Killing the sense of wonder

[Heathen72]

• Interrupting the flow of the game to set up the grid-map/tiles and miniatures.

For me it's more than that. Even with the best miniatures and the quickest of setups, there is a loss of immersion, wonder and visualization the moment the miniatures are laid out on the table. Players go from imagining the environment that is being described, or describing the adventurous and swashbuckling actions of their characters to focussing on a plastic grid of inch by inch squares covered in miniatures and nutting out the number of moves they have left.

Sure, it's a fun minigame, and it can be genuinely exciting, but you have to work at maintaining the sense of wonder.

 

[Holy Bovine]

In my current game, I'm calling orcs 'skogra' and bugbears 'gurks'.

In one campaign I'm playing in our party, who come from a super isolated & hidden valley with near 0 contact with the outside world, met creatures who were described as a hairy, bear-like biped with a pig-like nose - thus were Manbearpigs born! We figured since we 'discovered' this 'unknown' race we could name them. We knew they couldn't be Orcs as those are the servants of Orcus and are generally undead.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

... but the players (some of whom are almost 30-year veterans) found themselves to ask what a "Grash" or a Quitch" looked and acted like - even though they are merely Orc and Kobold renamed.

In my current game, I'm calling orcs 'skogra' and bugbears 'gurks'.

I love this approach. Both renaming and reskinning are the DM's friend.

I ran a short campaign in which the monsters all went by the terms the locals used. Unfortunately, to the peasants everything was a "troll", from goblins all the way up to hill giants and, well, trolls.

 

[howandwhy99]

Talking about the rules.

I agree with the above. The rules have no place in front of the screen.

If you want mystery (a.k.a. "sense of wonder"), leave them as the code to be puzzled out by the players.

Talking in numbers is just dead boring.

 

[Lanefan]

I ran a short campaign in which the monsters all went by the terms the locals used. Unfortunately, to the peasants everything was a "troll", from goblins all the way up to hill giants and, well, trolls.

Love it!

**Yoink**

Lanefan

 

[Imperialus]

I've actually got a fix for this one. At least in my regular group, we've got 2 GMs: myself and a friend. We usually trade off roles as GM and Co-GM. The GM focuses on things like interaction and description, whereas the Co-GM will work on the math, minis, dungeon tiles, etc. It works well for us.

My solution was to buy a few big sheets of poster sized graph paper and draw battlemats ahead of time.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

1) Playing the game. My sense of wonder is always greater when I'm planning my PC or an adventure to run. Actual execution rarely lives up to what I saw in my mind.

2) Predictibility. Please don't give my yet another adventure where we need to collect the three components so we can build/open/destroy the macguffin and one of the three components is held by a powerful dragon who will give it to you if you do something for him...

 

[ExploderWizard]

For me it's more than that. Even with the best miniatures and the quickest of setups, there is a loss of immersion, wonder and visualization the moment the miniatures are laid out on the table. Players go from imagining the environment that is being described, or describing the adventurous and swashbuckling actions of their characters to focussing on a plastic grid of inch by inch squares covered in miniatures and nutting out the number of moves they have left.

Sure, it's a fun minigame, and it can be genuinely exciting, but you have to work at maintaining the sense of wonder.

Ah, yes. Boardgame syndrome. You can still play with your toys and maintain a good bit of immersion. The secret is to not allow the toys and the surface they move around on matter more than the game being imagined by the group. I use miniatures with BD&D not because the rules make play difficult without them but because I like my toys. The square, hex or whatever isn't focused on or given a terrible amount of importance. It is a handy reference for eyeballing range and approximating move distances. The last thing I care about is what square is character X standing in. After all, the space the action takes place in isn't actually gridded so why have the players obsessed over the area as if it were?

In order for miniatures to add something to the game rather than detract from it, their importance to the actual game needs to be largely eliminated. It is the paradox of minis.

 

[Hussar]

All quite valid, but let's say you and the group have overcome these obstacles for the night...you've got decent immersion and buy-in from the players, you yourself are on form as DM, things are rockin' right along - in other words, an all-round stellar session.

Why is it still so hard to find that sense of wonder?
/snip
Lan-"a little knowledge is a bad thing; a lot, worse"-efan

Because, there's one more point you're missing.

Not only can none of the things I've, and other people, listed here in this thread happen, but also, whatever you're doing while those things aren't happening has to be sense of wonderable. (is that a word?)

So, it isn't enough that all the stars and planets line up at the same time, but also, you can't be in the tavern talking to the guy in the corner. What happens more often than not is you get this perfect zen moment of peace and gaming, but, you're poncing about buying rations for your journey to the mountains. By the time you finally get to the grand vista of wonderment, someone's cell phone rings, someone else has to go to the bathroom and the third guy's got his nose in the PHB looking up a new spell he just got.

That's why I say you can't really engineer sensawunda moments. Too many uncontrollable variables.

 

[Lanefan]

That's why I say you can't really engineer sensawunda moments. Too many uncontrollable variables.

True, they can't be engineered - and would probably feel forced if they were.

But the frequency of their natural occurrence can be given a helping hand by some discreet engineering in the background - the most important piece of which, as I tried to get at above, is that it be a game of discovery as far as possible. Discovery brings wonder.

Lanefan