Do grognards have to be jerks?

[Storminator]

I have a friend who drives an 18 wheeler. He was talking about idiot drivers. I told him I never crowd a big rig, I never cut one off, I don't ride in their blind spots, and if I see one turning at an intersection I give him much more room than he needs. He asked me why he never notices drivers like me. I just let the description of my driving sink in for a moment.

If there was a grognard at your table that wasn't a jerk, would you notice?

PS

 

[Croesus]

I don't think it is that grognards have to be jerks. I think it is that a significant portion of the geek community is (willfully or not) deficient in some basic communication and etiquette skills.

I would argue that this is a universal problem with any community, not just geeks/nerds/whoever. I would also argue that every one of us is, at times, a jerk in someone's eyes. Most of us try not to, but we all have buttons that can pushed.

Though I am most definitely *not* calling the OP a jerk, I do believe the title to this thread is needlessly provocative, which increases the likelihood that posters in this thread will be...jerks.

 

[Mark CMG]

I have a friend who drives an 18 wheeler. He was talking about idiot drivers. I told him I never crowd a big rig, I never cut one off, I don't ride in their blind spots, and if I see one turning at an intersection I give him much more room than he needs. He asked me why he never notices drivers like me. I just let the description of my driving sink in for a moment.

If there was a grognard at your table that wasn't a jerk, would you notice?

PS

I heard a comedian once ask if people noticed that anyone who drives slower than them is an idiot and anyone who drives faster is a maniac. The laughter came from nearly everyone but seemed to trail off as people gave it more thought.

 

[mac1504]

I don't think it is that grognards have to be jerks. I think it is that a significant portion of the geek community is (willfully or not) deficient in some basic communication and etiquette skills.

This has always been my theory, and experience. I was at GenCon this year, and have been to many of them in the past. And, almost every GenCon I attend, there are inevitably a few instances of that complete lack of social graces. I had three separate instances this year, and unfortunately all of them were in some kind of authority role (customer service and volunteer help). I've grown accustomed to these kinds of encounters, but for some reason this year was particularly irksome.

 

[Oryan77]

First of all, anyone that even uses the expression "sheep" to refer to people being mindless followers is a mindless sheep themselves. If they weren't mindless sheep, then they wouldn't be using an overused expression that required no original thought on their end.

Grognards do not always have to be jerks. A grognard is nothing more than the gamer equivalent of an elderly man.

Some elderly men are bitter old coots, that just sit there and nag or complain about the world. Other elderly men are very kind and tolerant about how the world has changed around them. Rather than complain about how things are and how things used to be better, the gentle old man will reminisce about how things were and tell you about it; not to prove how things were better, but to tell you how great things were. He may not care much for how things have changed, but he is content with doing things the old fashioned way and doesn't feel the need to complain about how the new generation does it.

You can either let the bitter grognard annoy the crap out of you, or you can walk away and go sit with the other gorgnard that will tell you cool stories about his old games.

 

[billd91]

Just got back from GenCon and had a pretty good time. One thing I noticed however was that at almost every event there was someone talking about how the latest version of game x was terrible and that the true version was an older edition and that I should try to find the OOP rules. (This happened with several game systems, so I'm not criticizing the fans of any one game here.)

One grognard went so far as to compare a game company to the Nazis and say that anyone who purchased their current products were mindless sheep - and of course I had a bag of their stuff by my chair.

My experience is the opposite with players who embrace change and new editions of games. They tend to be outgoing and not as insulting in one's choice of game.

Your experiences?

My experiences include witnessing message board posters insulting broad groups of people to start off discussions. How about yours?

 

[Umbran]

I would argue that this is a universal problem with any community, not just geeks/nerds/whoever.

That may be. However, I don't hang around in extremely large social gatherings of people who aren't some form of geek, so I speak only of geeks. And I don't mean "geek" to be only in the techie/scifi/fantasy/gaming genres. If you have a convention on a topic, be it scifi, gaming, fiber arts, car restoration, historical recreation, or what have you, you'll attract geeks of that stripe.

Most folk would find travelling the distances we do and paying the sums of money we do for hobbies to be odd. You can expect that the people at hobby conventions are going to be quirky. For many, that quirkiness includes a lack of (or a lack of desire to use) social skills.

 

[Oryan77]

My experience is the opposite with players who embrace change and new editions of games. They tend to be outgoing and not as insulting in one's choice of game.

Are you sure about this? They may not be insulting to you because you are also embracing the new editions of the game. But how often are you around them while they are talking to a player that prefers the old editions? Cause I just don't see how you came to that opinion. If it was true, there wouldn't be so many edition wars on the forums. It sure isn't just grognards stirring stuff up with new edition players, that's for sure.

I hear plenty of new edition players talking smack about older editions all the time. Let's not kid ourselves here.

 

[HelloChristian]

I sometimes feel that adherents to "old school" styles of play are often inflexible in their opinions. There seems to be a refusal to accept that fun, playable games have been written after 1983. To support this assertion, I would direct you to any number of "Old School Renaissance" blogs.

I love old school games, but also play Pathfinder, World of Darkness, etc. I don't think it's wise to build fences around life.

 

[Retreater]

The funny thing is that I play about anything and can see the good and bad of all editions I've played. (Except for those games in which I was a new player and had no frame of reference.)

I'm sorry if folks are offended by my thread title. I didn't mean to be a jerk myself. Just merely commenting that the grognards I've met recently were pretty hostile, which doesn't seem to support ther argument (that their version of game x is more fun.)