampunkette]

Someone thought you were a man? That's actually kind of funny. And sad for that person. I can't even imagine what led someone down that path. Probably a mixture of strong stances you take with some weirdness in their background. Either way, nothing to do with you or a reflection on you. I hope you understand that right? All the weirdness is from over there on this one.

Honestly, I would not have blocked that person just so I could find out what the 'heck' was going on in that mindspace.

I'm transgender, Ulorian.

Lots of people think I'm a man, well aware that I am a woman. They just usually don't say it outright.

Neither did this person. Instead they said that Rowling is fighting the good fight. What fight is it she's fighting? Keeping trans people in the closet and working to make the world more hostile for us.

 

[Gradine]

Look folks, sometimes they're a bit more subtle than most, they might even seem to mostly agree with you, but when they ultimately show you who they really are, or more pertinently in this case, what they find "kind of funny", please do them the courtesy of believing them, and acting accordingly.

As I said before, arguing against ignore is a pretty big red flag.

 

[mamba]

I see a step towards me! Bless your heart sir.

I am not sure that was a step at all, it was just a clarification of what I believed all along. No one called Gygax subhuman for his views, and if anyone did I would defend Gary.

In either case, you are welcome

The point is to recognise that you are speaking to another person

yes, usually you do