D&D General On Grognardism...

I started playing D&D in 1982 but given that 4e is favorite of mine I cant say that I am a grognard. I liked the new ideas of 4e -even though it was far from perfect - and some of the these ideas have come through into 5e which I also enjoy.

While I fell the pull of nostalgia in D&D I dont think the past should determine its future. I think D&D is game that should continue to evolve and change with new ideas.
My story as well. I have some nostalgia for the Beginner Set (BECM Red Box, with the sample adventure where you save Aleena) - it's mostly for the simpler, cleaner art style than the actual rules.

If I want to play a dungeon crawl, I'm more likely to suggest Clank than DnD these days.
 

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Easy:

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But seriously, if I had to pick an RPG Waterloo, I might point to the release of 3e, wherein stuff like race-class limitations, descending AC, and other sacred cows were finally revised.

Maybe we need to identify "RPG Waterloo", and then we can nail down grognards.

They really are! I have a delightful vanilla from So Delicious in my fridge right now.

I can't eat regular ice cream either (dairy allergy), but coconut versions are just as good, as I've found out (much to my relief, as ice cream is my favorite treat) :)
 

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
Amusingly, "grognards" is a term from French, for the veterans Napoleon got to rejoin the army by promising them a few special favors. It means "grumbler" because that's what they did when they were back in the army, grumble to all the younger soldiers that they were doing it wrong.

As a grognard myself, I've never seen a more apt use of an archaic term.
 




S'mon

Legend
So, some demographics.

What we call "grognards" are going to be a subset of players age 40 and up. 40+ gamers are about 10% of the current 5e player base. So, the grognards are single-digit percent of the current D&D market, and that number will only be dropping as time goes on - WotC doesn't need to throw them away, when they're just going to pass out of the market of their own accord (as in, die or retire from buying new gaming products). Economically, grogs are already not a major market issue for WotC.

Maybe you missed my point about grogs helping newbs get into the game. A lot of new players are intimidated at the prospect of GMing, especially, when they've not played before.

Edit: I'm a mite sceptical of the "10% of players are 40+" thing - I see a lot of brand new players, and they are about 10% age 40+, with the majority teenage & early 20s. But there are lots of continuing players too, and they must surely be older on average.
 
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5e is great for letting grogs and newbs sit down together at the table of gaming love. I can't see why WoTC would want to throw that away. IME most newbies see grogs as a valuable resource for learning how to play, not some kind of a threat.
As Umbran says, grogs are less than 10% of players. In 2024 or whenever they're only going to be a smaller proportion.

If you look at the development of D&D Next, basically 90% of opinions followed were grogpinions. Even where the majority opinion appeared to be that something ungroggy was good (even among grogs!), WotC generally seems to have gone "Nah, grog it!" or "Well opinion is split so let's go with 3E-style!" (which is essentially grog-ish, because 3E intentionally recalled 1E, not 2E). This made sense because the main goal was to regain market share when they'd lost a lot of it to a game that was essentially refusing to move forwards (rather moving slightly sideways).

It would make no sense to do that with 6E. We've established that grogs are a tiny percentage of the market. So you want to target the majority - which will be younger players - the odds are good that, whatever you do, most/all of the grogs will stay with you anyway, so there's that.

I mean, to drive the grogs away with 4E, it took huge effort - they had to have a system totally incompatible with all the 3.XE content people had spent literally hundreds or thousands of dollars on, to make dubious comments which made it sound like 4E was an MMO-in-waiting (not the intended meaning but w/e), and run a marketing campaign so ridiculous and outright insulting, it seemed like a "bit" from The Simpsons or something, which literally had a snooty-sounding guy with a European accent basically saying "Your old D&D which you spent decades playing is dumb trash for babies". And this perfect storm also needed them to both have created the OGL, allowing a company to clone 3.XE, aaaaaand for 4E to not have the OGL, but the GSL, which made it nigh-impossible to create good 3PP material for 4E, so PF was there with open arms.

That won't happen again.

Most likely 6E will be to 5E as 2E was to 1E, like, semi-compatible, with most of the rules changes being stuff to make it more accessible or to change stuff so it makes more sense, and I'm sure they'll do at least one thing that makes a whole bunch of grogs reel in horror.

Maybe you missed my point about grogs helping newbs get into the game. A lot of new players are intimidated at the prospect of GMing, especially, when they've not played before.
There's basically little/no evidence that this is a meaningful number of players though, and further, as I noted, it's not like the grogs are going to quit if they're not listened to - what are they going to do, go play PF2? I mean a lot of us quite like 5E, we're likely to quite like most of 6E.
 
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S'mon

Legend
There's basically little/no evidence that this is a meaningful number of players though, and further, as I noted, it's not like the grogs are going to quit if they're not listened to - what are they going to do, go play PF2?
Keep playing 5e, presumably. But I'd think there was a big danger that's what most of the market would do, if D&D moved away from what made 5e successful. Currently the game is a broad church that attracts players who enjoy a wide range of play styles, including grognardy styles - and it's certainly not just grogs who like such styles. I wouldn't think it makes sense to narrow the market, when they've successfully created a very inclusive game.
 

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