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from the do-not-meddle-in-the-affairs-of-wizards dept.
Renton, Wash.-based gaming company Wizards of the Coast filed a preliminary injunction in Seattle last week that seeks to prevent the release of a Wisconsin company's upcoming tabletop game, citing conflicts over both intellectual property rights and allegedly "racist and transphobic content."
Wizards of the Coast, owned by conglomerate Hasbro, is the current publisher of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, the audience for which has been growing steadily over the course of the last several years.
The company's injunction, filed on Sept. 8 in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington, aims to stop the publication of Star Frontiers: New Genesis, a tabletop space opera role-playing game that's currently under development at TSR LLC, headquartered in Lake Geneva, Wisc.
TSR LLC (a.k.a. "TSR3.5" or "NuTSR") is the latest company to lay claim to the name and legacy of the defunct TSR Inc., which is best known for publishing the original version of Dungeons & Dragons in 1973 and was acquired by Wizards in 1997.
TSR LLC was founded in June 2021 by Ernie Gygax, son of late D&D creator Gary Gygax; Stephen Dinehart; and Justin LaNasa, the owner and operator of the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum in Lake Geneva. The Museum is located on the site of the first office that Gary Gygax opened for TSR Inc. in 1976.
New Genesis, by TSR LLC, is an attempt to revive the original Star Frontiers, which TSR Inc. published from 1980 to 1986. While Star Frontiers never found the success that D&D did, it's maintained a cult fanbase up to the present day. Several features of its universe were later recycled into the D&D spacefaring setting Spelljammer.
In July, a preview copy of New Genesis leaked online and was met with immediate controversy due to allegedly containing explicitly racist and transphobic content. "A 'negro' race is described as a 'Subrace' in the game and as having 'average' intelligence with a maximum intelligence rating of 9, while the 'norse' race has a minimum intelligence rating of 13," the preliminary injunction notes, citing an example from the New Genesis playtest.
[...] In the injunction, Wizards' counsel writes that it "would be irreparably harmed by the publication and distribution of the game using its trademarks because consumers may mistakenly associate Wizards with the reprehensible content of the game, damaging its reputation and goodwill and undermining its efforts to foster a culture that embraces diversity."
[...] The Sept. 8 injunction marks the latest step in an ongoing legal fight between TSR LLC and Wizards. They had previously filed suit against one another in December over the rights to the TSR name and to Star Frontiers.
I didn't know TSR had been revived!
(Score: 2, Informative) by helel on Monday September 19 2022, @03:47AM (3 children)
What is under scrutiny here is not the old material from the 80's, its new material written by Dave Johnson today. As I understand it the controversial elements aren't even rehashes of what existed before but entirely new material so there's no "it's a product of it's time" defense - It's just racist and transphobic drivel being pumped out today.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Monday September 19 2022, @02:04PM (1 child)
Well, I guess since it's drivel, people will not buy it and whoever writes it will go out of business, correct?
(Score: 2) by helel on Monday September 19 2022, @02:34PM
Probably yes. Thus far it's been sold via pre-release crowd funding so they've collected money without anyone seeing the product. It's not as if they're releasing numbers but I suspect that revenue stream has dried up after the leak of the working document.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday September 19 2022, @09:40PM
My comment about people misusing the Troll mod was in response to people's modding of looorg's post - not TFA itself.
I agree that the current issue described in TFA is not historic at all, but is entirely current. That was not my issue with looorg being modded Troll.