Quote from: thedungeondelver;619384More later, if you're interested.

I get what you're saying, and it is a different way to define the "sense of wonder" than previous posts have assumed, including mine. I totally would love to see what further thoughts you have in that regard.

Quote from: The Butcher;619374Old World of Darkness, for being the first setting that I really got into.

Mage: The Ascension (2e) comes to mind, and especially its Book of Worlds supplement which details the different realms of the Umbra.

In the non-WoD department, I (of course) find Nobilis good for evocative beyond-the-fields-we-know weirdness.

Quote from: The Butcher;619374Eclipse Phase, for suturing tropes from all over transhuman SF into a very enticing game setting that, while not strictly hard SF (it's even got psionics), feels "hard SF" like no other game that I know of.

Yeah, Eclipse Phase blew my mind a little the first time I played it. While I was horrified by many of the implications/assumptions it was just so... not what I was expecting, in a good way. I think I spent most of that first session a little bit stoned on its concepts (the same thing happened to me when I went to see The Matrix without ANY idea what it was about).

EDIT: I'd also like to think Cadwallon would have some of that magic... the setting, Aarklash, certainly hits me that way. I'm not sure if it would carry through Cadwallon's baroque rules for tactical combat... or maybe they would push it further. It's a high magic setting... but the magic feels different... like fairy tales. It seems to me like if Warhammer's setting were reinterpreted through by Disney (without straining all the darkness out).

for me recently, B/X D&D. I just discovered it for the first time. I never got to play anything even remotely associated with D&D growing up (Satanic Panic), and never really got into D&D until 3.x. I'd owned copies of AD&D1e and 2e briefly, but never really got to play them (except 1e briefly), but those experiences werent enough to really sink in. A friend of mine gave me a copy of the Basic set, and I really need to get an Expert set at some point.

I would have to add DCC and ACKS to this list as well. DCC for the shear wacky/trippy/gonzo of it all, and ACKS for just being awesome rules.

As far as settings go, Mystara is in the top of my list. Followed by Birthright, Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Dragon Age, Warhammer The Old World, Middle Earth. All of these have evoked a sense of wonder, and excitement.

Over the Edge. Easy to relate to and close to home as it is almost like the real world, which makes the settings utter weirdness that more exhilarating and wondrous.

I really hope Arrows of Indra will do this for some people. It did for me!

RPGPundit

Quote from: thedungeondelver;619382I would say, for me, it's AD&D and Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play that really "do it" as far as a sense of wonder go.

I'd say Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay too, but only the 1st Edition with its quirks, folklore, weird creatures (Zoats, Fimir, Daemons of Law!), strange gods  expansive geography and mish-mash of Tolkien and Moorcock. I don't think people who play the 3rd Edition get this. Warhammer 1st Edition wasn't just grim and gritty - it was weird too, magical.

Quote from: elfandghost;619453I'd say Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay too, but only the 1st Edition with its quirks, folklore, weird creatures (Zoats, Fimir, Daemons of Law!), strange gods  expansive geography and mish-mash of Tolkien and Moorcock. I don't think people who play the 3rd Edition get this. Warhammer 1st Edition wasn't just grim and gritty - it was weird too, magical.

Yeah; I'd meant to say WHFRP 1e there...2e had a more streamlined rule system but was too Grimdark for me in terms of pure background.  3e is...not...erm, not to my taste as I can tell.  I don't know what they did/didn't do with the background.

Easily Palladium Fantasy and Rifts.

Fading Suns was pretty good for this, it struck the right note between mythic and technical. Also it didn't try to explain everything, the unexplained is an excellent way to generate a sense of wonder.

To me, a "sense of wonder" comes from the setting and not (very much) from the rules. As I tend to play and run game systems when the setting is not a part of the game system, I haven't played many games with a combined setting. However, if I had to pick a couple I'd say Empire of the Petal Throne (in most of iots incarnations) and TORG.

Interesting that some people associate "sense of wonder" with the gonzo, anything-is-possible idea and thus bring up Torg or Rifts. That's a fair take, but to me it's more like the sense of wonder I get when hiking in the mountains or looking into space, something atavistic. A sword, a dark forest and a rustle in the bushes, or alternatively a vast, cold void.

Some games that invoke that feeling for me are Dragon Warriors, for its connection with folklore, OD&D for its mythic, bare-bones underworld-delving feeling, and Traveller, for its vision of a few tonnes of steel sliding past the stars holding a few fragile souls squeezing as much cash and life out of existence as they can.

Yeah, I gotta say that for me "sense of wonder" and "anything can happen" are two different things.

I'm inclined to agree with Killfuck's examples and will also add one mild example of my own: I really kind of dig Larry Elmore's artwork for AD&D 2nd edition stuff. I think it captures the whole "step into a Ray Feist novel" aspect of that era of gaming nicely and whilst I know it isn't the most fashionable playing aim the fact is that's the style D&D had when I joined the hobby so that's the one which gives me the warm fuzzies the easiest.

Plus check this out - I love that picture in particular, it looks like a gang of adventurers dragged their kill to Larry's studio to get a portrait done. The combination of very realistic-looking characters, lush natural scenery, and this element of the fantastic in the middle of it at the one hand being clearly something beyond the normal but at the same time also looking like it's very much a part of this world, that pushes the "sense of wonder" button to me.

(Without precisely defining "sense of wonder").

When I was younger, I had a "sense of wonder" whenever I played other people's rpg games with their own homebrew worlds.  (ie. Something which didn't resemble Greyhawk or Dragonlance).

Since I got back into tabletop rpg games (after 3.5E was released), I didn't feel much (if any) "sense of wonder" whatsoever.  This was the case even for games I use to play a lot when I was younger (ie. TSR era D&D, Runequest, etc ...).

The only semi-plausible explanation I can think of, is that back in the day when I was 12 years old, everything seemed exciting.  As I got older, a lot of stuff became less and less exciting, and felt more like "going through the motions" more than anything else.

Quote from: Warthur;619496Plus check this out - I love that picture in particular, it looks like a gang of adventurers dragged their kill to Larry's studio to get a portrait done. The combination of very realistic-looking characters, lush natural scenery, and this element of the fantastic in the middle of it at the one hand being clearly something beyond the normal but at the same time also looking like it's very much a part of this world, that pushes the "sense of wonder" button to me.

That is one of my favorite pieces of fantasy art. When I think of fantasy gaming, that's what I want it to be like.

It rarely has been though...

Not to say that is bad, but it is something that I feel is "missing" somewhere in my gaming experience.