How Did I Become a Grognard?

Shasarak · Feb 15, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Never played a single GW game of any kind.

Do you know the worst thing about Games Workshop?

At a glance the stores look enough like an RPG store that you start to get excited and then they are totally not.

GreyLord · Feb 15, 2019

Shasarak said:
In my experience the only edition of DnD to require a board was 4th edition. The only people who used minis in the 2e days were the Warhammer players.

I played 4e with out a board...but I played 3.5 WITH a grid.

If you think 4e required a board...you should read the rules to 3.5, they were even MORE explicit about defining movement via a grid and miniatures came with all their beginning sets (unlike 4e which just came with pogs...).

As for miniature wargaming...as one of those who probably was considered a grog even back then as I did wargaming...there were a LOT of wargamers that did NOT play Warhammer but used miniatures.

The first miniature wargaming that wasn't really military based and got big was actually published in 1913 in a book by H.G. Wells called Little Wars. So, many decades of wargaming that were NOT Warhammer had already come and that hobby was ALIVE AND WELL when D&D was being created and even after (and there are probably a lot less today, but at least a couple thousand that play miniature wargaming that is NOT Warhammer Fantasy or 40K).

Napoleonics were also relatively famous and popular. WWII miniature gaming got bigger...probably after D&D came out, but by the 80s was also probably a thing.

They MAY NOT have been popular miniature wargaming among those who were playing the big game of AD&D during the 80s much, and that may be where your perception that only Warhammer miniatures was being played.

Of course, in regards to grids and hexes...Grids and hexes were being used for wargames since at least 1958 with the publication of Gettysburg. Other wargames advanced this design and wargaming on a map/board/grid was particularly popular in the 70s and grew in popularity in the 80s. After D&D hit the big box stores you could sometimes find the Avalon Hill Wargames right besides the same spots that sported D&D.

I think many did not PLAY with miniatures for several reasons.

#1 - They were not wargamers initially. When they were introduced they didn't realize that miniatures really had anything to do with it initially. They got used to playing the game without miniatures and went on from there.

#2 - As someone mentioned above...B/X and BECMI brought in a TON of new players. These box sets did not really reference miniatures as a key feature to playing the game. They learned how to play without miniatures.

#3 - The rules didn't really stress the usage of miniatures. In many instances one might start playing a game without reading all the rules (and there are a LOT of rules) and never really got into the parts about miniatures. Thus, like the players above, never really got into playing with them.

I attribute that MANY didn't play with Miniatures from the get go, which is one reason the secondary combat rules (arneson's) gained priority over the rules that shipped in the three original booklets as the primary combat system and by the time 2 years had passed were the commonly accepted form for combat everywhere. Thus when Holmes and AD&D came out, only those rules were mentioned and the harkening back to chainmail was conveniently forgotten.

However, many DID play miniature wargames that were NOT Warhammer in the 70s and 80s...and wargaming itself has long used grids and hexes in gaming.

Shasarak · Feb 15, 2019

GreyLord said:
I played 4e with out a board...but I played 3.5 WITH a grid.

If you think 4e required a board...you should read the rules to 3.5, they were even MORE explicit about defining movement via a grid and miniatures came with all their beginning sets (unlike 4e which just came with pogs...).

If you read the rules, one of those describes your character as having a movement speed of 30' per round and other as 6 squares per round.

So which one is best for miniatures?

GreyLord · Feb 15, 2019

Shasarak said:
If you read the rules, one of those describes your character as having a movement speed of 30' per round and other as 6 squares per round.

So which one is best for miniatures?

Depends. 3.5 had 5' steps...and when I got the basic box it included all the miniatures (and more) to play. Some people even just got the box FOR the miniatures.

It was the boardgame aspect that actually finally won me over to play 3.5 as a game with those boxes.

4e, we played with the grid, but the absence of the quality and amount of miniatures that had been available with 3.5 release actually discouraged us to play.

Which is easier to play with miniatures...a TON of cheap miniatures for sale at retail (3.5)...or a greatly diminishing amount of miniatures for sale that you actually might have to use 3.5 miniatures or use those from other games to play?

There's a REASON we didn't always use miniatures and used theater of the mind with 4e in many campaigns. I am not unusual in that I played 4e with the theater of the mind.

4e did not require miniatures anymore than 3.5 did....

Though Warhammer Fantasy and 40K probably take the cake on requiring miniatures...but that's because they are miniature wargames.

During that same period I WAS playing another non-Warhammer game called Flames of War. Great game if you are into minis...expensive though (as many miniature wargames are).

Dannyalcatraz · Feb 15, 2019

Shasarak said:
Do you know the worst thing about Games Workshop?

At a glance the stores look enough like an RPG store that you start to get excited and then they are totally not.

Been in one of their stores. I can’t say you’re wrong.

MGibster · Feb 15, 2019

I find that in some ways I have difficulty accepting the changes to many games. When it comes to fantasy art I much prefer what I saw in AD&D 2nd edition to what I saw in 3rd and 5th edition. I really dislike the fact that Paladins don't have to be Lawful Good, I've always hated the idea of Clerics who worship some nebulous concept like good or law rather than a deity, and I dislike how D&D has pulled away from alignments overall. (I also realize many other people really like those changes.)

On the other hand, D&D 5th edition is my favorite version of the game. I've just accepted that games have changed over the last thirty years in response to customer preference and I'm okay with that.

Ilbranteloth · Feb 15, 2019

GreyLord said:
I played 4e with out a board...but I played 3.5 WITH a grid.

If you think 4e required a board...you should read the rules to 3.5, they were even MORE explicit about defining movement via a grid and miniatures came with all their beginning sets (unlike 4e which just came with pogs...).

As for miniature wargaming...as one of those who probably was considered a grog even back then as I did wargaming...there were a LOT of wargamers that did NOT play Warhammer but used miniatures.

The first miniature wargaming that wasn't really military based and got big was actually published in 1913 in a book by H.G. Wells called Little Wars. So, many decades of wargaming that were NOT Warhammer had already come and that hobby was ALIVE AND WELL when D&D was being created and even after (and there are probably a lot less today, but at least a couple thousand that play miniature wargaming that is NOT Warhammer Fantasy or 40K).

Napoleonics were also relatively famous and popular. WWII miniature gaming got bigger...probably after D&D came out, but by the 80s was also probably a thing.

They MAY NOT have been popular miniature wargaming among those who were playing the big game of AD&D during the 80s much, and that may be where your perception that only Warhammer miniatures was being played.

Of course, in regards to grids and hexes...Grids and hexes were being used for wargames since at least 1958 with the publication of Gettysburg. Other wargames advanced this design and wargaming on a map/board/grid was particularly popular in the 70s and grew in popularity in the 80s. After D&D hit the big box stores you could sometimes find the Avalon Hill Wargames right besides the same spots that sported D&D.

I think many did not PLAY with miniatures for several reasons.

#1 - They were not wargamers initially. When they were introduced they didn't realize that miniatures really had anything to do with it initially. They got used to playing the game without miniatures and went on from there.

#2 - As someone mentioned above...B/X and BECMI brought in a TON of new players. These box sets did not really reference miniatures as a key feature to playing the game. They learned how to play without miniatures.

#3 - The rules didn't really stress the usage of miniatures. In many instances one might start playing a game without reading all the rules (and there are a LOT of rules) and never really got into the parts about miniatures. Thus, like the players above, never really got into playing with them.

I attribute that MANY didn't play with Miniatures from the get go, which is one reason the secondary combat rules (arneson's) gained priority over the rules that shipped in the three original booklets as the primary combat system and by the time 2 years had passed were the commonly accepted form for combat everywhere. Thus when Holmes and AD&D came out, only those rules were mentioned and the harkening back to chainmail was conveniently forgotten.

However, many DID play miniature wargames that were NOT Warhammer in the 70s and 80s...and wargaming itself has long used grids and hexes in gaming.

Another reason why as many people didn’t use minis at the time? You had to paint them. Collecting and painting minis is a hobby on its own, and there are still a good number of companies producing them. But the prepainted minis opened up the possibility to a lot of gamers.

And the GW stores are much more interesting if you paint minis.

It was clear for a long time that the primary fantasy mini market was D&D, with all sorts of sculpts clearly made for the game, but with different (usually similar) names for the monsters. GW was the first to really break from that. And they are the only ones that figured out how to turn a line of minis into a product line that could support dedicated stores.

jasper · Feb 15, 2019

...Another reason why as many people didn’t use minis at the time? You had to paint them...BS
Until 2 weeks ago I still had some unpainted minis. OCT 1982 One of the E-4 gave me 3 or 4 yellow boxes of minis. Forget the company. And the boxes were not full. Two weeks ago, I gave my left over lead minis to the local game store owner just to get them out my house. Still need to get the tackle box back for her.

Ilbranteloth · Feb 15, 2019

jasper said:
...Another reason why as many people didn’t use minis at the time? You had to paint them...BS
Until 2 weeks ago I still had some unpainted minis. OCT 1982 One of the E-4 gave me 3 or 4 yellow boxes of minis. Forget the company. And the boxes were not full. Two weeks ago, I gave my left over lead minis to the local game store owner just to get them out my house. Still need to get the tackle box back for her.

Oh I had lots that I never finished painting too. But I know a lot of people that wouldn’t consider buying minis until they were prepainted. They had no interest in learning how to, and didn’t want them if they weren’t.

I’m not saying everyone is that way, but the painted minis picked up a lot of customers that didn’t buy the unpainted ones.

Doug McCrae · Feb 15, 2019

I know right? These young people with their selfies and their apps and their podcasts and their pierced septums. We didn't have any of that when I was a kid. If you wanted to know what other roleplayers were thinking you read the letters page of Dragon magazine, and if you wanted to shock people you stuck a safety pin thru your ear.

PS Pathfinder is New School.