Sense of Wonder: What is it to you?

[Inconsequenti-AL]

For me what triggers it nowadays tends to be moments of revelation. Where all the disparate bits of a plot click into place and I end up going "Wow! How cool is that?"

Got a friend who's really good at running those sort of games. All kinds of character backstories and seemingly random events tie together to make highly entertaining things. I envy this skill!

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

For me, I think there are three aspects to the sense of wonder I've felt over the years with RPGs.

First, is the one Wik describes - from first encountering the whole idea of RPGs - a totally open-ended game in which I, as a PC, could do (or at least try to do) anything. Obviously, while this aspect of the sense of wonder can sustain you for a while, you can really one get a full hit once, when you are first exposed to RPGs (which happened to me with D&D waaaaay back in the 76/77).

Second, I think comes from realising some of possibilities opened up by the mechanics of the game - your first magic sword, the first time you cast a fireball, that sort of thing. This aspect can recur to a degree as new ideas are introduced into the game - or as you try new games - but I think has a limited shelf-life.

Third, is the aspect that some others have mentioned above - when something cool (or awesome or whatever is your favourite word) happens in the game - be it some monster you encounter, a place you visit, or stuff the PCs pull out of their collective behinds. This is, I think, most connected to the sense of wonder you can get from reading fantasy, and with a good DM and players, there's no reason that you can't go on experiencing it again and again.

 

[Phlebas]

It's only recently that I've had to go to miniatures. For years I refused for the very reasons that you state. Makes the combats feel more like chess. At tonight's game I brought some D&D mini's to the game and we used those. Helped visualise combat better but it's just not the same.

I use coloured counters on battlemaps (print, cut, laminate) and it avoids confusing the mini with the character (to the stage of people not upgrading armour because they couldn't find an appropriate mini....)

Anyhow

my 'sense of wonder' is still that moment when someone makes an OOC comment, and you realise the group has been IC for hour(s), you're fired up on adrenalin and you care passionately about the outcome of whatever the groups doing. That level of immersion which can only occur inside your own head.....

 

[Aeolius]

One reason I set my current campaigns beneath the surface of the sea is the sense of wonder that ensues, when players are removed from traditional dungeons and the creatures which inhabit them.

Spells, most notably fire-based spells, become either useless or altered in result. Characters must cope with movement and combat in a realm of liquid space; foes may approach from above and below. Players may find themselves unable to traverse the darkest depths without adaptive magics, just as they may be thankful that other creatures may not follow them into the shallows.

Terrains may seem both familiar and foreign; fields of sea grass, sea star brambles, sea urchin barrens, a forest of mangrove roots or jungle of kelp host a multitude of creatures benign and hostile.

I begin with the stipulation that characters must have a natural swim speed and be able to breathe underwater without the use of magic, with the goal of preventing players from taking the "core race with water breathing magics" approach. There are a host of options to explore, from the traditional sea elf, locathah, or merfolk to the less common awakened fish, tauric octofolk, or emancipated sea ghoul.

The result, with luck, is both strange and inviting, foreign yet familiar, enticing but terrifying.

 

[Scribble]

Man... I started to post thinking this would be easy... But it's not...

I can remember looking at the books, just at the pictures and just feeling like wow... This is different... This is cool... Feeling like I was there almost.

 

[Ghendar]

Sense of wonder? For me it was.........

It was playing a couple games in the early 80's, not having any idea what I was doing and loving every minute of it.

It was walking into a local Waldenbooks, seeing a selection of recent (numbered in the 50's) issues of Dragon, gazing at the covers and flipping through them thinking, "This is so freakin' cool"

It was reading those early endless quest books.

It was buying the Mentzer red basic box and reading both books cover to cover thinking, "This is so freakin' cool"

It was purchasing my first AD&D book (PHB) and marveling at the Jeff Easley painted dragon on the cover.


When WotC bought D&D and released 3.0, my interest was rekindled. That sense of wonder was not. I fear the only way to bring it back would be to go back in time and do it all over again for the first time.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Nostalgia.

Yeah I know - duh.

But also, it's when my players are so entranced by the setting, story, action, whatever, they lose track of who they are entirely, and totally forget about the real world around them, including the flow of time. I live for that (er, among other things - honest!)

As a player, I suppose it's when the same thing happens to me, and I can only really compare this to reading, and becoming engrossed in, an excellent novel. Yes it's a fundamentally different experience, but as I said, that's about as close as I can think of. Specifically, I love those times when the scenes play in the mind's eye, in real time, vividly and completely. Nope, that doesn't always happen for me.

 

[Scribble]

I remember looking through the books, and not really having much idea what the game was about, I'd see pictures of a monster and think... What is that thing??? Back then it was a thing, rather then a stat...

Now that I've been playign for a while, things tend to be looked at more as stats, as opposed to things... I think ultimately because I know what the stats mean now, so it's kind of hard to look at it, and not think, oh wow that thing does 14d8 damage??? crazy...

 

[Ourph]

I get a Sense of Wonder out of the game whenever something unexpected happens...

This is it for me too, almost. "Sense of Wonder" is the feeling that anything could be around the next corner, that something really terrible or really wonderful could happen. In order for me to keep that going though, those things do, occasionally, have to happen. If what is around the corner is exactly the same every time or never takes me by surprise, the game gets boring. So having the unexpected happen occasionally is integral.

 

[Korgoth]

This is it for me too, almost. "Sense of Wonder" is the feeling that anything could be around the next corner, that something really terrible or really wonderful could happen. In order for me to keep that going though, those things do, occasionally, have to happen. If what is around the corner is exactly the same every time or never takes me by surprise, the game gets boring. So having the unexpected happen occasionally is integral.

I think this nails it. "Sense of wonder" actually requires you to... wait for it... wonder. When everything is a known quantity, there is no wondering and it all becomes dry.

You can have that sense when things are mysterious. "What will happen next?" As a personal example, I can give you my reaction to Firefly and Serenity. Firefly (which at first I did not even see from the beginning episode) gave me a sense of wonder: I wanted to learn more about the universe in which it took place, about the characters, etc. I couldn't get enough of it. Then when I saw Serenity, the big reveal left me saying "meh" and the possibilities had been reduced to a rather uninteresting actuality. I felt that we were left with few relevant questions, and so I lost all interest in it.

Regardless of whether you had the same feeling, the point is that wonder comes from a feeling of virtually limitless possibility. A lack of a sense of wonder comes from an experience of an arid actuality.

This is one reason why I prefer old school D&D (Classic and 1e): it is so open and 'inelegant' that it fosters creativity - it's not a well-oiled machine wherein everything works predictably and according to the same transparent rationale. 3E and its hand-wringing about movement grids and stacking modifiers seems like it was designed by and for engineers or accountants. Old school D&D is a weird Rube Goldberg device that could produce practically any result.

Example: In 3E the Wand of Wonder becomes the Rod of Wonder. Why? Because Rods and Wands were standardized in 3E: wands are for spellcasters and rods are for everybody. But I ask you: what part of "Wand of Wonder" suggests standardization? It's magic, people, not Trigonometry! If the way it works is totally obvious, intelligible and standardized... it's no longer magical.