Killing the sense of wonder

[Diamond Cross]

Grinding for loot and xp like in WoW.

No real stories just go in, kill monster, get the treasure.

Everything is about being the biggest baddest tough guy.

The DM constantly taking over and remaking your character to a character he wants you to play.

Being killed so often by the monsters or NPCs that you've run out of character concepts and names.

The DM favoring the significant other over everybody else.

The DM having a pet character that is unstoppable and unkillable.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Anytime anyone says "I magic missile the darkness!"

DMPC ex machina.

Magic-mart.

Gratuitous ap'o S-Tro'phes, H'y-phe'ns and ca-PitAl' Iza-tio'n.

 

[xXxTheBeastxXx]

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

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.

As for what destroys the wonder...big parties. It's hard to round everyone in when someone brings up an out-of-game topic or makes a joke and everyone joins in. Usually, a hard slap on the table will quiet a small group. But big ones don't really react.

 

[The Shaman]

Players buying and selling magic items like they're at the Flea Market.

Seriously annoying.

 

[Dausuul]

I find that "sense of wonder" is impossible to achieve at the gaming table. I don't think I have ever played in a group where I'd have said there was a sense of wonder going on. Wonder is such a fragile, easily shattered thing; even movies and books, with their perfect control of the medium, struggle to achieve it.

I'll settle for immersion, which is quite hard enough.

 

[Hussar]

Lots of things can disrupt SOW:

1. Someone's tired.
2. DM had a rough day at work.
3. Cell phones (yeah, it's been mentioned, but, it deserves it twice. I feel your pain)
4. Pizza delivery.
5. Children/spouse/parents/random strangers in the gaming environment.
6. Internet problems when you run online games. (GRRRRRRR)
7. Dropping dice.
8. Getting tongue tied or speaking in Spoonerisms.
9. Cliche's
10. Gas.
11. Players showing up late.

That's enough for now.

 

[Lanefan]

Lots of things can disrupt SOW:

1. Someone's tired.
2. DM had a rough day at work.
3. Cell phones (yeah, it's been mentioned, but, it deserves it twice. I feel your pain)
4. Pizza delivery.
5. Children/spouse/parents/random strangers in the gaming environment.
6. Internet problems when you run online games. (GRRRRRRR)
7. Dropping dice.
8. Getting tongue tied or speaking in Spoonerisms.
9. Cliche's
10. Gas.
11. Players showing up late.

That's enough for now.

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?

To me, the biggest wonder-wrecker is too much knowledge:

== knowledge of rules, of what's "behind the curtain", and of the math involved;
== knowledge of items;
== knowledge of the game world (given a choice I'll play in a homebrew world every time, only because it's new and thus waiting to be discovered);
== knowledge of the rules beyond just how to play, of rules tricks, loopholes, and broken combos;
== knowledge of monsters;
== knowledge of the DM, though some are good enough to reinvent themselves and thus keep it fresh.

With work, a DM can mitigate the first, second, fourth and fifth of these by (in order) shaking up the math, replacing known item lists with unseen homebrew lists, closing loopholes/banning combos, and reskinning monsters; with the proviso that step 2 has to be to make this information harder to come by in game (eample: use 1e item identification rules rather than 4e).

For my current campaign, I tried to rename quite a few of the standard monsters just to shake it up - underneath they were the same monsters, 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. Now, 2.5 years in, they all know what's what; but it worked really well for a while.

Lan-"a little knowledge is a bad thing; a lot, worse"-efan

 

[Redcrow]

For me two of the biggest killers are...

One dimensional characters
and
game mechanics that get in the way of narrative.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Talking about the rules.

Rpgs are actually a pretty crappy vehicle for sensawunda. Novels, movies, etc, are better cause you can't see the man behind the curtain.

 

[Doug McCrae]

For my current campaign, I tried to rename quite a few of the standard monsters just to shake it up - underneath they were the same monsters, 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. Now, 2.5 years in, they all know what's what; but it worked really well for a while.

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