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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 2399783" data-attributes="member: 22424">I still get that sense of wonder, but not in the same way, and nowhere near as often.About seven years ago, I was mourning my sense of wonder. I never expected to enjoy something that was pure and wonderful again. Then I saw "The Nightmare Before Christmas" for the first time, and realised what I'd been missing. I've since felt a similar glee when watching several films, all of them animated 'kids' films: "Aladdin", "The Incredibles", "The Road to El Dorado", "Finding Nemo", "Spongebob Squarepants", and the Transformers series on DVD. There's a lot to be said for just relaxing, and letting these things wash over you. A good kids film is a tonic to the soul, IMO.In gaming terms, sense of wonder is an extremely rare commodity, but all the more valuable for that. The games I run now are technically infinitely better than the ones I ran game, which were linear hackfests without characterisation or plot. But, they just don't inspire that same innocent glee - most of the time.There have been exceptions. I ran a one-off game in January. We used 3.5e rules, and a conversion of I6 Ravenloft. I threw everything into that game - atmospheric details, creepy voices, the works. And it was awesome! Not merely because of the group dynamic, which was excellent. Not merely because I have never been better in my handling of rules issues, pacing or the rest of it. And not merely because that module is deservedly hailed as one of the best adventures ever written (we didn't get it even 25% of it finished). There was just an intangible something about that game.I also ran a game a year ago for a bunch of newbie players (early teens, btw). 3.0e rules (with some slimmed down rules for simplicity), pregenerated 3rd level characters, and a very old-school adventure ("Dungeon of the Fire Opal" - essentially the sample adventure from the DMG filled out for use). This time, the sense of wonder was second-hand. They delighted in choosing characters ("I want Fat Jack, because pirates are cool!"), they entered the dungeon gleefully, and they faced all the dangers with the same terror and excitement that I remember from way back. I was left with two conclusions: if you want to quickly recapture the SoW, run a game for some newbie players, and you should never underestimate the value of a sample game run by a good DM to attract new players to the hobby.One thing I thought might be cool: take the group on a real adventure. Pack yourselves off on a camping trip, and at the end of the day gather around the camp fire and game. You'd probably need to go for something very rules-lite (don't want to lug around lots of heavy rulebooks), and you'd probably want to minimise dice rolling at night in the dark, but I reckon that could be a lot of fun.</blockquote>

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