Grumble, Grumble

The very first post of this blog attempts to provide a definition of "grognard," both in its historical context and in its latter-day usage among wargamers and, by extension, roleplayers. I wrote that post more than a decade ago and, while I stand by what I wrote all those years ago, my thinking on the matter has evolved a little bit. This evolution was occasioned by several things, including the general mellowing that comes with age. However, some of that evolution comes from reflecting on a phenomenon I've observed over the past year or two, namely fans of Dungeons & Dragons 3e (or even Pathfinder) referring to themselves, unironically, as grognards.

Now, on the face of it, this seems absurd. After all, "grognard" was often used as a term of derision in RPG circles, one directed at stick-in-the-mud holdouts who weren't enthusiastic about the latest edition of a game. My recollection is that the term was thrown about a lot during the heyday of 3e. Anyone who objected to ascending armor class or the loosening of class restrictions was a doubleplusungood wrongthinker and roundly mocked. That some of the very same people who once used the word to ridicule others would now be applying it to themselves is bizarre, right?

Even a few years ago, I would have thought so. Now, I'm not so censorious. As I said, my thoughts on the matter have evolved. What I would say is that grognardism, for lack of a better word, is not about believing that older games are better than newer ones. Rather, it's about believing that just because something is old, it's not therefore bad. Put more positively, grognardism promotes the idea that fun games remain fun regardless of when they were published. There's nothing necessarily wrong with new games, especially if you genuinely enjoy them, but the same is equally true of older game, with "older" in this case simply meaning any version that is not the current one. 

I still have harsh words for neophilia, a vice closely tied to consumerism in our society and strongly encouraged by game publishers. But I can't muster any opprobrium for players of an edition later than my own preferred one who have chosen to embrace the term "grognard" in reference to themselves. 3e is now two decades old; there have in the years since been two more editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Choosing to stick with 3e because you have had fun with it and continue to do so is, I think, praiseworthy, even if it doesn't align with my own predilections. 

I hold out hope that, as time marches on, more gamers might begin to recognize that those of us who haven't adopted the new shiny aren't doing so out of retrograde contrariness but because we sincerely prefer an earlier version – and that those preferences can be and probably are rational ones. This entire blog is dedicated to articulating the reasons for my own preferences, as well as celebrating the games with which I have had – and continue to have – fun. I have never expected anyone to share my preferences or be convinced by my reasons for holding them. That was never my purpose, though I do hope I've in a small way contributed to a better understanding of the unique pleasures of what we now call "old school" roleplaying games and the culture that gave birth to them. I'll still grumble, of course, but I never wanted that to be all I do. 

Le Grognard Figurine

My daughter is fond of a series of hand-painted plastic figurines from a French company called Papo. They make a lot of very neat fantasy/fairy tale figures, in addition to some historical ones, like Romans, ancient Egyptians, Pirates, and, of course, Napoleonics.

I was flipping through their 2009 catalog with her today and I came across this guy to the left. The catalog is bilingual in English and French. This figurine is called simply "Napoleon Soldier" in English, but his French name is "Le Grognard."

If I ever manage to find one in a store, I think I may have to buy him.

Myth Busting

One of the inevitable consequences of preferring what some have patronizingly called "legacy D&D" is being treated like an exhibit in a natural history museum: "And here we have a fine example of Primitive Gamer, mussitor crassus barbatus, who thrived between 1974 until 1983. Unable to adapt to the changing environment of gaming, his numbers dwindled precipitously. Though scattered tribes of Primtive Gamer still exist, their vitality is sapped, their gene pool shallow. It is only a matter of time before he becomes extinct, taking with him his strange ways, most notably spending his spare time not actually gaming, as one might expect, but complaining about more evolved forms of Gamer."

For reasons I don't fathom, it's a common stereotype that grognards don't in fact game. I'm not sure where this myth came from, because my experience is that old schoolers are no different in their gaming habits than most other gamers. That is, we game as often as we're able to do so, given the demands of our real lives. Certainly we don't game as much as we used to when we were teenagers, but then who does? From what I have gathered, wanting to game and not having a group with which to do so is a pretty common problem, not restricted either to old schoolers or to D&D players in general.

Yet, for some reason, there's this perception that grognards never actually get together with their friends and roll some dice together. All one would need to do is read old school blogs and forums to see this for the lie it is. The most active blogs in our community are filled with discussions of the author's ongoing campaigns, not to mention events at conventions. I'd never argue that old school play is common or that its numbers are as great as those playing the latest and greatest, but since when did quantity becoming the determinant of whether grognards actually game? Our numbers are but a drop in the wider ocean of gaming. Consequently, measuring how many fewer 1e events there are at GenCon compared to 4e and then using it to opine that grognards don't play strikes me as the height of idiocy.

I suppose, to some extent, this misperception is based on the fact that grognards spend a lot of time talking (or writing) about gaming. As a rule, I'd wager that our blogs and forums are, for wont of a better word, much more verbose than those of other games. We spend a lot of time dissecting the rules, divining wisdom from lacunae, and constructing esoteric philosophies of play and design from our sacred texts. Of course, I'd argue that so do most gamers. It's just that old schoolers do it in a particular style that might lead outsiders to misunderstand what we're doing or why.

My own blog, for example, has what at least one detractor has termed "a pseudo-intellectual" style and, while there's no doubt that my chosen idiom is a lot more extreme than that of many of my fellow bloggers, we are all cut from a cloth you can't buy in the big box stores. We're an idiosyncratic, eccentric bunch and our discussions probably aren't easy to pentrate if you're not already steeped in the old school midrash. Because of this, perhaps it seems as if we're more focused on gaming in the abstract than we are in actually gaming. It's a polemically useful stereotype, to be sure, but that's mostly all it is. Believe it or not, grognards do game and some of us game quite a lot.

To that end, if you're currently running an old school game and talk about it on your blog, state this in the comments section of this entry, particularly if you do so on a blog or forum I don't have linked to the right.

One of Those Days

You ever have one of those days when you suddenly realize, "There are a lot of really crazy people in this hobby?"

Then the creeping realization dawns on you: "Could I be one of them?"

A Grognard Christmas

Christmas is less than two weeks away. Here are some gift suggestions for the grognards on your list:

1. Adventure Games Journal: If you're a fan of Judges Guild's Wilderlands setting, James Mishler has got what you need. Published irregularly, the AGJ, like all of Adventure Games Publishing's products, is chock of great ideas and palpable entusiasm for one of the hobby's oldest sandbox campaign settings.
   
2. Castle Zagyg: The final product of the late, great Gary Gygax (and his stalwart protégé, Jeff Talanian), Castle Zagyg is probably the closest we'll ever come to the long-hoped for Castle Greyhawk dungeons. Grab a copy while it's still available!
3. Encounter Critical: The wackiest game that never was, EC is a loving homage to the wild and woolly early days of the hobby and the gloriously nonsensical games they produced.
   
4. Fight On! With three issues already available and more on the way, Fight On! is a terrific 'zine that reminds me of the early days of Dragon. It's packed to the gills with great old school gaming goodness.
   
5. Gamescience Dice: You can't go wrong with Lou Zocchi's famous dice. Granted, even these dice include the un-Platonic D10, but I think we can overlook such shortcomings in the spirit of the season.
6. Goblinoid Games: Whether you prefer the straight fantasy of Labyrinth Lord or the science fantasy of Mutant Future, Goblinoid Games has got you covered with great products.
7. Goodman Games System-Neutral Products: My hat's off to Goodman Games for publishing both Points of Light or The Random Esoteric Creature Generator, two excellent products filled with old school sensibilities that are of use to all gamers, regardless of the system they use.
   
8. Monsters of Myth: Certainly the best old school monster book put out in many years, Monsters of Myth is a testimony to the fact that the old school movement is more than just wallowing in the past but is in fact creating new and exciting material. While you're at it, grab the free PDF of OSRIC.
9. Planet Stories: Without a doubt one of the most exciting publishing ventures in years is Paizo's Planet Stories line, which makes available for the first time in decades the classics of pulp fantasy and science fiction. It's the perfect antidote to the banality of modern genre writing and a reminder of the literary roots of our hobby.
   
10. Swords & Wizardry: Matt Finch's excellent creation is my personal favorite retro-clone and it's now available in a variety of formats.

Have any additional suggestions? Post in the comments below.

Haunted House

Over at Monsters and Manuals, Noisms boggles at the "irrational hatred" of the Second Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which he sees as a form of "intellectual perversity." I largely agree with him that most of the scorn heaped upon 2e has very little to do with its rules, which are, by my lights, insufficiently different from those of 1e to matter to most players. Likewise, 2e is supremely backward compatible; with a few exceptions, nearly everything in 1e products can be used with 2e without much difficulty. So, quibbles aside, from a purely mechanical standpoint, 2e isn't an objectively bad game. I happen to prefer some of the baroque curlicues of 1e, but not enough that I could logically argue their superiority over the simplifications that replaced them.

That said, I still don't find 2e to my liking. Taking only the core rulebooks -- the entirety of the 2e line is another matter and one, I think, much more objectively worthy of derision -- I find myself thinking thoughts similar to those I have about Tom Moldvay's Basic Rules. 2e is an extremely clear, well-designed game that adopted a broader but blander palette of "colors" in the pursuit of mass market sales and popularity. This resulted not in a bad game but in one that feels "hollow," like the house of a deceased personage of importance that, while still an impressive piece of architecture in its own right -- and one probably more accessible to outsiders now that the old guy is safely in the grave -- is devoid of its animating principle.

Of course, that's exactly what 2e was: Gygax-less AD&D. The extent to which one dislikes 2e, I suspect, has a lot to do with how much Gygax one likes in one's D&D. Me, I prefer heaping helpings of it, as I've said elsewhere. But if you found the Dungeon Master a bit annoying, his purple prose embarrassing, and disliked seeing his eccentricities elevated to Holy Writ, you probably see 2e as a "better" version of 1e. I find the notion of a "better AD&D" tautologous; we already have the best AD&D possible and it's the one I have sitting on a shelf right above my computer as I write this entry. However, not everyone feels that way. For a variety of reasons, some valid, some vapid, 1e isn't and never will be the best possible version of AD&D for all players. It's an opinion I find hard to credit myself, but I do understand the sentiment that animates it, because it's probably not unlike the sentiment I feel when I boggle at some of the dislike for AD&D's excesses I hear OD&Ders complain about.

Gary Gygax casts a very long shadow over the came he co-created. For good or for ill, his presence lingers even still. I think it next to impossible to understand the history of this hobby without understanding Gary and the influence he wielded. So many of the debates and controversies that still plague the hobby are echoes of those in which Gygax was involved in the past. His thoughts, opinions, and decisions are still very much alive. Alfred North Whitehead famously said that "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." In a similar fashion, the RPG tradition consists of a series of footnotes to Gygax.

Alan Moore, Comics Grognard

I'm not a big reader of comics generally, though I have read and enjoyed certain specific titles over the years. Among them is Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I like rather a lot. Moore is a very fascinating guy and, while he and I don't share much in terms of our overall worldview, I can't help but find him a kindred spirit on some level, because of statements like this:

If you approach comics as a poor relation to film, you are left with a movie that does not move, has no soundtrack and lacks the benefit of having a recognizable movie star in the lead role.

That's from a recent interview with Moore, where he talks about his distaste for the upcoming film version of his Watchmen comic. Reading it, I heard echoes of things I myself have said about the RPG hobby and the way it's been deformed by the demands of trying to turn it into a mass market product with mass market profits. I (obviously) don't agree with everything he says, nor do I think his perspective has universal applicability to this hobby, but some of it does and it's worth reading, if only to realize there are some people out there even more strident than I am when it comes to protecting something they love.

The Shoulders of Giants

Growing up as a gamer in Baltimore during the 1970s meant that it was impossible for me not to know about Charles S. Roberts and the company he founded, The Avalon Hill Game Company. Called by some the "Father of (Board) Wargaming," Roberts was the designer of the classic Tactics, which he published in 1954, a game that revolutionized the way wargames were published and played forever after. Between Tactics and his second game, Gettysburg (published in 1958), most of the features we now associate with wargames (hex maps, cardboard counters, combat resolution tables, etc.) became established as standards that all subsequent wargames would either imitate or react against. Originally located in Avalon, Maryland (hence the name of the company), Avalon Hill eventually moved to Baltimore in 1962, after Roberts sold the company to one of his creditors, Monarch Printing. The company remained there at 4517 Harford Road until 1998, when the company and its properties were acquired by Hasbro.

As I've said before, I was never much of a wargamer myself, but I knew wargamers, mostly my friend's father and his buddies, as well as guys I knew through various hobby shops I'd frequent. I'd occasionally join them in playing various games -- 1776, Gettysburg, Rise and Decline of the Third Reich and, of course, Squad Leader -- and I enjoyed them well enough. I was never very good, of course, which may explain why people liked playing wargames against me, but I didn't mind. I found the games fascinating as physical artifacts, with all those counters and hex maps. I used to use my Squad Leader maps when playing D&D, because they worked great as generic wilderness areas. Little did I realize I was recapitulating history, albeit with a different game. I also played a lot of other "wargames," like Diplomacy, Freedom in the Galaxy, Kingmaker, and so forth and was generally more adept at them.

Given all of that, it was rather hard not live in awe of Avalon Hill. Sure, there were other wargame companies out there, most notably SPI, but AH always seemed to me to be the king of this particular hill (no pun intended). I felt considerable local pride in the company and its accomplishments, even if it had (as the legend goes) turned down the opportunity to have published D&D and thereby deprived me of the chance to work for my favorite game's publisher in my own hometown. Not that I'm bitter about that or anything ...

Anyway, my father, as was often the case, knew one of the printers who worked for Avalon Hill and he arranged for me to get a tour of the place. I still have very fond memories of that day, as I watched men laying out books -- by hand -- on these giant machines. I realize it only confirms my Luddite credentials, but there's something so right about old fashioned printing. I was absolutely captivated by it, so much so that I almost forgot where I was. I met a number of editors and designers too, although, for the life of my I can't recall a single name. Back then, if you weren't Gary Gygax or Marc Miller, you really weren't a "name" in my book. Still, just being there made me feel like I'd died and gone to Valhalla; this is the place where games were made. And I mean literally. This is where they were printed and packaged and shrink wrapped and all the rest. I mean, people used to hand pack these wargames. I saw huge stacks of cardboard counters and the machine that made them. It was an astounding thing.

Like many companies, Avalon Hill fell prey to a combination of economic factors that led to its being purchased by Hasbro in 1998. In a strange irony, Avalon Hill is now a brand name under the auspices of Wizards of the Coast, the company that bought TSR, publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, and itself purchased by Hasbro in 1999. Disappointingly, very few classic Avalon Hill games have been re-released since Hasbro bought the company (Diplomacy being the notable exceptions). AH is now mostly a brand name, like Parker Brothers or Milton Bradley, without much connection to its history or origins. Under WotC/Hasbro, Avalon Hill's logo goes on "strategy" boardgames like Axis & Allies or Risk 2210. A few classic AH wargames of old, like Advanced Squad Leader, have been licensed to other publishers, but most are in the vault somewhere, unlikely ever to see the light of day again.

Avalon Hill occupies a strange place in my history as a gamer. Even when the company was still around, I viewed it as a relic from an earlier age, but one that welcomed me into the borders of a wondrous kingdom, like the Argonath. There were untold riches here; this was, after all, the company that had created an entire hobby around itself and whose games had nourished the imaginations of my heroes, Gygax and Arneson. I might not have ever been a true wargamer, but I always had respect for Avalon Hill. It was an institution and a link with the past and I took great interest in that past. The stories my friend's father told us about the games he had played in his own youth with his friends and the real world history that I learned from these games are memories I'll always carry with me. They're part of what drew me into roleplaying, strangely enough -- a desire to be part of something that had been going on for decades, ever since Charles Roberts changed the world forever in 1954.

Grognard Test Answers

For those who are interested, here are the answers to yesterday's Grognard Test.

Three brief comments:

1. Several of the questions dealt with wargames, as is only fitting. Though the term "grognard" has been appropriated by the RPG hobby to refer to old school players, it's applied more properly to old school wargamers. Of course, roleplaying grew out of wargaming, so many of the oldest players of RPGs are also wargamers of ancient vintage. And, for a long time, the two hobbies existed side by side and cross-pollinated one another in various ways. I was never much of a wargamer myself -- I did play some Squad Leader and a few other Avalon Hill games -- but I knew lots of them. My friend's dad, one of the guys who introduced me to the hobby, was a wargamer and we sometimes played with him. Anyway, my point is that connection between wargaming and RPGs is a venerable one and, if you don't have any experience of that connection, chances are you're not old enough to qualify as a grognard -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

2. Question 1 was phrased misleadingly, yes, but that didn't bother me. All I needed to see was "retired Scout" and the answer was obvious.

3. I contend that the tiebreaker was a trick question, because both Morgan Ironwolf and Aleena -- female characters drawn by Jeff Dee and Larry Elmore, respectively -- appeared in mass market editions of D&D. Anyone who not only knows who they are but cares enough to argue about the relative merits of their feminine virtues is probably someone who entered the hobby late, during its faddish phase in the 80s rather than earlier. Now, it's possible that some genuine grognards care about this nerdy debate, but I doubt it.

Finally, as the test proved, even many people whose grognard credentials are widely accepted had a hard time with at least a couple of the questions; I know I did. Being old school is, to some extent, as much a function of exposure and interests as it is of time and experience. I have no interest in kicking anyone out of the clubhouse because they didn't know about grues or the displacement tonnage of a Type-S Scout/Courier. I do, however, have an interest in ensuring that collective memories, history, and traditions of our common hobby are known and honored, even by those who weren't around to live through them. Without this past, our hobby has no future.

Grognard Test

With apologies to Stuart "PapersAndPaychecks" Marshall, I reproduce here his Grognard Test from this post. For what it's worth, I only score 6 out of 9 (taking 2a and 2b as two separate questions). And I contend that the tiebreaker is in fact a trick question.

QUESTION 1:

In a RPG, a member of your party is a retired scout, age 38. He has a highly useful piece of equipment. How much does it weigh?

QUESTION 2:

Before you is a grey 5/8" cardboard chit. It has numbers in each corner as follows:

TOP LEFT - 20
TOP RIGHT - 20
BOTTOM LEFT - 1
BOTTOM RIGHT - 0

In between the two "20"s is the letter A.

2a: There are two games you could be playing. Name them both.
2b: What exactly does the cardboard chit represent?

QUESTION 3:

Your opponent has hordes of those pesky Russians with piles of 4-4-7 riflemen! You have ordinary riflemen as well, but they're superior in one important respect. What is it?

QUESTION 4:

Thed, the goddess of rape, is associated with which creature?

QUESTION 5:

Eclavdra is described as an EHP'SS. What does EHP'SS stand for?

QUESTION 6:

You trip over an unseen imaginary deceased turtle. What game are you playing?

QUESTION 7:

It is pitch dark. What might eat you?

QUESTION 8:

Gold, Sword, and Juno are associated with which date?

TIE BREAKER:

Explain in no more than 50 words why Morgan Ironwolf is hot and Aleena is a skank ho.

Down at the Alehouse

I have regular misgivings about the Knights & Knaves Alehouse and certainly don't feel comfortable posting there, but I still read the forums with great alacrity. The Alehouse is among the best old school forums on the net, provided you have a strong constitution, which I guess I don't. However, it's one of Trent Foster's regular hang-outs and he's a true gurus of old school history and philosophy, so I check the place out on a regular basis nonetheless.

To illustrate my point, here are two really interesting threads I'll be keeping my eye on.

What was the first non-old school RPG? (Hint: Moldvay Basic is a strong contender)

Matt Finch is working on a Primer for Old School Gaming. Some really excellent stuff here. Little wonder that he's someone whose judgment and insights I've come to respect a great deal.

Very good stuff.

Beloved Nylissa

I've been reading a lot of Clark Ashton Smith lately. As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, he's my favorite of the three best known writers for Weird Tales back in its heyday. Smith's "prose poetry" is something I find remarkably evocative and, more to the point, affecting. It's actually quite rare that I find the written word emotionally moving, at least in the case of popular literature. Besides Smith, Tolkien is one of the few others who can manage it for me, but that's probably because the two of them, despite their vast differences in world view, both share a melancholy awareness of the ravages of time. It's this in particular that I find strikes a powerful chord with me, particularly of late.

Last night, I read "The Last Incantation," a short story that tells the tale of Malygris of Poseidonis, a necromancer of the last surviving colony of Atlantis. Filled with ennui, he recalls a beautiful girl of his youth, whom he loved and whom he now wishes to recall from the abode of the dead. He consults his familiar, a viper, to see if such a feat is within his powers and whether it be a wise thing to do. The viper tells him that it is of course within his power to recall Nylissa, the girl from his youth, back from the dead, but whether doing so be good or ill can only be decided by Malygris himself.

So, the necromancer calls back the girl's shade and cannot believe, upon seeing her, that she is the same girl he once loved, for she is nothing like what he believed she would be. Disappointed, he ceases his necromancy before restoring her to life and returns to the viper to bitterly complain. He asks:

"Why did you not warn me?"

"Would the warning have availed?" was the counter-question. "All knowledge was yours, Malygris, excepting this one thing; and in no other way could you have learned it."

"What thing?" queried the magician. "I have learned nothing except the vanity of wisdom, the impotence of magic, the nullity of love, and the delusiveness of memory ... Tell me, why could I not recall to life the same Nylissa whom I knew, or thought I knew?"

"It was indeed Nylissa whom you summoned and saw," replied the viper. "Your necromancy was potent up to this point: but no necromantic spell could recall for you your own lost youth or the fervent and guileless heart that loved Nylissa, or the ardent eyes that beheld her then. This, my master, was the thing that you had to learn."

Kids

It is both amusing and frustrating to read about gamers who've only ever played Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons calling themselves "grognards" -- amusing because it's good to see that younger gamers might finally understand that preferring an older edition doesn't mean you're "afraid of change" and frustrating because I don't believe invitations to the clubhouse have actually been sent out to these guys yet. Heck, I didn't start gaming until five years after OD&D was released; I began with the Holmes Basic Set rather than the little brown books and I never played a wargame until after I'd started roleplaying. I'm not even sure that I qualify as a grognard, so I'm pretty sure that gamers who didn't join the hobby until after 2000 don't.

But life is full of stuff like this, so I shouldn't complain.

Too much.

Live and Learn

I've been reminded of numerous truths over the last few days and one of them is this: talk is cheap. At the end of the day, the old school renaissance I remain convinced is going to happen can't be something we just talk about it and it certainly can't be something we just complain about. Instead, it just has to be done. So that's what I plan on doing. That's not to say that I won't be talking about it, discussing it, or even, from time to time, complaining about it -- but that won't be all that I am doing. The time has come to put up or shut up and the naysayers be damned.

I am certain that, for all the acrimony, disunity, and kvetching, the old school community is not in fact a herd of incontinent cats. Or at least it's more than that. Fight On! offers a good model of what I want to see more of. It's an absolutely brilliant example of people who share a common passion for old school games and not much else coming together to create something that brings the community together. That's due in no small part to the vision and dedication of its publisher and editor, who's a huge inspiration to me. Issue 1 was a terrific first start -- not without its problems, certainly, but a far, far more constructive example of what the old school renaissance could be than any I have seen. Fight On! will only improve with time and I have few doubts that it might, in spite of -- or maybe because of -- its lack of a unitary focus, help usher in a second flowering of old school gaming.

I'm a dreamer and planner by nature, as I told someone just yesterday. I'm not content with being told "but it'll never work" or "you just don't understand how it is." It's quite possible that I don't understand how it is, but I see that as a point in my favor, since it means I'm willing to try "crazy" things others have dismissed as impossible or even foolhardy. I know I'm not alone in this regard, which is why I am sure we will see more projects after the fashion of Fight On! and those projects will succeed, modestly at first perhaps, but such is the nature of leaven, whose action is initially small but nevertheless produces nourishment.

And so I say: Fight On!

What's a Grognard?

Welcome to the beginning of a new online venture.

This blog takes its name from the French word grognard, which means roughly "grumbler" or "grouch." The original grognards were a group of veteran soldiers of the Napoleonic wars. Also called "the Old Guard," they had fought under Napoleon in many of his campaigns and, though loyal to him, were often unhappy with the way they were used in battle by the emperor. So they did what any unhappy soldier does in that situation -- they complained. A lot.

(To their credit, les grognards reputedly complained in the presence of Napoleon himself rather than being backbiters. Most versions of the word's origin imply or outright state that the term was coined by Napoleon himself and was one of affection.)

When the board wargames craze took off in the early 1970s (yes, there really was a wargames craze), John Young, the editor of SPI's Strategy & Tactics, one of the most influential wargaming periodicals at the time, took to calling the hobby's old guard -- those who played prior to 1970 -- grognards. Like the original grognards, the wargames versions complained a lot, but they also had a great deal of experience and so were seen as a valuable resource when designing and playtesting new games. The term eventually took broader hold and, since roleplaying games evolved out of wargaming, it came to be used in that hobby as well, although with a bit less affection than either the Napoleonic or wargames version of the term.

RPG grognards are popularly held to be fat, bearded guys who go on and on about how things were better "back in the day" before "the kids" ruined everything. I don't think the history of roleplaying games since 1974 has been one of continual decline, but I do think a lot of good stuff has been lost or at least forgotten since then. One of the purposes of this blog is to discuss that good stuff and its importance for and applicability to the hobby today.

Never fear: there will also be grumbling, grouchiness, and complaining aplenty! I may be neither fat nor bearded, but I can rant about kids today with the best of them.