You're not a Grognard, but...

[Neon]

The RPG hobby may very well be in a golden age right now. That said there may be things from yesteryears you preferred. These preferences may even make some modern players consider you a "Grognard".

So let's hear them Pub.

You're not a Grognard, but....

I'll get the ball rolling. Im not a Grognard but I really dislike that rpg books are now printed on glossy coloured paper. The gloss is annoying because it reflects light which makes it harder to read. Secondly the glossy paper makes it near impossible to write notes directly in the book. Screw stickies! The ad&d 1e books were the pinnacle in production. Heavy stock matte paper for both utility and durability!

 

[Raleel]

I'm not a grognard but it can be very hard to relate to some of the newer games with source fiction from things I've not read/watched.

we should probably have one about simulationist vs narrative

 

[Moonglum]

I'm a grognard. So, I guess I shouldn't weigh in.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I'm not a grognard and I have a very specific refutation that heavily references the early 70s use of the term.

(I also have an even more specific definition where I argue that most self proclaimed grognards aren't because they haven't got the breadth of experience needed to grumble in front of the Emperor).

 

[Bunch]

I'm not a grognard but a core book can be staple bound instead of 350+ pages.

 

[David Johansen]

I'm pretty sure the term was coined for me specifically.

 

[Spartan]

I'm not a grognard, except that I'm most definitely a grognard.

 

[Cross Planes]

I'm not a grognard but I wish people would learn that just because I like D&D and you like D&D doesn't mean we should play it together.

 

[BigJackBrass]

I'm not a Grognard, but I do think that a library is far better than any number of official supplements when it comes to expanding your game.

The RPG hobby may very well be in a golden age right now

Or not…

 

[Mankcam]

 

[Godfather Punk]

I'm not a grognard, but I prefer the bulk my pages to be filled with gaming related text, not just blanc margins or half page art.
(I do appreciate the slightly bigger fonts used nowadays).

 

[Ravenswing]

... I AM a grognard, but like Neon, I believe we really are in a golden age for gaming, with more options, better knowledge, better production values, more diversity, and better access to once-long-lost works than ever before.

Heck, I wrote this blog post over eight years ago now, and my mind hasn't changed a jot. The Golden Age is right now.

 

[arjunstc]

I am not a grognard, but I think if you think that a new race/racial variant/sub-class is the thing that will finally make your RPG experience fun, then maybe you need to re-evaluate your expectations for the hobby

 

[Nobby-W]

I'm not a grognard but I own most of the original CT materials including CT77, CT81 and Azhanti High Lightining.

I'm not a grognard but I own dice that are older than most of the players in my D&D group.

I'm not a grognard but my favourite fantasy games are Runequest II and Tunnels and Trolls.

I'm not a grognard but I know which bits of Flashing Blades were knockoffs of En Garde.

I'm not a grognard but I have written elaborate justifications about why the computers in CT starships are so large.

I'm not a grognard but I've been tired of nitpicking arguments about the minutae of OTU canon for 20 years (RKVs - just say no).

Maybe I am a grognard.

 

[The Butcher]

I’m not a grognard, but I’m not usually a fan of laser-focused games with crazy abstract “narrativistic” mechanics.

I’m not a grognard but I am definitely interested in OSR stuff. I will read your D&D hack, even if I never get to play it.

I’m not a grognard but a good, game-table-ready sandbox holds my interest.

I’m not a grognard but if your game harkens back to the 1980s in visuals (art, layout, typeface) and/or game design (multiple subsystems, percentile skills), I can feel it tug at my heartstrings.

I’m not a grognard but I revel in randomness. Love throwing a curveball at my players, and having them thrown at me as well, and rolling with it.

I’m not a grognard but players who whine at every downturn and who find the idea of PC death (or Deo prohibe a TPK) a “failure” on the GM’s part (you know, the “PC death should be a Big Deal” crowd) grind my gears something fierce.

I’m not a grognard but disruptive players get the Death Gaze and repeat offenders are not invited.

I’m not a grognard but I don’t get the appeal of TRPG streamers. The ones I’ve seen strike me as horribly rehearsed and/or scripted, and their games aren’t even particularly good, and some of them seem more concerned with appearing clever than with having fun.

Fuck, maybe I am a grognard.

 

[Ossian]

I’m not a grognard, but the more vanilla fantasy a setting is, the more delicious I find it.

I’m not a grognard, but I would like to build a stronghold.

I’m not a grognard, but I’m out of rations so I’ll need to forage or starve to death.

 

[zanshin]

I'm not a grognard, but I really don't like special dice for roleplaying games. TOR gets a qualified pass (because you can get by with d6 & d12), but FATE and all the Fantasy Flight special dice are a strike against them for me. It's additional hassle to obtain them for players and an extra layer of interpretation than reduces immersion.

 

[Nobby-W]

I’m not a grognard but I don’t get the appeal of TRPG streamers. The ones I’ve seen strike me as horribly rehearsed and/or scripted, and their games aren’t even particularly good, and some of them seem more concerned with appearing clever than with having fun.

By and large I don't feel livestreaming in general. I've not really warmed to Vtubers either.

 

[arjunstc]

I’m not a grognard but I don’t get the appeal of TRPG streamers. The ones I’ve seen strike me as horribly rehearsed and/or scripted, and their games aren’t even particularly good, and some of them seem more concerned with appearing clever than with having fun.

This. I am willing to believe that they are not scripted, but they are definitely more focused on the role-playing part than the game part.

 

[Picaroon Jack]

I'm not a grognard because even in the early 80s I thought an arrow should do more damage than d6.

 

[AsenRG]

I'm not a grognard but these kids today expecting their tastes to be pandered to are so entitled!

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm not a Grognard but...

• I don't 'do' encounter balance
• I do expect characters to die (sometimes)
• I have no idea why people watch other people play online as entertainment
• I enjoy making maps with a pencil, on graph paper
• I think entitlement is a bad word

 

[Torque2100]

I'm not a Grognard but, I sure love me some chainmail bikinis. Gods bless Manga artists for keeping the tradition of adventurers in impractical leather & metal lingerie alive.

I'm not a Grognard but I absolutely despise anything resembling the "Storygame" school of RPG design. This means any system that attempts to formalize the RPG Social Contact through the introduction of any sort of plot resource tokens like Fate points or Dark Symmetry/Heat/Doom points. Stuff like FATE or Modiphius 2d20. I hate the way these systems turn absolutely everything into a bidding war between the DM and the players. I also hate as a DM feeling handcuffed to a system that restricts my ability to improvise.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

I'm not a grognard, but there was a certain value in having fewer, more generally appealing games that people compromised to play instead of 1000 extra-niche games that you can't find...
A) a GM for.
B) more than 1.5 players for.

Bonus round: I'm not a grognard, but I wish Star Frontiers or Traveller had become/stayed the flagship for space opera gaming instead of the fickle IP that Star Wars is.

 

[E-Rocker]

I'm not a Grognard but, I sure love me some chainmail bikinis.

I second this.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Not a grognard but I love permanent level drain

 

[Caesar Slaad]

I'm not a Grognard, but I am over 50 and ex-military...

What?

Okay, I'm not a grognard but I seriously doubt I'll be moving to a new edition of D&D.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

I'm not a grognard because even in the early 80s I thought an arrow should do more damage than d6.

Tabletop-RPG expectations for bullets = "Well of course getting hit by one is instant death, and that's why I don't want to play in modern settings with you."
Tabletop-RPG expectations for arrows = "HP is just an abstraction people!"

It's weird how video games got over this ages ago, but the debate still rages in tabletop.

 

[Sosthenes]

I'm not a grognard-thread-participant, for fear of Jeff Foxworthy suing me.

 

[AsenRG]

I'm not a Grognard but...

• I don't 'do' encounter balance
• I do expect characters to die (sometimes)
• I have no idea why people watch other people play online as entertainment
• I enjoy making maps with a pencil, on graph paper
• I think entitlement is a bad word

Yeah, neither of these is a sign of being a grognard in my book. They're more like signs you're an experienced Referee!

 

[opaopajr]

I am the grog. It is merely this ghouled retainer I have now is a shade too young.

 

[Endless Flight]

I’m not a grognard but there’s just something magical about games that were made in the 80s. I can’t quite put my fingers on why. Games now have better production values and rules mechanics have been refined over the last forty years. But it seems safer too. They seemed to reach for the stars back then.

 

[ffilz]

I'm also a grognard... Maybe even by Black Leaf's more stringent definition (what is it perchance? I started with early Avalon Hill board games, played HG Wells's Little Wars, did various other miniatures games (Tractics, Donald Featherstone, some naval miniatures), started with Holmes Basic and then OD&D and THEN AD&D, played many of the pre-1980 RPGs).

I also dislike the glossy paper, and actually I go one further, many newer game books have way too much art. And all that wasted space with huge margins (I don't mind the large margins in GURPS where many of them have optional rules or background in shaded boxes).

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I'm also a grognard... Maybe even by Black Leaf's more stringent definition (what is it perchance? I started with early Avalon Hill board games, played HG Wells's Little Wars, did various other miniatures games (Tractics, Donald Featherstone, some naval miniatures), started with Holmes Basic and then OD&D and THEN AD&D, played many of the pre-1980 RPGs).

I also dislike the glossy paper, and actually I go one further, many newer game books have way too much art. And all that wasted space with huge margins (I don't mind the large margins in GURPS where many of them have optional rules or background in shaded boxes).

Yeah, you qualify.

My definition is generally "came into RPGs via wargaming or at least did the two in parallel. And has wargamed for at least 20 years" and by wargaming I mean either "hex and chit" or "historical miniatures", not Warhammer which isn't especially grog. (Although oldhammer arguably is).

 

[E-Rocker]

I'm not a Grognard, but the illustrations & ads from mid-80s issues of Dragon magazine still fire my imagination. I didn't even get really into playing RPGs until ~2012, but but back in the '80s, I loved flipping through the issues of Dragon that an older friend of the family (high school-aged when I was elementary school-aged) kindly let me look at.

I remember one picture in particular, or it may be my memory amalgamating several, of a dude with a mohawk in leather chaps standing on the back of some sort of motorized combat-tricycle, grimacing as he looked out over a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Thanks to that, the phrase "post-apocalyptic wasteland" brings me to my happy place to this day.

 

[Brock Savage]

I'm not a grognard but...

• I am a military veteran over 40
• Combat as war, not combat as sport.
  • There's no guarantee fights are fair or winnable
  • Stacking the odds, trivializing, or avoiding combat are all fun and desirable.
• Fudging the dice and quantum ogres disrespect the players
• B/X is the best edition.
• Race as class is not necessarily a bad thing
  • The classes are representative of typical adventurers for their race and not of the race as a whole.
• 3d6 in order works perfectly fine in B/X
• XP for gold is superior to XP for combat
• The possibility of "death" must be very real, but the players must be able to win through with luck and courage, or they will lose interest in the game and not come back. ~J. Eric Holmes

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I'm not a grognard but I post on the same forum as robertsconley.

 

[spittingimage]

I'm not a gognard, but in current times I've see far too many games that are written to be conceptual rather than playable.

(I should spend less time on itch.io.)

 

[ffilz]

Yeah, you qualify.

My definition is generally "came into RPGs via wargaming or at least did the two in parallel. And has wargamed for at least 20 years" and by wargaming I mean either "hex and chit" or "historical miniatures", not Warhammer which isn't especially grog. (Although oldhammer arguably is).

Well, if it's 20 years of active hex and chit play/historical miniatures, I barely qualify since my hex and chit play mostly stopped after grad school. On the other hand I DO still have 2 boxes of Airfix etc. 1/72nd scale WW11 miniatures (mostly because I haven't figured out a way to hand them off to someone who would enjoy them rather than toss them in the trash). I no longer have my original copy of Tactics II since it was pretty beat up but I found a replacement copy.

 

[Fenris-77]

Hmm, yeah, I've played Avalon Hill chit games and historical wargames, as well as Oldhammer.