Grognard good...grognard bad

[Ariosto]

I don't think that the changes Melan saw coming and disliked -- things that had been encroaching for decades, really, just making more headway -- are likely to spell the end of the industry.

One could point to a correspondence between similar changes and the decline of the computer adventure game. On the other hand, one might wonder whether the changes actually prolonged the genre's commercial viability. One might ask whether there were/are other and older problems continuing to plague it in addition to challenges presented by more recent developments in technology and market demographics.

The popularity of 'quiche' after WW2 was largely in forms at least apparently lighter on animal fat than the original, with cheese added but with a lot of vegetables, which led to the saying that "real men don't eat quiche".

Such a flourishing of something that is the same in name, but different in substance, may indeed be the future of FRP (or at least of D&D).

 

[Aegeri]

However much time you have spent playing however many games you didn't like, there are orders of magnitude more that you have not played at all.

You remember that point I made, where you shouldn't take random bits of my post and then miss the actual point I was making.

Please start doing that.

 

[Ariosto]

Aegeri, how about you stop going out of your way to see "random bits of your posts" where they are not? How about letting folks make their own points clear, without it needing to be all about you?

For crying out loud, you quoted my post, which was not addressed to or quoting or otherwise having jack to do with you, and wrote beneath it at length about how long you played this game, and another, and yadda, yadda, yadda.

So, you think that is some kind of argument or something? Fine. You can argue with yourself.

 

[maddman75]

Irregardless is not a word.

Carry on.

Grammar grognard

Seriously, the point isn't if you like or dislike 4e, its if you consider those who do to be 'lesser' gamers. That is the heart of grognard. I don't really like 4e all that much, its a good game, and I consider it to be the least terrible version of D&D, but I appreciate that it does what it does very well.

Game design *does* evolve. There are features of newer games that older games lack, because no one had thought of them. Specifically

- Consistant resolution mechanics
- Mathematics that works in an intuitive fashion (best example oWoD vs nWoD, in certain situations in oWoD the better you were at something the more likely you were to get a critical failure)
- Improvement in layout and presentation
- More extensive playtesting
- Focus on what the game wants to deliver

Old games can have their charm, and occasionally you'll get a glimpse of a newer style mechanic in an old game. I recently played Boot Hill, which is a cowboy game for folks who think Call of Cthulhu is far too soft and cuddly on your characters. But there's a mechanic in there, when someone gets a lethal shot on you, you can roll Luck. If you make it, you aren't killed but just slightly wounded. The *player* must come up with some way that they narrowly escaped death, and cannot repeat one they've done before.

That sounds almost forgey, and its right there in the middle of a game that's as old school as you can get.

 

[Ourph]

Seriously, the point isn't if you like or dislike 4e, its if you consider those who do to be 'lesser' gamers. That is the heart of grognard.

I think you have a point, but I think you go wrong in asserting that the term grognard should and can only be used in a pejorative sense.

Good grognard: "I play older game X and I'm not interested in looking at, playing or discussing newer games because I think newer games are lame. Now get off my lawn."

Bad grognard: "I play older game X and anyone who doesn't play game X and instead prefers newer game Y or any of its derivatives is a bad player, with a short attention span, who just can't handle the challenge of playing game X with the real men."

Some people are reading what you are writing and getting "If you are a grognard, you are the bad kind of grognard", whereas what I think you are saying is "The term grognard should only be applied to the bad kind of grognard". Neither, IMO, is accurate. Grognards, just like every other group of poeple, have their good and bad elements. Grognard doesn't have to be a pejorative term.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Seriously, the point isn't if you like or dislike 4e, its if you consider those who do to be 'lesser' gamers. That is the heart of grognard

Actually, that's pretty insulting.

A grognard is NOT a lesser gamer. Simply somebody who has their own style and prefers older games.

There should be absolutely no shame in that.

It's like someone saying "if it's old it's useless we must only go with the new fad".

And all fads come and go. Some just stay a while longer than others.

When 5e comes out a few years down the road, the 5e people will be calling the 4e grognards. Then 6e will be calling 5e grognards. Then 100e will be calling 99e grognards.

And it's tiresome. We all have different tastes and styles. Let us be and let us be ourselves.


But you see, the thing is, when things change too much the people who think like this will become tired of change too, and will be just as resistant to those changes as "grognards" are to theirs.

And it's mystifying. Because gamers are not very acceptable in normal society. Being outcasts we should know what it means to be tolerant.

But I guess "being right is serious business".

How disappointing.

And you know what? In my town the word gamer is just another way of saying "fat lazy person who just sits in front of a computer all day long and does absolutely nothing with their lives and has no girlfriends".

So please, stop it with the grognard junk and be more tolerant of each other.

Because if we aren't tolerant of each other then there is no tolerance period.

 

[Aegeri]

You have misread his sentence he's not saying grognards are lesser gamers, he's decrying people who think liking 4E makes you a lesser gamer and equating this with certain grognards.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Baloney.

A grognard is somebody who hates 4e and refuses to play new games.

 

[Odhanan]

Game design *does* evolve. There are features of newer games that older games lack, because no one had thought of them.

Consequently, there are features of older games that new games lack.

Features which some people might still find today enjoyable. That there are trends of evolution in game design, nobody I think would deny it. That there is inherently more variety in games today for people to choose from is likewise an unquestionable boon of our times. That these design trends lead to some games being "obsolete", or that there would be an objective "Progress", a "bettering" or "steady improvement" of game design over time, however, is highly questionable to say the least.

 

[Odhanan]

Baloney.

A grognard is somebody who hates 4e and refuses to play new games.

I'm considered a grognard, since I play OD&D and First Ed AD&D before all other editions of the game at this point. I like New WoD games, RuneQuest II, Aces & Eight. I'm a BRP Call of Cthulhu guy, but I'm curious about Trail of Cthulhu in actual play, and I like CoC d20. I love Star Wars d6 and Star Wars Saga. I could go on. Your statement is de facto disproved, as far as I'm concerned.