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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5333459" data-attributes="member: 21169">Also, don't use published scenarios, especially not the classics, they're far too well known. And create your own world.I'm not sure I've had a true sensawunda moment in D&D since my first few sessions. D&D is particularly bad for sensawunda because there are so many published monsters, magic items, etc, that DMs are expected to, and do, use them. If you didn't use any of them at all the players could legitimately complain it's not D&D. Many players probably don't even want sensawunda. They hate new things. They hate the unknown. They like the familiarity of the 'good old monsters'. And they like the power that knowledge brings. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/279661-where-has-all-magic-gone.html" target="_blank">This is not a new problem</a>.In one campaign I knew the DM was using MM3 a lot so I never got that book, or looked up the monsters, and that helped sensawunda somewhat. The greatest sense of anticipation and excitement I think I've ever had in an rpg was in a superhero game when my PC was on the roof of a warehouse, just about to engage a supervillain team inside. The GM was very good so I knew his supervillain creations would be good stuff, but as a player knew nothing about them at that point. I feel that supervillain teams are about as good as it gets in terms of opposition in a rpg. So damn colorful and interesting. And unknown.Make up monsters like they are a supervillain team. All individuals, all freaky powers, all unknown.Classed NPCs kind of suck too, particularly in old school D&D. All clerics are pretty much the same, for example, as are all fighters and thieves. This was one of the criticisms of the original ToEE, that the clerics didn't have any elemental powers, they were just standard book clerics.The other time I really had sensawunda strong was in a homebrew rpg called the dream game, run by Paul Mackintosh, one of the best, and certainly the most workaholic, GMs I've ever had. Everything was an unknown in that campaign. We were fighting beings that invaded dreams and after 20 sessions or so, we still had no idea what they were - demons, spirits? - or where they came from. They were pretty damned unforthcoming with information. That has to be the pinnacle for my experience of sensawunda. In the dream game even the way dreams and dream intrusions (this was long before Inception) worked was something we gradually learned, and had many competing theories about.You couldn't do that in D&D, the rules are all known. It's the crappiest game for sensawunda there is.</blockquote>

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