I'm gonna disagree with this. It's not "newness" that you're talking about, it's "flow", when all of your mental resources are dedicated to a single task, and you're "in the moment" and suddenly it's 2 AM.
Yeah - nowadays I think the cooperative element signifies a sense of wonder. When a bunch of people react at once, that's cool. Such was last year's Gen Con. A PC dropped dead at a tense moment in my game. Four of the characters (all playing litorians from Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved) all howled in unison!
Not only was that cool, but it sent shivers down my spine. Not to mention the rest of the room turned around and looked.
