D&D General Why grognards still matter

[EzekielRaiden]

Nah it's very solidly GenX, c.f. Clerks etc.

I'd say it's split between them, specifically because of when it came out, near the blurred line between one generation and the next. 1977 means many Gen Xers were children too young to really watch film; the eldest would've only been 12, and there were six more years' worth of them waiting to be born. The vast majority of its audience when Star Wars released would've ranged from the youngest Baby Boomers on up to young Silent Generation folks (since if you were mid-30s in 1977, you were, properly speaking, Silent Generation.) By the time the last film came out, the youngest Gen Xers were still only three years old--a little too young.

That said, I will certainly agree that Gen X adopted many terms from Star Wars because they had filtered into the pop-culture zeitgeist. But I'm not sure whether that's necessarily the most relevant thing or not. As an example, it's mostly people of my generation who use Marvel movie jokes (like "I don't feel so good Mr. Stark..." or "I understood that reference!" or "Perfectly balanced, as all things should be"), but those movies were coming out at basically the time and place for Gen Z to be the self-perceived "owners" if this pattern generalized.

I have nothing to say about the actual plot or contents of the films, though, because I haven't seen them and everything I've ever heard tells me I made the correct choice not to do so. (I have heard that Rogue One is actually quite good though.)

 

[Desdichado]

Not the person who made the initial claim, but when I see "appeased casual minority audiences" I read it as pandering to small-but-vocal groups within a fandom, maybe or maybe not do the detriment of the overall experience.

Yeah, anyone who sees the word minority and automatically defaults to "ethnic minority" in their heads... You're the problem.

 

[Alzrius]

I'd say it's split between them, specifically because of when it came out, near the blurred line between one generation and the next. 1977 means many Gen Xers were children too young to really watch film; the eldest would've only been 12, and there were six more years' worth of them waiting to be born.

To nitpick the definitions, I was given to understand that after 1979 or maybe 1980, they wouldn't have been Gen X.

 

[dave2008]

Okay, I can't pretend that I fully understand the criticism, but, it seems like a significant proportion of TLJ-haters absolutely loathe the scene with the kid and the broom showing he's just a random kid who happens to have force powers. They seem to regard the inclusion of this scene as somehow emblematic of everything wrong (in their eyes) with TLJ.

I just went through a couple of Reddit threads trying to find like a coherent criticism of the scene, and I can't - but if TLJ gets hated on, it gets brought up, and people discussed the poor kid an awful lot (indeed, entire threads full of it!).

The closest I can get is that people seem to think it's somehow insulting that he's showing that, even as Luke dies, there are other people in the universe with the Force, that it's not gone. There also seems to be some wild and very fanciful assumption that we're meant to seem Broom Boy specifically - like THIS KID specifically - as the future of the Jedi - when I think any sane person understands he's a symbol of hope not a specific character!

I feel like this is showing how some people (not so much here on ENworld oddly enough) have brainrot from Star Wars and see like every tiny character is a specific named character and super-important and so on. So they just couldn't parse the scene in a sane way, that kid has got to be Juumbo Dobulefryze, future Jedi Master or whatever!

Wow, I had no idea. I never really gave that scene a second thought (I understood it how you did). I really assumed the issues with that movie would be the "chase" scene and/or the portrayal of Luke. Thank you for letting me now.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yeah, anyone who sees the word minority and automatically defaults to "ethnic minority" in their heads... You're the problem.

Context is important. And in this context, it's important to realize:

• The overwhelming number of complaints out there in the world about the items listed in the original post are about "going woke". I would say more than 3/4 of people complaining about ruining those things mention "going woke." You can't miss it. There are tons of memes about it.
• The term "woke" is directly tied to minorities.

So...no, a person seeing another complaint about how IP is ruined by "catering to minority opinions" and assuming it's related to actual minorities isn't the problem. It's a logical assumption based on the majority of arguments and complaints being made.

 

[Umbran]

@Desdichado and @Sacrosanct

Morrus himself told the thread to drop it. You have chosen to ignore that directive.

Bad choice. You are done in the discussion.

 

[Parmandur]

I actually liked both those movies. But TLJ is still terrible.

It really isn't, which is borne out by the critical and Cinemascore reactions at the time.

 

[CellarHeroes]

As a "Master" Grognard, I have dwelled on this topic from time to time. I would shake my fist at WotC for releasing yet another book of fluff and garbage. I would sit in the corner and huff about how "WotC aren't good stewards for the game". Heck, I would even sit and complain about how D&D is now just a game for kids.

Then I came to senses and accepted that D&D (off the shelf) is now just a game for kids. Just like it always has been a game for kids. I was a kid when I started playing. The kids I knew who started playing in college still approached the game with child-like wonder.

Over the years, we have accumulated so much stuff...books published by TSR and WotC, issues of Dungeon, Dragon, and Polyhedron magazines, third-party published material, and boxes and 3-ring binders of our own material.

So, the road this thinking always leads me down leads to...what could WotC release now that I would want or feel I need?

 

[Xenolith234]

As a "Master" Grognard, I have dwelled on this topic from time to time. I would shake my fist at WotC for releasing yet another book of fluff and garbage. I would sit in the corner and huff about how "WotC aren't good stewards for the game". Heck, I would even sit and complain about how D&D is now just a game for kids.

Then I came to senses and accepted that D&D (off the shelf) is now just a game for kids. Just like it always has been a game for kids. I was a kid when I started playing. The kids I knew who started playing in college still approached the game with child-like wonder.

Over the years, we have accumulated so much stuff...books published by TSR and WotC, issues of Dungeon, Dragon, and Polyhedron magazines, third-party published material, and boxes and 3-ring binders of our own material.

So, the road this thinking always leads me down leads to...what could WotC release now that I would want or feel I need?

Variant rules to support all previous styles of gameplay, but in 5e.

 

[CellarHeroes]

Variant rules to support all previous styles of gameplay, but in 5e.

I would think with our experience we'd be able to do this sort of stuff on our own.

Edit: When I say "this sort of stuff" I'm not only talking about homebrewing, but also selecting a game system that is a better fit for the type of game you want to run.