D&D General Why grognards still matter

[Mercurius]

I don't see how it's unnecessary. You want to be prioritized. You accept that that prioritization will not put you first. Okay. What, then, would be insufficient prioritization? You accept that the upper limit isn't going to be 100%. What is the acceptable lower limit? Because you and others clearly wouldn't accept 0%. That would be, again to use Max's phrase, "completely disregarded". Hence, there's got to be some range where the lower bound is more than zero and the upper bound is less than 100. What are those bounds? It's extremely important to actually have a notion of what approximate range would be acceptable and what wouldn't be. Without that, every single discussion bogs down into "well it isn't good ENOUGH" and then we're just right back to my original question, because never good enough is exactly what "we must be prioritized first" cashes out as.

You completely missed the point of the post and instead seem to want to use this as a soapbox to rail against what you feel like are entitled grognards. I'm not playing that game, because it simply isn't what I was talking about. Again, I'd suggest you reconsider your assumptions about what the OP was actually about.

 

[Maxperson]

No, it makes you a Quantum Grognard.

I stick an ogre behind whichever door you decide to open.

 

[Mistwell]

Because that seems to me what a lot of people really mean when they say their group "matters." They're actually saying, "Our group should be the primary focus of [target entity]'s efforts." It's not enough that they continue to have meaningful influence. They must have more influence than any other comparable demographic.

I don't see how you can read the original post and conclude that's the perspective you're responding to.

 

[Lanefan]

No, it makes you a Quantum Grognard.

A level-up from there and you become Schroedinger's Grognard, right?

 

[Lanefan]

I stick an ogre behind whichever door you decide to open.

So that's why, when I opened its door, there was no food left in my fridge but something was fast asleep in there. I had been wondering.....

 

[MNblockhead]

I still have trouble thinking of any D&D player being a grognard. Grognards were those old guys playing Napoleonic Wargames in the side rooms at Gen Con. But, using your definitions, I'm a "master grognard." I don't care if I matter. I have more gaming material than I need for the rest of my life and there is so much material available to buy that I can find what I like. If WotC stopped publishing material that I like, it just doesn't affect me. I know many fans have strong opinions about WotC and its actions and it has always just not mattered to me any more than what any other publisher puts out, or heck, even the business and product choices of a large snack producer. There is just so much choice to take advantage of in the little time we are given on earth, I find it hard to get emotionally invested in the content WotC publishes.

That said, I am casually curious about the business of TTRPGs and it would be interested in having numbers and knowing a bit how WotC looks at them. I suspect @Smackpixi is right and I don't really matter much. I'm not in the most important demographic for WotC's business strategy. Sure, they are happy to take my money, and they care enough to throw in easter eggs and sops to the nostalgia of older players. But I'm surely not in their primary target audience.

 

[MNblockhead]

I think it boils down to people don’t like being dismissed as grognards. No one likes being dismissed with a label. I am not invested in us mattering but I do admit when someone just calls me a grognards or use similarly dismissive rhetoric because I like and dislike different things than they do in a game, it is a bit annoying. So I think the grognard still matter thing is basically people my age and older saying ‘hey we still play, we still buy the books, this hobby doesn’t belong to any one generation’. Dungeon craft had a video on this topic I believe

I've never run into this IRL. Beside, I'm a father of two teenage son's. Being called a grognard would not hurt my feelings than being told "okay, Dad..."

 

[MNblockhead]

There is a phenomenon known as retro nostalgia, where people who weren't born for a particular cultural touchstone still feel nostalgic for a thing (or the representation of it in media) and seeks to emulate it. You find that the recent revival of vinyl records and 8/16 bit retro games. I suspect that this is true for OS RPGs as well. For some, it's a call for an era they missed that was "purer" than what is mainstream now. It's a little bit romanticism for what's past and a little bit hipster/anti-trend chasing. I'm not saying that's the reason OS gaming is popular, but it is A factor.

And the fact that the most popular TTRPGs are set in the medieval era.

 

[MNblockhead]

Ohmigosh, how is that not a thing? Is it a thing?

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[Muso]

I started with BECMI but I am 52. Am I a Master or a Companion grognard? Consider that D&D took some time to cross the ocean and arrive in Italy in the eighties.

I agree with the topic. Now at 52 with a stable job I have the money to buy all the manuals that I want (not the magic crossover for example ). When I was a kid or more younger I didn't have enough money and each of us bought a manual that was shared among the others guys of the group.