Becoming a Grognard

[fireinthedust]

I'm curious to know at what point I can describe myself as a Grognard.

Perhaps there's a different word for my generation of gamer, or type, as frankly I don't know that I'd want to be bunched in with the hoi polloi of grognards with no sense of how to run a game, as opposed to those who do have it.

I get the feeling that one needs grey hair, and preferably a fat beard.

One should have played OD&D immediately when it came out, though I have to admit that as time goes on that particular point will fail to work for the majority of even the oldest gamers: red box veterans will have died out.

At what point, though, can one be said to be more than simply a gaming veteran, and become a grognard?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Being a grognard has nothing to do with being able to run a good game. Some people can pull it off in their first session and others might never be able to despite 40 years of practice. Apples & oranges.

 

[Henry]

I get the feeling that one needs grey hair, and preferably a fat beard.

Just so you know, the "fat" in "fatbeard" doesn't describe the beard.

Since a "grognard" is literally a "grumbler", you can fit being a Grognard if you are old enough to remember the "good old days", and how everything's not as good as it was "before."

 

[UngainlyTitan]

20 years in the ranks and the rank of sargeant and must be able to read...

Oh! you mean a gamer grognard

Well that depends, 'round here it seems that you have to suffer an edition change and do not like the new edition.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

duplicate deleted.

 

[Mark CMG]

Perhaps there's a different word (. . .)

At what point, though, can one be said to be more than simply a gaming veteran, and become a grognard?

You could become a Neo-Grog. Unless you come from a background of primarily wargaming, and tend to shun other types of games altogether, being an actual Grognard is out of reach. A Neo-Grog is really any old school gaming type that still does things the old way. If you are under eighteen years of age, Groglings are children who play wargames, so you could be one of them. Occasionally wargaming could earn you the title of Demi-Grog, though just shouting about wargaming to the masses only makes you a Demagrog (these two are often confused by people with a limited grogcabulary). There are signs, of course. Do you game in a grogto, your parents' basement (or the house they left you when they passed)? If you come out of it on Groundgrog's Day and don't cast a shadow it means six more weeks of basement wargaming, and probably qualifies you as, at least, a little groggy. Grog luck figuring it out!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

You must, even if you like and play the current generation of the game, insist that the version of the game at least two generations prior was better, for reasons that are so obvious you refuse to enumerate them, and that we would all be better off if we just went back to playing the old version.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I think the term is relative.

When I started playing, Basic D&D and AD&D 2e were the editions du jour. And I like those editions best. So around these here parts, I could be considered a grognard, since I do in fact like to grumble about how great gaming was in the 90s, before WotC and the d20 system rolled around and made everything all slick and corporate.

But if I were to amble over to Dragonsfoot or especially Knights & Knaves, where folks are standing at perpetual attention in salute of 1e, 0e, and all things "gygaxian", I'm just another youngster without a clue because I arrived on the scene too late to see any real gaming.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'm curious to know at what point I can describe myself as a Grognard.

'Round about the time you start playing, enjoying and in fact preferring old school games.

At what point, though, can one be said to be more than simply a gaming veteran, and become a grognard?

Totally different things, IMO (see above).

 

[S'mon]

One should have played OD&D immediately when it came out, though I have to admit that as time goes on that particular point will fail to work for the majority of even the oldest gamers: red box veterans will have died out.

At what point, though, can one be said to be more than simply a gaming veteran, and become a grognard?

When you know, and truly understand, that Red Box D&D is not OD&D.