Appreciation post: Heard a kid at the game store call a rulebook 'the ancient scrolls'

I was at The Dragon's Hoard in Tacoma last weekend, picking up a new expansion. Overheard this maybe 12-year-old telling his friend they had to 'consult the ancient scrolls' to figure out a tricky turn order. It just hit me how different that is from when I was a kid in the 90s, where we'd just make up a rule if we got stuck. Now there's this whole culture of respecting the game's design, even if it's playful. I mean, it's cool that the hobby has grown to have its own inside jokes and language. Makes me wonder what other little phrases or habits have popped up that I've missed.

3 comments

3 Comments

danielm482mo ago

Funny how the "ancient scrolls" are probably a PDF on someone's phone now. The real lost art is trying to decipher those tiny folded rule sheets from the 80s.

simonmoore2mo agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, my buddy found one of those tiny sheets and @danielm48 is right, it took us an hour to figure it out!

emery9651mo agoMost Upvoted

Gotta disagree hard on this one. Those tiny foldout sheets were a badge of honor. You'd lose a Saturday trying to figure out how the combat modifiers stacked with the movement points and what "line of sight" even meant in a hex grid. Now it's just a YouTube video or a quick search, takes all the mystery out of it.