What's a Grognard?  

Grog(nard) would like to rage.

Embrace tradition by embracing modernity

Also *adjusts glasses 'are you sure?'

Last Christmas my players gave me a cup that says you can certainly try. They gave me this because I say it all the time.

​@@roninanwarnow whenever they ask you can just tap the cup instead of saying it.

You can certainly try

Should be DNA of any RPG**

I had the exact same reaction, thinking what a verbose phrase that connects to the soul of the game today.

@@therowlet3979 It's basically the 19 hundreds version of this scentence, and it's amazing.

Chills!

I Am So There With You right now! I'm 50, come end of summer, and I still vividly remember "our" oldtimer teaching us how to play his favorite milsims on a sheet of mm-format graph paper… and how grouchy he was about that "silly, boring new stuff" that we liked to play, but still played with us and hell he was a harsh AND imaginative GM And now I'm harshly tripping down memory lane, asking myself were did we take the wrong turn and left ourself behind… hunting after the m00n3ys, instead of following our hearts I so need a wholesome gaming session right about now… Seriously, F**K Depression, memorys hurt

​@@LuziferneFor real. Depression taking my happy memories and making them hurt instead because "those times are gone" is some serious BS. It's something I've specifically had to get help with and practice at.

@@Luziferne My grandmother believed that if you were craving a specific food it meant it contained some nutrient you were currently lacking. If you're hungry for gaming with old friends, then call any old friends who might still be around to talk AND find some newer younger friends to game with. You may have to bend and accept their newer games but that's okay. Maybe it's just your turn to be the wiser older gamer now. Be in their memories when your time is passed. And reuse your old GM's tricks and ideas on them!

39 here, and same; I remember our DM even followed “the grognard” of our our group for advice, who was also HIS Dm in another game, and well… he was a very good friend, though rough around the edges sometimes 😅

​@@ArchArturoI am 39 as well. My experience is not with Dungeons and Dragons though. I started with Live Action Roleplay. I played this in my basement with my brother. Characters from The Super Mario Super Show and the Sega Genesis game Shinobi among a few original characters were among the first in the story. That story was later adapted into Text Roleplay online. It was used in Freeform Pencil and Paper Roleplay. I have done literally everything that is Dungeons and Dragons but have not actually played the game itself.

How was it decided if you took damage? What was the threshold of “good enough dodge”? And how did it work the npc opponents? For example, if you had cast a spell, how would their Save Vs Spells come into play? Would they just be described as dodging it?

That is awesome!

​@myrdelgonway5119 Those are attack rolls, not saving throws. Some of the best clues to how old school grognards played the game differently are in the parts of the core books that have been reprinted unchanged in every edition. Look at the equipment list and try to figure out why there is a ten foot pole standardized and priced out in every edition of D&D. The ten foot pole has always been in the phb because grognards slowly walked behind the pole while one party member used it to tap sections of the floor and ceiling from ten feet away. They used the ten foot pole instead of rolling saving throws.

@@CitanulsPumpkin yeah, I get the ten foot pole. So in combat they switched the Save Vs Spells of Magic Staff, Save Vs Wands, Save vs Stone or Paralysis, and Save against Dragons Breath into attack rolls? What would the AC become then?

Oh that is honestly pretty cool.

I swear I've heard someone be named that at some point. Could also be an Orc holiday

I'm actually surprised Pratchett never used it, best to my memory, as such. Would definitely have fit on Discworld.

real. I thought the "rumbling" referred to someone being hungry, which that would especially tie into

@@nikolaiandersson6024 Modern fallout has Grognak the barbarian i think that sounds similar

It's also a decent dwarf name. The concept of a venerated group of still active veterans defined and lifted in status by their constant grumbling is the most Dwarf thing I can imagine.

There is nothing grander than commanding vast armies, without actually having to deal with the reality. :D Total War is the modern version.

So was the original Equalizer himself, Edward Woodward. His earlier character, Callan, was a wargamer in the UK television series of the same name.

I like to think that he would have been super excited to get his hands on a Grand Moff Tarkin model.

Here's another cool thing; when D&D was first coming out, the Dracula movies with Peter Cushing were very popular. And since the undead were a possible enemy, it was decided you needed a Van Helsing type to turn them away. So, he inspired the Cleric

I bet he’d love the fact he is now a unit in many a boardgame and war game.

It's essentially what's still happening right now with war games that are used in various militaries to train officers. They have a bare set of rules and the adjudicator who's usually a veteran who has enough experience to tell whether a maneuver is actually good or not.

Kriegsspiele was the Prussian game you allude to. The first edition was too crunchy but the author of the game published a second edition. This 2nd edition was simpler and leaned more into the judgement of the game's Umpire.

The international Kriegsspiel Society is trying to bring this method of wargaming back to life! Grand Waterloo with perhaps 90+ players is next month!

@@gormauslander Cause they essentially united the entire Germany under their banner?

@@dexterpittman4719And then got slapped down twice in 30 years.

I hope we get a dedicated spin off series about this guy.

This guy is my spirit animal

Love how oxymoronic complaint 1 and 2 are. You believe in immersion (real feelings from fake things), yet fear can't be one of those feelings somehow?

@@twinostrich8045 How is it contradictory though? If someone is letting their personal phobia get in the way of playing their character in a fantasy game, then they're doing a terrible job at immersion. Immersion isn't used as just feelings from fake things, it's used to talk about placing yourself in the shoes of a character.

@@Fluffysbeans Partially contradictory, then. Also, with phobias (true phobias, at least) there's no "letting" it happen. There's no control over it, it just gives you panic attacks. It's no more aviodable than someone with epilepsy having a seizure. Moreover, enjoyment should be first and foremost the goal of these kinds of games, so if someone's enjoyment or comfort is ruined by certain things or subjects being explored in those games, the game has failed its intended purpose. It's not possible to distance you from yourself completely. There's a splash of you in every character you play. This is a known principle of acting. It's not just a character, it's your version of that character. Playing that character (and by extension, immersion) is in fact a series and combination of feelings, perpetually influenced by your real feelings, regardless of how the written character might act. So, I stand by my original point.

Bard: "Can I seduce the dragon?" DM: "Anything can be attempted. But some things only once."

I guess this is basically codifying "you may certainly try" into the rulebook because, like that book said, "anything can be attempted"

Also, first dates

Thank you for this micro fanfic.

I love it! Is General Skenk L'Genk a cousin of Pepé Le Pew? 🤔

You have a youtube account and clearly a creative mind. I'd give you a like share and follow if you make that video yourself.

@@kellenbigman I have lots of ideas and no animating abilities 🤡

"What, for the definition of this tactic, is a formation?" "It's an arrangement of soldiers on a battlefield." "Does artillery count as soldiers?" "Well no, but--" "Can a formation include trees?" "No." "It worked against Macbeth, seems pretty consistent to me." "...pass." "Is mayonnaise a formation?"

Holy shit! Someone in my family gave me that book when I was in my teens, and I'm sure it had been in their library for sometime as it was already one of those old, crusty, coarse brown paper kind of books. Loved it and also still have it! Though I gotta admit, our current age is the absolute best time to be a language nerd. I can absolutely understand the pitfall of knowing something but just not knowing *where* you know it from; double-checking yourself via the web is way more accessible than 100s of books you might have read.

Upon reading your comment I immediately sought out a copy of this book. Aside from being into weird language trivia in general, I also do a lot of feywild stuff in my games and that's a goldmine for names.

I love the anecdote, but dude... you gotta share the usage as defined in Poplollies & Bellibones! Googling "dweomer" just references d&d!

​@@drdrake17hard agree, please illuminate us mate

Probably my favorite example of gygax using traditional language is him using the traditional version of race

Those guys don't give themselves enough credit.

A bunch of white men, but don't worry, they'll _make_ you forget.

I mean most roleplayers are nerds

Its still carried by a bunch of nerds

Nerds built everything that's fun these days. Hell, I'll bet anything most sports were invented by nerds of one kind or another

"Older people are great!" Older people sent people like me to jail for being gay. Or burned us alive. They can rot in their care homes and know the world they loved died a generation ago.

​@@MeepChangeling Consider for a moment, that there were older people like you back then, too.

​@@MeepChangeling I get what you're saying but not all people you'd consider boomers are bad people. Also it's nice to see another lesbian pony show enjoyer

I love that about historical advancement on striking the balance between "The Old Wisdom" and "what the hell were they thinking that's a terrible idea"

@@agustinvenegas5238 Measure the wisdom of the ancients against the foolishness of their knaves.

Holy god. He's lived to see Baldur's Gate 3. Wow. I'm jealous. My span won't reach so far. At least I don't expect it to.

@@JoshSweetvale Good news - guess what game he got for Christmas this year.

and all in under six minutes!

Yeah, we all did. You're just describing the video we just watched

The history of wargaming is fucking amazing. That was always my ace in the hole for a technical writing paper in high school and college

And TIL that a grognard was basically a French kvetch.

TIL, TIL

I've seen it used for people who gatekeep excessively, basically if you weren't into the hobby before them they don't want you there.

When I came into the hobby in the late 80s it was definitely a perjorative for gatekeeping old 1st generation gamers who didn't see anything in the new edition or even 1st edition AD&D after Unearthed Arcana as worthy. Their legacy, emboldened by the OSR lives on and is just as righteously moronic as it was then

It is a term of endearment.

@JustMe-tc8qd except its not. I've only heard it used like that in more recent times with the full chested commitment ppl unironically do now

@@5HT_Ronin cool story..cope harder.

Less monarchist/fascist support tho

*INLAND EMPIRE:* The figurine is heavy in your hand, not just with lead but with past regrets and could-have-beens. The cold metal is a dead ember of a burnt-out dream. *PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT:* This is some nerd shit. Chuck it in the river.

@@FanOfMostEverything DRAMA: What-ho sir, finally our chance to prove those asinine Grognards wrong - now onwards General!

Volition: this would probably be a good social activity if we had more time on our hands and more people to play it with.

Harry would be the best worst best player at the table

This is the way.

I consider myself one despite being fairly young due to being raised in TTRPGs. As soon as I could write and count to 20 I was playing Pendragon and D&D with my dad and his friends. Now I'm trying to play with people who have only been playing since 5e was released and it is certainly different

@tx7140 Gotta raise the young bucks right 😉

I'm 20 too, I've only been half a decade into the hobby and play with people much older than me by a waaays shot. This sorta gave me a new perspective on calling people grognards, since in our circle it's been mostly used as a derogatory term for the latter category of people he mentioned. Maybe not everyone who still plays Battletech in the Succession Wars isn't a grumbly old fart lol

I will check it out

It's good to see Balttletech regaining some popularity, after the mid 2000s dark age that came in the wake of Mechwarrior 4

@@suburban-mech2107 I think it's back in that dark age when Hairbrained Schemes gave up on the PC Battletech. Sad times. There was some brief resurfacing of interest then nothing.

Fr. O. G. It's not that they gave up on Battletech, its that they got bought by Paradox who has them making other stuff now. On the bright side, Mechwarrior 5 got pretty substantial support the last few years and I've heard Mechwarrior 6 is in the works. So the IP isn't totally dead in the videogame sphere right now.

​@@Fr.O.G.You can thank Paradox for that, as for the IP as a whole it is thriving, the mercenaries Kickstarter was massive. The new IlClan era has loads of interesting stories all happening concurrently in all corners of the Inner sphere. Mechwarrior 5 Clans is coming out this year as well

Most importantly for me, it helps everyone get on the same page with expectations about the campaign. Both thematically (e.g. the seriousness factor), mechanically (monster types, what skills won't be as useful), and socially (how much story and RP will happen).

Sometimes your elders are insightful, sometimes they are outdated and stubborn about it. Grognards don't necessarily know better.

It is essentially a formalization of what most players would have done anyway back in the day - talk to each other about the kind of game they want to play and who they would like to play in that game. It's good sometimes to formalize things we do so that they don't get taken for granted.

@@keldencowan The thing with the dislike of session 0 is mainly due to the the accepted conversion that grognards had, which was every session is a session 0. Also, for most of the problems that NEED a session 0 now, Grognards didn't have much. There was no division between Story, RP and Mechanics, there are only a handful of skills that Mechanically matter and all where useful (except for fuckimg barbarians), and considering it was a group of nerds in the 80s, they all wanted a thematic and serious game. As for preventing trauma or making sure everyone is happy.... again, it was the 80s, they where likely treated far worse at school, or had thicker skin. The issue is not them knowing better or not, but an inability to fathom that things changed enough to reach this point in the first place. Said changes are mainly because DnD as a franchise has carried out so many experiments and innovation, that while half are near godly, the other half is dogshit or actively worse..... Tldr, it's a uniquely DnD problem, and you won't need a session 0 if you're playing other ttrpgs like "Traveler".

@@jasonfurumetarualkemisto5917 I dunno man, I can't QUITE agree about that. Because the problem is, is that a lot of folks have different expectations of when they wanna play an RPG. I agree that some folks can probably go without a session 0 if they've BEEN with a group for a long time, but like... Here's one example. I myself love rogue-likes. Death of my characters and starting over is not a big deal to me. But everyone else in my group, save for the GM and his wife? Fucking HATES character death. They can't STAND the idea of losing a character they put so much time, effort, and love into. Don't get me wrong, I love my characters too, but I am FINE with the thought "If I die, I'm an adventurer and not all of us always make it." thought process. But no one else at my table likes that or has fun with that. And so what came up at session zero? "How do players feel about character death?" And like... I don't -like- that my fellow players feel like they got safety mitts on. Buuuut me and the GM also have an understanding, that if MY character specifically dies, that he knows I won't, as a player, feel down and out about it. The others might be a little freaked out (Cus much as I love them, they ARE marshmallows, save for the GM and his wife), but it sets that expectation. Then again, my thought when it comes to RPG is Studio Ghibli level of fantasy meets Through the Breach. Or another example? I freakin' LOVE horror. Two of the other players? Get the absolute heebie jeebs. I cater a bit and try to keep the creepier shaz at bay, but ultimately when I GM, I try to know my crowd and keep'er going so that everyone at the table has fun, ya know? That said, we known eachother for years now, so Session Zero doesn't really happen. We just go "Have yer character sheets done by this time and off we go." Final example is one that -definitely- gives people the willies, is sexual themes. My personal stance is that yeah, things can get a bit raunchy, but if it's clear folks are about to bone? Fade to black. Pure and simple. Bad puns, silly one-liners, or shaz like that, too easy. Usually when the GM for our DnD makes a bawdy character, we'll crack some jokes, and they might hit on a character, and 90% of the time it gets rebuffed as our characters are up to shaz anyway, but a few times, I was like "..Yeah screw it, Gleam here could use a win." and say "Yeah they take her up on her offer." and the two vanish behind a door... aaaaand that's it. Comes out later, silly one-liner or two. But some other folks at the table? They -hate- being hit on in real life, and having the GM, even in-character, "flirt" with them makes'em extremely uncomfy, ya know? I mean ya gotta remember, not everyone's a great actor, and some folks just can't, frankly, roleplay worth a shite. They're there to wargame without the wargame I guess. But hey, we're all there for fun, right? So it's better to just ask "Hey. Some shit here might be sexually explicit, like folks being nude n' possibly monster-mashin'. We cool if that's there even if we fade to black, or would that put y'all off your game entirely? Or you good with it so long as you don't gotta be around that?", than to just go into that and later find out one of your players became super detached and just wanted out but was too awkward to say, yeah? So I'd say for a new group, when ya don't know folks? A session zero ain't a bad thing. Once ya know how they are as players and have had 2-3 months of once-a-week sessions, or something like that? I think it's safe to say you can skip session zero -IF- you actually communicate with your players regularly. Personally, I got no beef with however folks wanna run a campaign so long as it's not a clear "GM vs the Players" kinda bullshite, I'd just play a damn board game at that point. But otherwise? Like anything, a Session Zero is a tool, and it should just be used as necessary, pure and simple. TL;DR - Session Zero has it's place. If you know folks long enough, ya can probably skip it if you all communicate regularly anyway, but with new goobers, doing it a time or two has its uses.

Women, gotta love em

Officer A: "You fight like a girl!" Officer B: "Oh please, I can only _dream_ of being so ruthless and omniscient."

Yeah, I remember hearing that the term “hit point” originated in US Navy war games where it referred to how many 16-inch shells it took to sink a ship. Every human being has one hit point.

That’s very cool I hope that it actually happened

This is now on my bucket list.

Amen

Comparing a good honest dawi to one of those foul treacherous cowardly frogs, now THATS a grudgin

I'm now imagining Dwarf Barbarian in a mime outfit silently raging as he goes around knocking people out with a stale baguette.

As someone who plays dwarfs in everything and as someone who played whfb i agree but also hate the idea of being compared to a bretonnian player in anyway.

Honestly if we follow Warhammer lore the Grognards just sound like the dwarfs “Longbeards”, ancient skilled warriors who famously complain and grumble. Now I want to make an old dwarf PC who is a archetypical Grognard

Not 'The Little Corporal'?

To Hit Armor Class 0?

@@giraffedragon6110 precisely

So in other words, even back then there were grognards, and over time they changed the meaning of the word by complaining too much! That's a much better story than that famous general of perfectly average height coming up with it.

Ahhh, good ol' folk etymology and semantic shift

Oh thank goodness. I always knew the word to translate to "old soldier." So Zee's story, while enjoyable, did make me start to question a few things.

I'm curious, do you have a source for 'grognard' meaning 'old warrior' before the 19th century? Grammatically speaking, the word derives from 'grogner'/'to grunt' which can be linguistically traced all the way back to the Latin 'grunnire' with the same meaning: I can't find any instances of its use to described soldiers prior to the Old Guard, regardless of whether Napoleon coined the term himself. (Sorry if I seem a bit like a modern grognard, I just love this stuff😅)

What is your source ? According to the wiktionnary, it's the other way around : grunnire (growl in latin) -> gronir (old french) -> grogner ( grumble in modern french) -> grognard ( old warrior who grumble during napoleonic wars)

do you mean "of dice and men" by David Ewalt?

Yes sorry editing error on my part

​@@patriciaschonrock2929how many dice will we have on our farm George?

@@patriciaschonrock2929 thats alright