Do you still feel the wonder you had in your childhood games?

[painandgreed]

Every now and then, i like a staight hack-n-slash style game and run or play in one jsut like old time. It really gets hard to not inflict current standards on such things and not care about rndom rooms full of monsters or letting PCs just buy magic items out of the book for listed cost. Where I really felt the sence of wonder was when 3.5 came out. I was getting back into D&D and hadn't bought a book for it in about ten years. When I was buying them as a kid and even in college, money was tight and each book was a major purchase. When I picked up the 3.5 rule books and was hit with that same feeling I had as a kid looking at all the books I wished I could buy, I was so overwhelmed that I grabbed a few more books. Then I remembered I was now an adult with a good job and grabbed a few more books.

 

[BryonD]

Then we're talking about different things.

I'd guess so.

To me "wonder" describes the newness and amazement of discovery. And the first post of this thread fits that idea, to my reading.
I DM/played in many adventures that I would say were completely "flubbed". But it didn't matter, I had a blast and it was because the wonder of doing these amazing things completely trumped the poor implementation.

I recall being put to a divine test in one of my first adventures ever. The entire thing came down to one rather pointless roll of a single die and was "played" out over less than 10 minutes. It was terribly done. Aweful!
But in my mind all that counted was I was playing the role of a guy directly interacting with an Olympian GOD!!! And I was tested and passed! It was awesome and I the wonder of being that character was great.

Playing out fantastic encounters are not remotely new to me now. Wonder is just not the word I would use to describe them. But they are more fun now then they ever were before. Because I can run them well and the experience of playing out that roll has substance to it that was completely impossible to acheive when I was a kid. A creative and rich interactive environment with a reasonable versimiltude combined with vastly more satisfying mechanical model of the game environment makes the kind of game I wished I could do when I was a kid. Less wonder (less, not none) and a whole lot more creation and texture makes a much more fun experience.