Musk on D&D
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, said that WOTC and Hasbro should Burn in Hell to the 200 million subscribers of his personal social media network X.
"Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash E. Gary Gygax and the geniuses who created Dungeons & Dragons. What the f___ is wrong with Hasbro and WoTC?? May they burn in hell."
This is in response to criticisms in the foreword of Dungeons & Dragons - the Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977, a fantastic book capturing the earliest versions of D&D and how it got made. It's a huge book with tons of pages showing Gygax's and Arnison's contributions to D&D and how it evolved.
But some folks focus their attention on five paragraphs on two pages of a 576 page book that reminded people of the racism and sexism in the earliest versions of D&D.
Some, including Musk, took this as "trashing" Gary Gygax by saying he was sexist. You know who else said Gary Gygax was sexist? Gary Gygax who said "Damn right I am a sexist" (by the way, this is the nicest part of his quote, the rest of which is much worse). A common excuse is that Gary was a product of his time. He wasn't a product of the time. He defended his bigotry because he wasn't a product of his time. He continued to defend his sexist attitudes through 2004 and never recanted.
First-hand accounts say he was wonderful to the women around him and we have anecdotes from women creators today who speak fondly of their interactions with him. One side of this story doesn't discount the other.It doesn't make him a monster or a hero. It makes him complicated. See Cory Doctorow's article about Harlan Ellison.
