Sense of Wonder

[alex_greene]

Question to players: what gives you a sense of wonder when you're playing Traveller?

Question to Referees: What do you do to give players a sense of wonder in your Traveller games?

I'm asking this question as a sort of an extension to my Pure at Heart thread.

In common with characters who were purer and nobler than most - even as flawed and tormented antiheroes - the prime ingredient of the kind of Far Future Traveller always sought to emulate was a vivid sense of wonder: the kind that makes one imagine the vast, sweeping landscapes of alien worlds and gape in awe at the strange beauty of the Universe.

So, spill. What makes your games more than just any old SF RPG? What makes your games uniquely, distinctively Traveller?

 

[BP]

Actually we never played this way - just seems too abstact to be really playable with a game system...

A sense of adventure was imbibed by the challenge of overcoming mysteries, defeating foes and encountering unique plot artifacts - and doing it with style and most importantly teamwork and comraderie. As a referee I might descibe something as awe-inspiring, but real inspiration was in the implementation of imagination in what the players choose to do - not visions of the setting.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the question or your meaning?

 

[rust]

Question to Referees: What do you do to give players a sense of wonder in your Traveller games?

I try to offer the players locations and situations that are different from
what they have imagined before: More mysterious, more beautiful, mo-
re touching ...

The difficult part is to avoid both overused cliches and the all too easy
way of only making stuff bigger and more powerful to impress the play-
ers.
And I consider it important to offer the player characters an interesting
and meaningful way to interact with the locations and situations, not just
to watch or witness them.

In my experience much depends on the willingness of the players to "get
into the mood" and use their own imagination and ability to wonder in or-
der to complement the framework I can offer them.
Therefore I try to give only the basic description, and to leave as much
as possible to the players' own imagination, instead of drowning them in
details that could get in the way of their own fantasy.

In my opinion it is a bit like describing the locations and creatures of a
game like Call of Cthulhu, although usually without the dark mythos con-
nections: All that is really needed are a couple of colourful words for the
players to create an imagination around them.

 

[Mithras]

For me its nearly always adventure locations, and especially eworlds and landscapes. I don't run, world ofthe week, with no time to put in any details and every world being bland Earth-types with same-old starports. I keep it all close in and subsector sized, and lavish some description on my worlds. So they feel alien, exotic.

I typically take an extreme environment on Earth, then hike it up a bit, add other terrain features too and then create the settlement and vehicles and economy around it. I look for how that weird twist will affect life, and make sure the PCs see it and they will usually remember that world because of the details.

Eg. I watched a documentary on the rainest place on Earth, I think it was in the mountains of India. So I'd create a wet world with massive rainfall, using rainshadow mountains, huge rivers, lush vegetation and marshes, flooded fields that grow rice, houses on stilts, use of airboats, hovercraft etc. And I'd keep on adding details until it doesn't resemble India much anymore ... but the seed is there.

 

[Rex]

The Sheer vastness of Space. Works for my players. Well that, and, In a Sci Fi Role Playing Game, only the other people at the table, can hear you scream.


~Rex