Grognard good...grognard bad

[Ariosto]

For example ...

The position espoused there says that harsh play, where the GM kills, cripples, destroys items, or in other ways damages characters for the slightest miscalculation will have a Dungeons and Bootstraps effect, creating players who are highly skilled.

I don't consider "Being paranoid and memorizing the Monster Manual" to be skilled play.

Citation?

I did not see that actually being espoused there. I see maddman75 choosing words of his own, and then attributing them to someone else.

 

[Herschel]

At the end of the day, people should just realize these facts:

1. 4E is for AD/HD videogamers.
2. 3E is for friendless losers.
3. 2E is for wimps who couldn't handle demons in the game.
4. 1E was for OCD gamers who needed to add pointless bits of minutia to..
5. OD&D, which is just a pale excuse in the shadow of the greatest RPG of all time.

Behold, the glory of M.E.R.P.
Warning: If you take any part of this post seriously, you might be a grognard.

 

[maddman75]

Would a modicum of common sense also allow you to stop tilting at strawmen? Maddman's definition of grognard, which is one which I more or less approve of, does not encompass all old school players or old school playstyles. Only you are insisting that it must in this post right here.

Yes, for clarity, I'm not calling everyone who likes old school gaming a grognard. I'm claiming those that say anything else is going to destroy the hobby, or that this kind of gaming is the One True Way, are grognards.

You want examples? Go read theRPGsite, or Grognardia, or countless other sites where such people gather. You can pretend that they don't exist all you want, but they're there.

I don't have to point at anyone in this thread. The thread was saying 'what is a grognard'. I'm explaining the term as I understand it. I have not accused anyone of being a grognard explicitly.

 

[Ariosto]

There is, I think, a pretty basic self-centered but genuine misunderstanding that gets turned into a misleading rhetorical misrepresentation.

From the thread at theRPGSite, post #485:

I'm quite mystified by the notion that one must 'endure' some things to get the fun, and that there is some hard work that needs to be done to be a real gamer. What's wrong with the game being fun from minute one for some people?

This is projection. People attribute their own views of X as "not fun", as something to "endure" onto other people to whom X is part of the fun.

That projection, codified and made "official" in overturning the definition of a particular pastime, is what Melan called the Tyranny of Fun.

It is the tyranny of someone else's valuation, a valuation that is Anti-Game X, over the views of those who happen to be Pro-Game X fans.

It is the same sort of 'tyranny' one might expect if the standards of figure skating were to replace those formerly applied to the National Hockey League. Figure skating is fine if one's taste is so inclined, but it is not for the sake of boredom that a segment of the population prefers hockey.

One can pretty well predict where one might expect to find agreement or disagreement with the proposition that doing away with (what fans would call) hockey, replacing it with figure skating, would be an improvement.

 

[maddman75]

Grognard: "Someone said my idea of fun isn't fun! WAHHHHHHH!"

 

[Ariosto]

Yes, for clarity, I'm not calling everyone who likes old school gaming a grognard. I'm claiming those that say anything else is going to destroy the hobby, or that this kind of gaming is the One True Way, are grognards.

Yes, as I observed earlier:

The enterprise is one of turning 'grognard' into an insult.

 

[maddman75]

Yes, as I observed earlier:

The enterprise is one of turning 'grognard' into an insult.

It was all insulty when I found it. Now its old school gamers complaining that these new games aren't doing it right at all. Before that it was wargamers complaining that these roleplayers weren't doing it right at all. Before that it was Napoleon's Old Guard complaning that these new soldiers weren't doing it right at all.

It may be applied to different groups, but the meaning has not changed.

 

[Desdichado]

The 'strawmen' are those you all incessantly raise, trying to make us think that some statement about Something Completely Different has something to do with the context at hand.

I know exactly what a strawman is, and your example is a classic example of it. Or are you trying to make some kind of pedantic (and false) distinction between a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid (the so-called sweeping generalization fallacy) and a strawman?

If you have no rational response to what people actually say, then please at least show enough respect for our intelligence not to get huffy when we point out factually the gulf between your rhetoric and what is actually under discussion.

Your response is to post a strawman, argue about whether or not it is a strawman, and then demand a citation for personal experience, and you have the nerve to say that to me? Really?

 

[Ariosto]

"It was an insult when I found it".

Former ignorance is no excuse. Those who insist on insulting uses of certain other names belonging to groups of people would very quickly with such behavior bring down the wrath of moderators here -- and in other contexts might even find that "fighting words" are not considered part of a guaranteed freedom of speech.

However acceptable a provincial prejudice might be in the province, venturing into more cosmopolitan climes calls for adjustment of one's behavior.

 

[rogueattorney]

Allow me to be the first unabashed, self-professed grognard to post in this thread.

I like old games. I generally prefer old games to new games. There are some exceptions. But the exceptions tend to be games that are out of the mainstream and self-consciously "old school."

I personally don't give a damn what anyone else plays. I don't frequent threads on this board in which 4e (or 3.xe, for that matter) specific topics are being discussed. Some of the general D&D discussion and historical discussion that takes place here is of a very high level. Also - shockingly, I know - I like to stay somewhat current on "current events" in gaming. If anyone can find any time I've posted anything negative about 4e beyond the fact that it simply doesn't interest me, let me know. I'll retract it and post a public apology.

If you come over to K&KA and start slagging on O(A)D&D or claiming how 4e is so much better, I would react poorly and post something nasty. I try very hard to ignore you when some of you do it here. Frankly, I just expect some nastiness towards older editions here. For what it's worth, it's nowhere near as bad now as it was about 5 or 6 years ago.

I realize that my gaming tastes are so far out of the mainstream - and have been for about two decades now - that it's unrealistic to hope that larger game companies are going to cater to me. Fortunately, there are a ton of smaller game companies run by like-minded gamers who do cater to me, and over the last 5 years or so, I've had more new gaming materials interest me than in the fifteen years prior. Right now, it's a real, real good time to be a grognard.