You're not a Grognard, but...

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Godfather Punk said:
I'd love to, but I'm Definitely not a Grognard, because I've never even seen a Basic D&D set in my life.
My first D&D was already Advanced, and that was after I had played other game systems. :goof:
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Wow, even I am more grognardy than you! My first "official" RPG game* was in AD&D2e...:grin:

*I.e. unlike using Bloodsword's rules to stock your own dungeon-like place:shade:.
 
Godfather Punk said:
I'd love to, but I'm Definitely not a Grognard, because I've never even seen a Basic D&D set in my life.
My first D&D was already Advanced, and that was after I had played other game systems. :goof:
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I think we're all playing fast and loose with "grognard" in this thread for the lulz. I am too young to have played OD&D in the 70s and didn't see a chit until I was 19 or so,
 
I did make some boardgames, with chits and dice, to simulate arcade hall games. Must count for something.
 
AsenRG said:
Wow, even I am more grognardy than you! My first "official" RPG game* was in AD&D2e...:grin:

*I.e. unlike using Bloodsword's rules to stock your own dungeon-like place:shade:.
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If he played Advanced DnD, that would be an edition prior to 2e... 1e. Right? Which means 1978-1980 as 1ed Ed. AD&D was releasing.

Personally the whole need to label every damn thing I find unappealing. I know when I started tabletop gaming and I know what games I've played and I know what ones interested me and what ones don't. Everything else is pure word fluff.
 
Brock Savage said:
I think we're all playing fast and loose with "grognard" in this thread for the lulz. I am too young to have played OD&D in the 70s and didn't see a chit until I was 19 or so,
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By the original definition I'm pretty sure almost everybody on this board is actually from the "munchkin" generation, myself included.
AsenRG said:
Wow, even I am more grognardy than you! My first "official" RPG game* was in AD&D2e...:grin:

*I.e. unlike using Bloodsword's rules to stock your own dungeon-like place:shade:.
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2e? That makes you like, the anti Grognard.
 
Acmegamer said:
If he played Advanced DnD, that would be an edition prior to 2e... 1e. Right? Which means 1978-1980 as 1ed Ed. AD&D was releasing.
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So? Both are Advanced editions of the same game, right:devil:?

Acmegamer said:
Personally the whole need to label every damn thing I find unappealing.
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Of course, but that's why it's a joke thread...:angel:

Acmegamer said:
I know when I started tabletop gaming and I know what games I've played and I know what ones interested me and what ones don't. Everything else is pure word fluff.
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Of course...so do I. And I admit to leaning pretty close to grognard-like opinions on many rpg matters, despite starting too late to be one, on top of not playing most of the "right" games for it, and so on...:tongue:

Black Leaf said:
By the original definition I'm pretty sure almost everybody on this board is actually from the "munchkin" generation, myself included.
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Well, by the original definition I believe we wouldn't have been born...:grin:

Black Leaf said:
2e? That makes you like, the anti Grognard.
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Wouldn't that require me to have started with 4e?
No idea, though, you're the resident grognard:shade:!
 
Acmegamer said:
Personally the whole need to label every damn thing I find unappealing. I know when I started tabletop gaming and I know what games I've played and I know what ones interested me and what ones don't. Everything else is pure word fluff.
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You said it man. I am not sure why so many nerds feel the obsessive need to slap a pedantic label on everything.

“The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.” Neal Stephenson.
 
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I'm not a grognard, just a grumpy old man yelling at clouds.


I actually do agree that now is a new golden age in RPGs, that probably eclipses the 80s which was a pretty damn good period for gaming.

Sure I don't like many of the new games as much as my old games from the 70s and 80s, but the proliferation and acceptance of RPGs as a legit hobby is a good thing in my mind. I wish the main stream was broader than D&D, but that is nothing new, D&D had been dominant in the hobby since the beginning except for something like 1983 when Runequest sales actually surpassed D&D for like one year.


A lot of the stuff I don't like about the current game scene was largely there when I was most active in gaming but I was in the group that wanted to do that stuff. I've had the ogre and elven vampire characters. We even had a game where the DM got it into his head that when you killed somebody you took their levels, so we tricked some demigod into drinking poison and pretty soon we were all running around with demi-god PCs (we were 11 so...).

What I really want isn't a feature of the games, but the players. I would love to find a face to face group (online loses a lot to me) running an adult game. By adult I'm not talking about boom chicka wa wa adult, or uber serious simply one where the players are mature and interested in mature themes.

If somebody is playing a ninja stripper it isn't just so they can ogle the mini or make a bunch of boob jokes but simply they want to play a bad ass that is not above using sex as a tool, Aeon Flux, Emma Peel etc (Emma Peel... :heart: ). One where someone may run a PC as a total dick, but are willing to accept the consequences of that. I have no issue with murder hobos, just the whining when the murder hoboing catches up with them.
 
Brock Savage said:
You said it man. I am not sure why so many nerds feel the obsessive need to slap a pedantic label to everything.

“The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.” Neal Stephenson.
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I love that quote for so many reasons:grin:!
 
I am not a grognard, but the Storm of Chaos killed Games Workshop for me.
I am not a grognard, but I like generic systems.
I am not a grognard, but 1st editions are often the best.
I am not a grognard, but Oriental Adventures gave me cool ninja skills before cultural appropriation was ever heard of.
 
Black Leaf said:
By the original definition I'm pretty sure almost everybody on this board is actually from the "munchkin" generation, myself included.
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I was playing in the 70s, but eeesh, IMHO, the definition of "grognard" seems just as fluid as Old School/New School, tends to hinge on whatever the speaker finds cool (or not), and is designed to place the speaker in the "cool" bunch.

Someone who started playing RPGs ten years after I did (and we're talking a time frame that not merely places that person in the AD&D fad era, but at a point where the fad was starting to wane) still has many decades of experience at RPGs. That's nothing to sneeze at. Other than some one-shots, abortive campaigns, and a brief spin back into TFT in 1998, it's been thirty years since I've played or GMed anything but GURPS ... so what kinds of experiences have the newer generation had of which I'm pretty ignorant?
 
Ravenswing said:
I was playing in the 70s, but eeesh, IMHO, the definition of "grognard" seems just as fluid as Old School/New School, tends to hinge on whatever the speaker finds cool (or not), and is designed to place the speaker in the "cool" bunch.
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...and that surprises you why:grin:?
 
Brock Savage said:
You said it man. I am not sure why so many nerds feel the obsessive need to slap a pedantic label on everything.

“The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.” Neal Stephenson.
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Not only do I love Neal Stephenson, but I also love that quote.
 
AsenRG said:
...and that surprises you why:grin:?
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Surprises me not at all, good sir!

Brock Savage said:
You said it man. I am not sure why so many nerds feel the obsessive need to slap a pedantic label on everything.
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It's not a nerd thing. It's a human thing. Our innate and instinctive tribalism impels us to separate the world into Us vs Them, so we seek to do it as simply and efficiently as possible. Think of the first questions that get asked when people meet one another: "What is it that you do?" "Where are you from?" All attempts to nail down pecking orders and whether you're a Them or not.

Heck, the one that gets aimed at me? I have an unusual accent. And it's not that I'm a foreigner. I was born in Boston's immediate southern suburb. My parents were both born there. Three of my grandparents were born there. (The fourth was born three towns to the north.) Three of my great-grandparents were born there. I've lived all my life in Massachusetts. No one else in my family has this accent. (My wife calls it an "attractive speech impediment.") And I'm questioned about it all the damn time by strangers. It doesn't matter that my speech patterns and idiom are firmly modern-day Eastern Massachusetts -- I sound like a Them, and people try to nail that down ASAP.

So of course we try to do the same thing around the gaming table. You sandbox or railroad? What game do you play? D&D, huh? What edition do you play? What game setting in that edition do you play?
 
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Ravenswing said:
It's not a nerd thing. It's a human thing. Our innate and instinctive tribalism impels us to separate the world into Us vs Them, so we seek to do it as simply and efficiently as possible.
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Sometimes it's just a marketing ploy, similar to the silly 'generation' labels... 'boomers', 'gen x', 'gen z', 'millenials'.
 
Ravenswing said:
It's not a nerd thing. It's a human thing. Our innate and instinctive tribalism impels us to separate the world into Us vs Them, so we seek to do it as simply and efficiently as possible.
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That's not what I am talking about at all. Obviously humans use (and need) labels as a shorthand for effective communication. I am talking about nerds who ruin conversations with pedantry that no one asked for or wants. It is totally a nerd thing- a combination of poor social skills and deep technical interest.
 
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Ravenswing said:
Surprises me not at all, good sir!
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Oh, OK then, tone is harder to parse via text!
Ravenswing said:
Heck, the one that gets aimed at me? I have an unusual accent. And it's not that I'm a foreigner. I was born in Boston's immediate southern suburb. My parents were both born there. Three of my grandparents were born there. (The fourth was born three towns to the north.) Three of my great-grandparents were born there. I've lived all my life in Massachusetts. No one else in my family has this accent. (My wife calls it an "attractive speech impediment.") And I'm questioned about it all the damn time by strangers. It doesn't matter that my speech patterns and idiom are firmly modern-day Eastern Massachusetts -- I sound like a Them, and people try to nail that down ASAP.
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Now that's interesting...I've got a speech like that, which many people confuse with French. And yet I've never been asked whether I'm French in the last decade or so...and in my whole life, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been.

Ravenswing said:
So of course we try to do the same thing around the gaming table. You sandbox or railroad? What game do you play? D&D, huh? What edition do you play? What game setting in that edition do you play?
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"You lost me at D&D" saves so much time:thumbsup:!

Brock Savage said:
That's not what I am talking about at all. Obviously humans use (and need) labels as a shorthand for effective communication. I am talking about nerds who ruin conversations with pedantry that no one asked for or wants. It is totally a nerd thing- a combination of poor social skills and deep technical interest.
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Oh yeah, where have I seen that happening...:devil:
 
Ravenswing said:
Heck, the one that gets aimed at me? I have an unusual accent. And it's not that I'm a foreigner. I was born in Boston's immediate southern suburb. My parents were both born there. Three of my grandparents were born there. (The fourth was born three towns to the north.) Three of my great-grandparents were born there. I've lived all my life in Massachusetts. No one else in my family has this accent. (My wife calls it an "attractive speech impediment.") And I'm questioned about it all the damn time by strangers. It doesn't matter that my speech patterns and idiom are firmly modern-day Eastern Massachusetts -- I sound like a Them, and people try to nail that down ASAP.
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Nah, brother. If I ask you about your accent it's because I am genuinely curious and interested in learning more about you and your culture. I find human migration a fascinating phenomenon, being a descendent of a migrant myself. So I assumed that you are "not from around these parts" when I asked you - my bad, but I didn't do so to think I am better than you.

To bring it back to gaming, even in my campaigns where everyone speaks "Common", I make it a point to tell my players that the NPCs speak with a "northern accent" or uses "archaic expressions" and whatnot. The world is just such a varied place and I want them to appreciate the differences between cultures.

[Edited: I mixed the thread. Never mix the threads.]
 
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Wow this thread. I've no idea what I'm grognardy about, actually so I'm at a loss. I mean I started with D&D (Holmes), but I didn't GM until I owned my set of the rules (Red box set.) Uhm. Maybe I'm grognard like because I still love MSH/FaseRip? (There are better superhero games now, but that one still just works!)
 
Ravenswing said:
Heck, the one that gets aimed at me? I have an unusual accent. And it's not that I'm a foreigner. I was born in Boston's immediate southern suburb. My parents were both born there. Three of my grandparents were born there. (The fourth was born three towns to the north.) Three of my great-grandparents were born there. I've lived all my life in Massachusetts. No one else in my family has this accent. (My wife calls it an "attractive speech impediment.") And I'm questioned about it all the damn time by strangers. It doesn't matter that my speech patterns and idiom are firmly modern-day Eastern Massachusetts -- I sound like a Them, and people try to nail that down ASAP.
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I just want to clarify, are you saying you have a heavy Boston accent, or are you saying a unique accent has been passed down in a small niche of your family that you inherited from your parents ?
 
I'm not a grognard because I'm not, but I did learn to do American Civil War wargaming in the basement with my uncle and his friends a decade or so before I got into rpgs. I also received an Avalon Hill ACW boxed set campaign from my mother. I haven't done any wargaming in over 20 years though. It's all been rpgs.
 
I'm not a grognard... but I much prefer hand-drawn maps
I'm not a grognard... but I've DM'ed Tomb of Horrors
I'm not a grognard... but I've created a list of all scenarios published in the 70s
I'm not a grognard... but I'm irritated when someone calls something "modern design" which is an idea from 1981 that they themselves hadn't heard of
I'm not a grognard... but I prefer game art where the fighter is larger than their sword
I'm not a grognard... but still think of BECMI as pointless new-fangled rubbish
 
I once ran Tomb of Horrors using GURPS 2nd edition.(The original box set) It was a lot of fun because GURPs has a lot more flexibility to overcome the worst aspects of ToH design. I guess that part is on me since even had I ever run ToH with AD&D 1st edition I'd have tweaked it to make it more fun to actually play in.

I'd never run it in AD&D 1s ed but I played in it back around 1981-ish losing my characters hand to the sphere of annihilation device when the party had me check the damn thing for traps. (Was playing my 1/2 elf magic user/thief)

Id actually run a lot of the old G, D, A etc series of TSR modules in Palladium Fantasy, GURPS 2nd/3rd edition. They were always easy when I wasn't feeling like designing new and just needed to instead tweak it for the non-DnD system mechanics.

Just had to share after reading the frequent Tomb of Horror mentions in the thread. My Tomb of Horrors was out in the desert near the fallen Fortress which was actually Judges Guilds Fortress Badabaskor (which had been an Ilbarsi fortress before falling) that I had adapted to my game world.
 
Brock Savage said:
Welcome to the board! I highly recommend the Old School Essentials treatment of B/X. The Rules Tome is probably my favorite hardcopy MRB simply based on the excellent editing and presentation alone. Their expansion content, Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy, brings AD&D content like classes and magic item to B/X without AD&D's weird, fiddly rules.

I have mixed feelings about the Rules Cyclopedia for BECMI. It departs too much from the clear, succinct rule of B/X for my taste. Try making sense out of the rules for charging in the Cyclopedia and you will see what I mean. On the other hand, the rules for charging and splash damage in the OSE Advanced rules match the simple elegance of B/X.
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Thanks for the recommendation; I'll check it out. I actually have the original BECMI books (well, the Mentzer BCMI and Moldvay X) and the Rules Cyclopedia. Looking at the charging rules, they don't seem too bad, just needlessly wordy. The worst part is one sentence that almost seems to imply you can declare your set spear action in advance even if you lost the initiative. (Maybe I'm looking at the wrong section?)

I've recently taken a shine to WhiteBox/S&W for its uncompromising simplicity (I particularly like the single saving throw), although I'm also looking at Basic Fantasy. I like that both are free digitally and offer cheap physical copies.
 
Acmegamer said:
I once ran Tomb of Horrors using GURPS 2nd edition.(The original box set) It was a lot of fun because GURPs has a lot more flexibility to overcome the worst aspects of ToH design. I guess that part is on me since even had I ever run ToH with AD&D 1st edition I'd have tweaked it to make it more fun to actually play in.
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I know everyone has their own experiences - but...
It was great fun to play. We used the pre-gens due to it's well-deserved deadly reputation.
The party was extremely cautious - they always are - and touched the sphere of annihilation...
Acmegamer said:
I'd never run it in AD&D 1s ed but I played in it back around 1981-ish losing my characters hand to the sphere of annihilation device when the party had me check the damn thing for traps. (Was playing my 1/2 elf magic user/thief)
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...with a stick. Bye bye stick. Sniff.
Extreme caution and a lot of time discussing the meaning of the rhyme unbelievably got them through without losing anyone. There was more than one occasion when I was convinced they were about to lose someone but dodged the bullet.
 
BedrockBrendan said:
I just want to clarify, are you saying you have a heavy Boston accent, or are you saying a unique accent has been passed down in a small niche of your family that you inherited from your parents ?
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It's his family heritage, deriving from a small town up the coast... their speech is punctuated by occasional croaking and deep throated ululating whistles... also, their breath commonly smells of kelp.
 
Acmegamer said:
I once ran Tomb of Horrors using GURPS 2nd edition.(The original box set) It was a lot of fun because GURPs has a lot more flexibility to overcome the worst aspects of ToH design. I guess that part is on me since even had I ever run ToH with AD&D 1st edition I'd have tweaked it to make it more fun to actually play in.
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Our group just finished (was finished by?) a visit there.
How do you think doing it with GURPS helps it be more enjoyable? What tweaks would you make?

My only idea is to have a lot of evidence of prior groups attempting to explore the place... sprung traps, notes written on the walls... a headless corpse rotting right under the green devil face. Not to make it easier... but to give it more story and meaning somehow. More ways to reason things out, less 'GOTCHA'.
 
LikelyArrow said:
Thanks for the recommendation; I'll check it out. I actually have the original BECMI books (well, the Mentzer BCMI and Moldvay X) and the Rules Cyclopedia. Looking at the charging rules, they don't seem too bad, just needlessly wordy. The worst part is one sentence that almost seems to imply you can declare your set spear action in advance even if you lost the initiative. (Maybe I'm looking at the wrong section?)

I've recently taken a shine to WhiteBox/S&W for its uncompromising simplicity (I particularly like the single saving throw), although I'm also looking at Basic Fantasy. I like that both are free digitally and offer cheap physical copies.
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If you like all of those versions than you'll most likely love OSE. Its a much better laid out and written version basically. :smile:
 
Simlasa said:
Our group just finished (was finished by?) a visit there.
How do you think doing it with GURPS helps it be more enjoyable? What tweaks would you make?

My only idea is to have a lot of evidence of prior groups attempting to explore the place... sprung traps, notes written on the walls... a headless corpse rotting right under the green devil face. Not to make it easier... but to give it more story and meaning somehow. More ways to reason things out, less 'GOTCHA'.
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Ok, gotta think that this is 35 or so years ago. lol. Why I feel that GURPs made it more fun is being a skill based system made me mechanically design the encounters more with that in line. Think about how 1st ed AD&D was designed in comparison.

There are good reasons why some of us really prefer systems like Runequest/BRP/Mythras, GURPS, Hero systems etc. Those systems give the players more agency built into the system. Now a days I'd not hesitate to run ToH using DnD 5e if I really wanted to run another version of DnD, since the system is more flexible and gives players more options.

Regardless ToH to run needs work before you run it. Back in those days though that's how I approached all modules, that they were a base line and then I went through with a scalpel and marker to make it my own. Fix the broken or lacking, add things that tied it to my game world etc.
 
Simlasa said:
It's his family heritage, deriving from a small town up the coast... their speech is punctuated by occasional croaking and deep throated ululating whistles... also, their breath commonly smells of kelp.
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Slandering the south shore like that is outrageous Simlasa. It sounds like he is talking about Quincy or some place in that area like Braintree. Frog people are in Marblehead, or somewhere near there in Essex County.

....maybe he is telling us he is a Kennedy
 
Brock Savage said:
That's not what I am talking about at all. Obviously humans use (and need) labels as a shorthand for effective communication. I am talking about nerds who ruin conversations with pedantry that no one asked for or wants. It is totally a nerd thing- a combination of poor social skills and deep technical interest.
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Not just nerds, well at least not just the stereotypical nerd most think of. I'm on several tool related forums and without fail if somebody makes reference to 110v or 220v electricity, they will be corrected that it is in fact 120v / 240v like anybody didn't know what they meant with 110v.
 
Toadmaster said:
Not just nerds, well at least not just the stereotypical nerd most think of. I'm on several tool related forums and without fail if somebody makes reference to 110v or 220v electricity, they will be corrected that it is in fact 120v / 240v like anybody didn't know what they meant with 110v.
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I have run into music, military, and gun nerds so the existence of tool nerds is not surprising.
 
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