'The Making Of Original Dungeons & Dragons' Price Slashed On Amazon After Elon Musk Goes Viral Savaging Book For Attacking D&D Creator Gary Gygax
Elon Musk caused a great disturbance within the Dungeons & Dragons community on BlueSky this weekend after telling Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro “Go to hell,” over their treatment of D&D creator Gary Gygax. As a result, the history of D&D book that attacked Gygax has been reduced to 50% off on Amazon while woke activists are calling on people to buy it to attack Musk.
This year, Wizards of the Coast recently released a revisionist history book, “The Making Of The Original Dungeons & Dragons,” which fans noted was beyond disrespectful to original creator Gary Gygax.
In the preface written by Jason Tondro, a Senior Designer on Dungeons & Dragons, and shared to X by user dLsd_25, Tondro attacks the original creators writing, “Some language in the first iteration of D&D presents a moral quandary. The documents reproduced in this book include many pages of charts and tables alongside lists of monsters, spells, and magic items. But that game content also includes a virtual catalog of insensitive and derogatory language, words that are casually hurtful to anyone with a physical or mental disability, or who happens to be old, fat, not conventionally attractive, indigenous, Black, or a woman.”
Tondro continued, “Some people have charitably ascribed this language to authors working from bad assumptions. In the 1970s, historical wargamers in America were predominately white, middle-class men; it isn’t surprising that they would dub a class of soldiers the ‘fighting-man.’ But when, in the pages of Greyhawk, the description of the Queen of Chaotic Dragons includes a dig at ‘Women’s Lib,’ the misogyny is revealed as a conscious choice. It’s an unfortunate fact that women seldom appear in original D&D, and when they do, they’re usually portrayed disrespectfully.
Tondro went on, “Slavery appears in original D&D not as a human tragedy that devastated generations over centuries, but as a simple commercial transaction.”
“The cultural appropriation of original D&D ranges from the bewildering (like naming every 6th-level cleric a ‘lama’) to the staggering; Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes (not reprinted in this book) includes game statistics for sacred figures revered by more than a billion people around the world,” he wrote. “Were players expected to fight Vishnu, one of the principal deities of Hinduism, kill him, and loot his ‘plus 3 sword of demon slaying’?”
Tondro concluded the preface writing, “Despite these shortcomings, D&D has always been a game about people choosing to be someone unlike themselves and collaborating with strangers who become friends. It has slowly become more inclusive, and as the player base has become more diverse, the pool of creators who make the game has expanded to include people with a broader range of identities and backgrounds. As these new creators make the game more welcoming, the game has attracted new fans who, in turn, continue to make the game more inclusive. The future of Dungeons & Dragons, here at its fiftieth anniversary, is bright.”
Elon Musk calling this material out this weekend caused controversy within the industry as insiders began posting negative comments about both Elon Musk and Gary Gygax.
POCGamer, whose credits include Pathfinder, another Seattle-based D&D-like game that owes to Gygax for its creation said, “ Never afraid to have a bad opinion or support s*** takes, Musk has decided to dip his toes into D&D and defending known and self-avowed bioessentialist Gary Gygax. Because recognizing sexism and racism as problems is, *checks notes*, bad in his eyes.
D&D Vtuber Melissa Belladonna attacked Musk saying, “This is such forced outrage lol. He's throwing a fit because the 50th Anniversary "Making of D&D" book has sidebars saying that some of the content (slurs, misogyny) don't reflect what D&D is today. Mind you, all old books on DriveThruRPG have had the same thing for years LMAO”
RPG history writer Shannon Appelcline said, “Continuing his attempt to win the Guinness Record for most ignorant billionaire, Elon Musk is now parroting criticism of The Making of the Original D&D. Here's the thing: you cannot talk about D&D history without discussing something like _Oriental Adventures_, whose very name is problematic today.”
Appelcline launched into a full thread on the topic to try to paint Gary Gygax as bad in woke activist eyes but then followed up by alerting the public to The Making of The Original Dungeons and Dragons history book, which caused the controversy being placed at 50% off on Amazon.
“Show Elon Musk what you think of his ignorant criticism of The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons by buying a copy at 50% off,” she said while reposting a blog about the book.
The Zenopus Archives noted the book is at the lowest price he’s ever seen. The blog post references that there is no end date listed for the sale even though it claims it is a “limited-time deal,” which may be an indicator that it’s being liquidated completely.
It appears Amazon sees the writing on the wall and wants to get rid of its stock of this revisionist history attacking Gary Gygax sooner rather than later.
What do you think of Amazon pushing The History Of The Original Dungeons & Dragons at 50% off after Elon Musk slammed Wizards of the Coast for attacking Gary Gygax? Become a paid member to leave a comment and support our journalism.
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What is wrong about "Oriental Adventures" as a title?