tail wags dog: streamers want to say 'aaargh' so we are getting a pirate adventure

[3catcircus]

Not really, no. There wouldn't have ever been grognards in role playing if they didn't accept the new game ideas when coming over from wargames. Plus, wargames also sometimes get updated editions and, if they're good, they thrive.

I look at grognards (such as me) as people who were around in the early days and know obscure things like *why* game rules are the way they are, what the evolution of the game is and how it came to be that way, etc.

Ask someone who started out playing D&D with 3ed why different classes have different hit dice and you probably won't get, for example, an answer that details that fighters get d10 hit die but in OD&D, they used the same hit die as the other classes (just more of them)...

 

[Charlaquin]

Not really, no. There wouldn't have ever been grognards in role playing if they didn't accept the new game ideas when coming over from wargames. Plus, wargames also sometimes get updated editions and, if they're good, they thrive.

That’s just silly. Every new edition of every game loses some fans. Those lost fans become grognards.

I’m not saying this is the only meaning of the term, I’m saying this is what it has meant in my experience. A person who plays an outdated edition of a game instead of the most current one. FWIW, it is the second most popular meaning of the term on urban dictionary, right after “hardcore wargamer.”

 

[billd91]

That’s just silly. Every new edition of every game loses some fans. Those lost fans become grognards.

I’m not saying this is the only meaning of the term, I’m saying this is what it has meant in my experience. A person who plays an outdated edition of a game instead of the most current one. FWIW, it is the second most popular meaning of the term on urban dictionary, right after “hardcore wargamer.”

That would mean that 4e fans who prefer it to 5e are already grognards? Sorry, some of us have higher standards when accepting whether a term is correctly applied or not. And that's not it.

 

[Charlaquin]

That would mean that 4e fans who prefer it to 5e are already grognards?

Well, more specifically 4e fans who refuse to play 5e (of which I don’t think there are many - we grumble, but we still play 5e.) But yes.

Sorry, some of us have higher standards when accepting whether a term is correctly applied or not. And that's not it.

Right, hence my comment about “who cares about earning the respect of people who gatekeep a term meaning ‘stodgy and unwilling to change’ from people they feel aren’t stodgy and unwilling to change enough?”

 

[Umbran]

Right, hence my comment about “who cares about earning the respect of people who gatekeep a term meaning ‘stodgy and unwilling to change’ from people they feel aren’t stodgy and unwilling to change enough?”

As opposed to those who abscond with terms and apply them in ways so that nobody knows what we are really talking about? Yeah, those are good people. You should hang out with them. You won't really be able to carry on a useful conversation, but who needs to to be able to understand things anyway? Understanding is overrated!

 

[Immortal Sun]

As opposed to those who abscond with terms and apply them in ways so that nobody knows what we are really talking about? Yeah, those are good people. You should hang out with them. You won't really be able to carry on a useful conversation, but who needs to to be able to understand things anyway? Understanding is overrated!

Sorry, all build91's comment comes across as is that 4E fans who essentially behave exactly the same as 3E or 2E or AD&D fans regarding 5e "arent really grogs". @Charlaquin is more evenly applying the term to any D&D fan who grumbles and gripes about the new edition, while build91 is attempting to say that for *arbitrary reasons* 4E fans can't be grogs.

So if anyone is redefining terms while attempting to have a conversation, it's @build91. And he's doing it via gatekeeping, setting himself up as the arbiter of who can, or cannot be a grog.

You may agree with his sentiment, which is fine, we're all welcome to our own opinions. But the application of argumentative tactics make it clear who is doing what.

 

[Charlaquin]

As opposed to those who abscond with terms and apply them in ways so that nobody knows what we are really talking about? Yeah, those are good people. You should hang out with them. You won't really be able to carry on a useful conversation, but who needs to to be able to understand things anyway? Understanding is overrated!

Words mean what they are used to mean. And again, “someone who plays an older ruleset when newer ones are available” is the second most popular definition of grognard on Urban Dictionary. The only more popular one is “hardcore wargammer,” and while I’m sure there are plenty of those kinds of grognard who also play D&D, it’s clearly not the way the term is being used in this thread.

Also, keep in mind that 4e is only a year younger now than AD&D was when 2e came out and 2e was when 3e came out. 3e is two years shy of being as old as 1e was when 3e came out. If it feels wrong to you to hear these “youngsters” who started with 3e and 4e and prefer them over 5e be called grognards, then you’re not using any objective standard to evaluate what the word means.

 

[billd91]

Sorry, all build91's comment comes across as is that 4E fans who essentially behave exactly the same as 3E or 2E or AD&D fans regarding 5e "arent really grogs". @Charlaquin is more evenly applying the term to any D&D fan who grumbles and gripes about the new edition, while build91 is attempting to say that for *arbitrary reasons* 4E fans can't be grogs.

So if anyone is redefining terms while attempting to have a conversation, it's @build91. And he's doing it via gatekeeping, setting himself up as the arbiter of who can, or cannot be a grog.

You may agree with his sentiment, which is fine, we're all welcome to our own opinions. But the application of argumentative tactics make it clear who is doing what.

Hey, I know all the buzzwords too and if you think that you should be able to hang the title of grognard on anyone complaining about an edition change after so short a development cycle, well you go ahead and appropriate it all you want.

But you may not get the same respect.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hey, I know all the buzzwords too and if you think that you should be able to hang the title of grognard on anyone complaining about an edition change after so short a development cycle, well you go ahead and appropriate it all you want.

But you may not get the same respect.

Grognard isn’t a respectable title, and no one is trying to appropriate it. If you want to take pride in being a humbug, knock yourself out, but it’s not something people call you with the intent of being flattering.

And again, 3e is nearly as old now as 1e was when 3e was new, so if you’re still thinking of it as “newfangled,” you might want to check a calendar. The funny thing about the way time works is that things that were new 20 years ago aren’t new any more.

 

[Sadras]

Grognard isn’t a respectable title...(snip)

Yup, you definitely have not visited Dragonsfoot.