Sense of wonder?

[Voadam]

Part of it can be the emphasis on the number details of mechanically doing out a combat. There are a lot more numbers to modify and keep track of in 3e than in 1e. It slows things down and can take people out of the feel of the moment.

 

[Voadam]

This is a problem that comes from any edition when you have players that read the monster manuals. How many of you have seen/heard this?

Even if you have a player in 3.x who doesn't read the MM, they'll probably be able to figure out the various abilities of a troll fairly quickly, though only if they read the MM will they get down the number of HD, rend damage, and regeneration amount.

Figure out that it has claws and rend, pretty quick. That it heals really quick, pretty easy to pick up on too from descriptions. That it does not heal damage from acid or fire? I always thought that was a big stretch to pick up on from encountering them unless the caster has fire spells as his standard arsenal.

 

[hexgrid]

When I was in the sixth grade, the mere existence of dice with more (or less) than 6 sides was enough to fill me with a sense of wonder. The single d20 I bought from behind the counter at the toy store was a prized possession.

These days, dice do nothing for me sense-of-wonder-wise. What are the dice manufacturers doing wrong?

 

[Umbran]

First edtiion the players didn't know what they needed to save or to hit people.

It seems to me that players generally know less about what they need now than they used to.

In the old days, what you needed to roll to make a save was set by your level. You knew your level, you knew your save. No wonder at all. Today, you know a save bonus, but the DC is in the DM's hands, and the player generally doesn't know it.

In the old days, your THAC0 was set by your level. If you knew the AC of the critter, you knew what you needed to roll. The same today - you still need to know the AC of the critter to know what you need to roll.

 

[CalicoDave]

In short, if your "sense of wonder" is informed by the words written on the page, as opposed to coming from the moments around the table (actual gameplay) then as soon as the players have read through the books there is a danger that "sense of wonder" will be gone.

To expand on that, if a player's sense of wonder comes from not knowing that a creature has a certain number of HD, once that number of HD is known, the wonder is gone. If, however, the DM builds the sense of wonder around an idea that the creature has hidden a strip of cloth in a secret pocket within its trousers, and that piece of cloth is made only in one place (two countries west) and imported by the Archduke, whom the creature serves, and the players use a Knowledge (local) check DC 27 to have a "Eureka" moment to discover such a thing and solve the mystery of who is behind a rash of killings, then the HD of the creature doesn't make much difference.

A DM needs to be more than what is written for him in the books he buys.


"Gobbledegook", indeed!

I agree with Mark's gobbledegook.

The DM can really keep the "sense-of-wonder" going. My group has just shifted from one DM to another (we rotate about every 6 months). The first DM spent his 6 months sending us up against nothing but Apes and Dire Apes. No sense-of-wonder there, after a while. The new DM I've never played under before so there is a huge sense-of-wonder in his campaign. I have no idea what's going to happen or what's around the next corner. To me this is a much more important sense-of-wonder and is much more exciting then just wonder what a monster's stats are.

On the rules side of things, though, templates and class levels are a sure way to keep the players jumping when they think they've memorized all the monsters in all the manuals.

 

[Janx]

I think S'Mon's definition of SOW is different than my own, and probably different than what Quasqueston's thread was about.

It's certainly adjacent.

IMO, SOW is the feeling you get during the game that you don't know everything about the opponent your facing, the magic items you have, the people, the world. It's a sense that there's still more to learn, and that you can't just codify things as it's a CR 1 orc or that's just a +1 Rapier.

In my game, I had given the PC's a flaming longsword, and everburning torch, and a rapier +1.

Counter to the rules as written I had the following:
the flaming sword would initially only ignite during the first attack, not at will of the user
the rapier had a wet, stony blade (strong as steel, but not normal description). Later, I made up extra powers
The everburning torch was a real torch, that never consumed its fuel.

Some of this was accidental, in terms of, I handed out gear, and described how their powers worked initially. This surprised the players, because they expected, based on the RAW, that they could turn on the sword's flame, whenever they wanted. Or that the torch could simply go in their backpack when not in use.

In my view, sense of wonder is added, by making these items different than the stock magic items from the DMG. Once the players realize that everything is different and not factory built, they learn to observe and enjoy the differences they encounter.

Janx

 

[Desdichado]

I have plenty of sense of wonder in the games I play, and hopefully in the games I run. Edition has nothing to do with it.

 

[Belen]

...and once you do, you can never go back to not knowing. I think the primary trouble with many games is the reliance on using the knowledge from the written page as a carrot. Once those pages have been turned, much of the mystery is gone. I believe the "sense of wonder" is best instilled in the moment. The rules and the trappings of the game should be downplayed as much as can be. They are finite, but there are conceivably an infinite number of potential moments.

Damn, you rock.

This is what I have started doing. It also helps that my new group does not analyze every rule or try to understand the mechanics behind the scenes.

 

[VirgilCaine]

This is a problem that comes from any edition when you have players that read the monster manuals. How many of you have seen/heard this?

It's even worse if this is the first troll encountered in a particular campaign. Most players get to know the stock MM creatures fairly quickly. Even if you have a player in 3.x who doesn't read the MM, they'll probably be able to figure out the various abilities of a troll fairly quickly, though only if they read the MM will they get down the number of HD, rend damage, and regeneration amount.

Why do people always bring up trolls? And vampires? And werewolves?

I'd much rather KNOW the PCs won't have any idea of what this is because it's from the Creature Catalog (Thanks, BOZ!) and from an obscure 2e supplement or something I thought up meself (Yeah, thats what happens when a nymph and a medusa are magically fused. Have a nice charmed life.).
I'm not going to worry about the fact that players know that trolls are trolls and vampires are vampires. These are dangerous creatures that people sing songs and tell stories about. These are classic D&D monsters and they are classic monsters IMC, and so people know, burn a troll, stake a vampire, use the silverware on the werewolf.

Or take spells. I've got lots of spells I can throw at the PCs that will amaze them (Thanks www.realmsofevil.net!) and intimidate them. Or I could just vary the description--like with the magic missile example--or say, burning hands (I didn't know gnomes could breath fire!).

You just have to shake up the PCs once in a while.

I got plenty of a "sense of wonder" out of them when they first realized that my setting had huge underground oceans that few on the surface know about and the PCs didn't.

I think I'll just do this. Screw the drow. Everything's an aboleth slave Make a home for the kuo-toa, the morkoths, skum, aboleths, kopoacinths, chuul, and all the other poor fresh-water monsters that don't have homes.
Plus, the random light effects will make it more than a big ugly dark pool.

 

[Belen]

At it's heart, 3e is a dry, textbook mechanically crunchy combat game. The core books are not instilled with the same flavor that categorized previous editions of the game. In 3e, everything is codified. That is both and strength and weakness of the game.

Also, 3e just tends to be crunchy. It has an inordinate amount of conditional bonus' and enough minor rules that people have to keep looking at their sheets or paging through the manuals in order to get everything correct. Each time this happens, you loose a connection to the game itself.

While, I am not saying that 3e is like Warhammer 40k, it has become far more tactical than ever before. A player has so many options in building a character in 3e: classes, prestige classes, equipment, spells, feats, skills, movement. That can be great for building a mechanically unique character, but does not go so well when creating a character with flavor.

I have seen many games where people have "built" a character to 20th before a game has begun. Right there, the player has made a choice that the campaign will not affect him. The events of the game do not matter as much as the mechanics of the character.

Core 3e just does not have a lot of flavor built-in to remind people that PCs can be more than mechanics or that the game is more than the tactics. 3e is codified and wherever possible, the mechanics have been reduced to a formula.

Thus, a unique sense of wonder is lost.

Now, that wonder can be added to the game. It takes a lot of effect on the part of the GM and you need a group that can suspend their disbelief, but it can be done. It was just easier when everything was not a formula and things like spells were not so assured of working so well all the time.