Grognard view of One D&D?

[Jack Daniel]

It's pronounced groan-yard, right? Not grog-nerd?

Probably closer to "gwãh-nyar" if you're trying to imitate the French accent, but most people just say "grog-nard."

"Jif."

"How now, brown drow?" said the liches with stitches in their britches, while the kobolds cobbled cobblestones and the goblins gobbled gobbledygook.

 

[haakon1]

Agreed; but if one is running a bunch of experienced old-school DMs as one's players it's inevitable that any classic module will almost certainly have been either played through or run by at least one of them and sometimes by all of them.

I'm a good example: there's a bunch of classic modules I'd never want to play in now as I just remember them too well through having DMed them.

Some old school adventures are so variable/up to the DM, that’s not a factor.

I recommend B1 In Search of the Unknown (ran it) and the Nodes from TOEE for that(running them now). Original Adventures Reincarnated did a great job with both.

My two groups have old school players, but they weren’t DM’s back in the day.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It's pronounced groan-yard, right? Not grog-nerd?

gro·gnard | \ (ˌ)grō¦nyär \
plural -s
Definition of grognard
1: an old soldier
2 often capitalized : a soldier of the original imperial guard that was created by Napoleon I in 1804 and that made the final French charge at Waterloo

So, yeah technically it's more like GROWN-yar. I say we get to mispronounce it as GRAWG-nard because the original definition was stolen and applied to a particular niche of people in the gaming community and it sounds more appropriately insulting.

 

[Ken Spencer]

I’ve been playing since 1984, and have played every edition and found a reason to like each. Often, I find a different system to play, wandering away from D&D but always coming back. Will I follow along into this new not-6e?

Likely not. Here’s why:

1) WotC’s writing has been lackluster. Clear, easy to read, but uninteresting. It lacks pizzazz, power, and umph. It is not bad, just increasingly has become more and more bland over the past decade. I do not enjoy reading the books, which is one of my main draws to any text.
2) Their adventures are not the type suitable for my play style. I like adventures that can be dropped into an ongoing campaign with ease, where the setting elements can be taken out and swapped for our table setting, the plots are self-contained or at the very least part of a series that leaves plenty of room for other adventures.
3) Unlike previous edition changes, I have more options here. I’ve replaced all of the 2e stuff destroyed by a leaky roof with reprints from DTRPG, and added some to the collection that I never purchased, only saw while reading Dragon. I play Castles and Crusades, adapt other OSR adventures to it for my home game, love DCC/ MCC and adapt those as well. There is a wealth of material at hand today. I do not have to stick with the new edition, or not-edition, just to keep up with new content.
4) I am not a freelancer anymore, but have a permanent writing position. I don’t have to stay current to find work, so unless the boss says go learn this thing, I view One D&D with a resounding meh.
5) My wife loathes 5e. We don’t play it in our home game because of this. She came into the hobby with 5e, then discovered the OSR and never looked back.

I hope it does well for WotC and that people love it, that it draws in new players, that the brand continues to grow. I’ll continue to check out new D&D adventures and settings, and if there is one I like, I’ll pick it up and adapt it to my home game. But, I will not be buying the corebooks. I have enough PHB, DMG, and Monster Manuals with the same info but with different numbers.

 

[MNblockhead]

gro·gnard | \ (ˌ)grō¦nyär \
plural -s
Definition of grognard
1: an old soldier
2 often capitalized : a soldier of the original imperial guard that was created by Napoleon I in 1804 and that made the final French charge at Waterloo

So, yeah technically it's more like GROWN-yar. I say we get to mispronounce it as GRAWG-nard because the original definition was stolen and applied to a particular niche of people in the gaming community and it sounds more appropriately insulting.

Besides, you can't have grognards without the grog.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I’ve been playing since 1984, and have played every edition and found a reason to like each. Often, I find a different system to play, wandering away from D&D but always coming back. Will I follow along into this new not-6e?

Likely not. Here’s why:

1) WotC’s writing has been lackluster. Clear, easy to read, but uninteresting. It lacks pizzazz, power, and umph. It is not bad, just increasingly has become more and more bland over the past decade. I do not enjoy reading the books, which is one of my main draws to any text.
2) Their adventures are not the type suitable for my play style. I like adventures that can be dropped into an ongoing campaign with ease, where the setting elements can be taken out and swapped for our table setting, the plots are self-contained or at the very least part of a series that leaves plenty of room for other adventures.
3) Unlike previous edition changes, I have more options here. I’ve replaced all of the 2e stuff destroyed by a leaky roof with reprints from DTRPG, and added some to the collection that I never purchased, only saw while reading Dragon. I play Castles and Crusades, adapt other OSR adventures to it for my home game, love DCC/ MCC and adapt those as well. There is a wealth of material at hand today. I do not have to stick with the new edition, or not-edition, just to keep up with new content.
4) I am not a freelancer anymore, but have a permanent writing position. I don’t have to stay current to find work, so unless the boss says go learn this thing, I view One D&D with a resounding meh.
5) My wife loathes 5e. We don’t play it in our home game because of this. She came into the hobby with 5e, then discovered the OSR and never looked back.

I hope it does well for WotC and that people love it, that it draws in new players, that the brand continues to grow. I’ll continue to check out new D&D adventures and settings, and if there is one I like, I’ll pick it up and adapt it to my home game. But, I will not be buying the corebooks. I have enough PHB, DMG, and Monster Manuals with the same info but with different numbers.

if i may ask, what turned her off 5e and onto old school?

 

[Sacrosanct]

if i may ask, what turned her off 5e and onto old school?

The superior playstyle.

 

[nevin]

Depends on the group(s) you play with. In my experience it usually isn't that the players agree to play in a campaign, then run out and buy a book they don't have so they can read it to "win."

More likely, many players are also DMs or just fans and buy the books, read them because they enjoy them and some time later their group decides to run an adventure they have already read. Or you may have some very active players that played some or all of an adventure with another group or adventurer's league, but they still want to participate in your game.

Many players are mature enough to not metagame. I'm fine if a player tells me "I read that adventure but I never got to run it. I would love to play in this campaign. I'll avoid metagaming and will let players who haven't run the game make decisions where my pre-existing knowlege of the adventure might be a spoiler." As a DM I would likely make some changes anyway to mix things up.

Currently, I typically run third-party adventures because I don't have the time to homebrew entire campaigns and the third-party adventures better match the style of game I want to run than the WotC games. They also have the benefit of not being familiar to my players.

no one can not metagame. Some of us try very hard but the knowledge is there and it affects our decisions.

 

[Ken Spencer]

if i may ask, what turned her off 5e and onto old school?

She likes faster games with less rules, simpler character sheets, lower powered PCs, streamlined character creation, and greater freedom of play.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

She likes faster games with less rules, simpler character sheets, lower powered PCs, streamlined character creation, and greater freedom of play.

C&C has its issues, but the character creation is wonderful. In a better timeline, the class and a half system would be imitated throughout the D&Dsphere.