Ernie Gygax – A gentleman with opinions

The Cult of Abaddon (2022)

So, nuTSR is essentially dead and buried at this point. They’ve settled with Wizards of the Coast,¹ the web site is gone,² and all their products are gone.

The iconic "The evil is defeated" GIF from Cabin in the Woods.

Let’s talk about their, now historic, “products”, or at least the ones I have access to. Starting with The Cult of Abaddon (2022) by Vincent “The Evil Dungeon Master” Florio with “input and ideas from” Ernie Gygax (credited as Ernest G. Gygax Jr, a truly baffling representation).³

The front cover for The Cult of Abaddon, including all the general markup to try to make it look like a classic module and the TSR LLC trademark... well the Diesel artwork they started using in lieu of the Justin LaNasa artwork.

It proclaims to be an Old School Renaissance (“OSR”) adventure module published by TSR Hobbies (and “TSR-Hobbies”), suitable for entry level characters. It is one of the few products to few the TSR Rating Meter which specifies it as suitable for ages 10+. ⁴

As is customary for these kind of products, it doesn’t specify a particular system that it works for – but there is generally an assumption that it’s for Basic Dungeons & Dragons (“BXD&D“), Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (“AD&D“), AD&D Second Edition or some system adapted to replicate this. So you’re not actually saying it’s Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D“) but everyone knows that’s what you mean.

I obtained my copy via Lulu during the brief window when Vincent was selling it as a pdf – making it direct competition with nuTSR’s print only (which never seems to have shippped). So, I guess that makes me one of the foremost scholars on this work, and that’s probably for the best.

The post about that has been scrubbed of Vincent’s blog, but one post that is left up makes it pretty clear the module was originally going to be part of his Mazes & Perils (2012) game, but that he evidentally lost interest in.⁵ Evidentally, he ultimately decided it was not good enough for his own system, but was a perfect fit for the stuff nuTSR were wanting to push out.

First Impressions

While nowhere near as bad a the Star Frontiers: New Genesis “beta”, its extremely amatuer in content and design – reading very much like an early draft by a hobby creator who normally is the only one to read their own work, and assures themselves they’re too genius to need second drafts.

The first paragraph has run on sentences, random use of ampersand (“&”) instead of typing “and”, and random capitalization. It then goes on to explain, with this level of sloppiness and inconsistency, that the title is quite misleading as the party will not have any meaningful interactions with Abaddon or really learn anything meaningful other than they’re bad and doing bad things.

When this was first announced, I noted there it was kind of worrying that they’d decided to use Abaddon, a name from Jewish folklore, in a story about a cult poisoning water supplies, particularly when combined with the less well known “red hand” symbols. Naturally the author denied he was anti-semitic, volunteered his wife was jewish, etc and while I’m personally not convinced but will concede that nothing in the work or his response indicates he was aware of these. Rather he seems just ignorant and too lazy to check anything. Of course, you can be lazy, ignorant and antisemitic so – I encourage you to use your own judgement.

Then it gets worse. Also spoilers ahead, but I sincerely doubt anyone reading this will ever be interested in playing it anyway.

1
TSR LLC v. Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2:21-cv-01705, (W.D. Wash.), Document #66
2
Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum <https://tsrmuseum.com> Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240627031048/https://tsrmuseum.com/
3
Vincent Florio The Cult of Abaddon (TSR LLC, Lake Geneva WI, 2022)
4
Vincent Florio The Cult of Abaddon, above n 3, at back cover
5
Vincent Florio Mazes & Perils Artifact: The Gemstone of Abaddon (The Evil Dungeon Master, 10 January 2017) <https://www.theevildm.com/p/mazes-perils-artifact-the-gemstone-of-abaddon>

The New TSR (“NuTSR”) – Transphobia, Scandals and Reactionary politics

As briefly covered in the first post, the meltdown in June was pretty dramatic and led to a split up between TSR LLC and Wonderfilled Inc. Since neither Justin LaNasa, nor Stephen Dinehart, can be classified as a reliable narrator and both parties blame each other for the matter – the TSR deep dive on this will be covering everything that was posted under the official TSR brand, since whether it was Dinehart or LaNasa at the keyboard, everything up until that point was under the brand and was consistent with later sentiments.

Everything Dinehart specific that did not bleed directly into the TSR platforms will likely be covered in the GiantLands Saga section.

A lot of the content has been deleted since, there will be heavy reliance on screenshots. After the disaster interview, there were a few attempts to simply dispel the narrative and pretend that the statements made in the interview simply didn’t exist. These went down like a wet bag of sick largely due to them being completely fabricated and having no basis in reality.¹ ²

Two tweets by TSR Games (@TSR_games) posted:
"The TTRPG is the original safe space."
"We are intolerant of hatred of any kind from all sides. All players are welcome at our table. Thanks to the role-playing game, we have a deep commitment to diversity and inclusion."

1
TSR Games (@TSR_games) Twitter (24 June 2021) (Archived) https://web.archive.org/web/20210624221618mp_/https://twitter.com/TSR_games/status/1408187164790345733
2
TSR Games (@TSR_games) Twitter (24 June 2021) (Archived) https://web.archive.org/web/20210625050832mp_/https://twitter.com/TSR_games/status/1408178463773794306

NuTSR Group – The Beginning

This post had to be heavily edited due to some Facebook pages changing their URL handle without notice, specifically “TSRHobbiesMuseum” to “DUNGEONHOBBYSHOP”. I’ve now updated them, removed the dead links to things that have been taken down and were never archived and now attached links to screenshots. Anywhere you see a 📸, you can click it for a screenshot of the linked post, for record keeping purposes.

In instances where the screenshots third parties, I’ve pixelated out their faces and/or names to protect their privacy.
Kim

While it looks more or less like any other house, 723 Williams Street, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin has an extraordinary history as the original office for Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the company founded by Gary Gygax and the original vendor of the now iconic role-playing game Dungeon and Dragons.

However, as TSR grew, Gary Gygax got pushed out and the venture (put a pin in that) was purchased by Wizards of the Coast (headquartered in Seattle, Washington) – the business of role-playing games move away. The history, and the significance of the site stayed present in the memory of many. Enter Scott Griffin, the man with original vision to make a homage to the Dungeon Hobby Shop (inspired by Jayson Elliot’s Gygax Magazine, though the company that published that is now Solarian Games) and the first man stepped on by Justin LaNasa in his quest for glory and fortune through nostalgia in the TTRPG space.

In a pair of interviews on the Tenkar’s Tavern YouTube Channel,¹ ² which included recordings of calls with Ernie Gygax, Scott discussed how he had been scoping out the project with some specific intentions of replicating the early environment as much as possible: Incorporating early employees like Ernie Gygax, Jeff Perren (though more realistically his daughter Vicky Perren) and Jeff “Duck” Leason.

1
Ernie Gygax Call with Scott Griffin re: Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum 6/21 – Sorry I Gygaxed You! Part I, Tenkar’s Tavern, YouTube (22 June 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB5RzpZfxv0
2
Ernie Gygax Phone Call with Scott Griffin re: DHSM – Part 2 – Justin is “Abrasive” & “A Bully”, Tenkar’s Tavern, YouTube (29 June 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljxEo6DJjrU