From D&D to Auren (How to Play-Test A World)

One of the nicer comments I get from my readers is when they tell me that my world feels lived in. That it has an organic, or even inevitable, feel to it rather than a “This is the way it is because it serves the plot” kind of vibe.

And there’s a very good reason for that. 

I’ve been playing D&D since its origins with the Blue Box many (many) years ago. In some ways it’s informed my identity as a storyteller. One of the best things about being a DM is that you get the opportunity to share your imagination with others. You’re not just saying, “This thing happened. And that led to this thing happening. And then this.” With a good group of players, you say, “This thing happened. Now what are you going to do in response to that?”

At that point you, as the Person In Charge of Everything In the Imaginary World, get to try and stay one step ahead of some very intelligent (and sometimes crazy) players who want to defeat the baddie in ways that never would have occurred to you as real options. Things that, when you were writing down the bare bones of the adventure/storyline you thought, “Well, obviously they’d never do that.” But yes, yes, they would.

There’s a great comic book out there called “Knights of the Dinner Table” that really got into that whole dynamic where the beleaguered DM just wanted to tell a great story and the players found traps that weren’t there, ignored traps that were so obviously traps that it was comical, and featured characters that were 100% convinced that the DM just wanted to kill them all.

I’ve absolutely cultivated that image as a DM that I’ll happily kill a character, or multiple characters (although I think I’ve pulled off a TPK [Total Party Kill] only twice in 40 years or so of playing) if people aren’t on their toes when they’re at my table. But I’m not actually out to kill anyone so much as I’m trying to tell a story that keeps everyone on the edge of their seat.

If someone dies in the name of the story, hey, tragedy sells, right? And as soon as the campaign is over, I have my players bugging me immediately for when the next campaign starts up. But when I brought this up to my poor, abused players and said, “If I’m such a mean DM, why are you all so eager for the next campaign?”

And they created the phrase PTLD–Post Traumatic Leonard Disorder–as the reason. I was both honored and amused by the condition that I apparently subject my players to and truly wear it like a badge.

All this is background to let you know that the terrible things I do to your favorite characters in The Storm Cycle follow a grand tradition–although none of the characters in the book are reflections of any of the many player characters that have made their way through the various incarnations of Auren.

And there have been a lot of incarnations. I created Auren using AD&D rules, switched to 2nd edition when it came out (and, yes, death was too good for THAC0 [you serious old-schoolers know of what I speak]), moved on to 3.0 and 3.5…and then was hideously disappointed with the terrible step that was 4th edition. 

So were a lot of people, which led to the infamous schism wars in the RPG community. It’s amusing to watch true nerds get ready to throw down when you dis their preferred method of killing orcs and trolls, but for a long time, if you even mentioned Pathfinder when you walked into a room full of 4th edition fans, you better hope you packed your chainmail and your longsword because poo was about to get real. 

Then came 5th edition and Pathfinder 2nd edition, and everyone learned to get along with a bit more respect and understanding…for the poor, unguided souls who didn’t play what you played.

As the decades progressed, so, too, did the races in my world. I’ve always been fairly bored with the idea that no matter what version of the game you played, Dwarves were gruff but lovable miners and tinkerers, and Elves were lithe, beautiful creatures who were better than any other race and arrogant about it. 

But when my third player in a row chose to play a Dwarf with a Scottish accent who liked to drink, and my fourth Elf character was played as a perfect quasi-Vulcan, I decided I wanted to change everything. 

What if I took the core emotional/racial quirk of both races, distilled them down to their raw essences, and then built up an entirely new creature that filled a similar niche, but wasn’t basically a (minor) variation of Tolkien’s original vision? Since every Prime Plane in the multiverse was supposed to be different with different gods, why couldn’t they have different versions of Dwarves and Elves, right?

Thus was born the Vansernic. Something that if you look at it carefully enough, you can see the Dwarven blueprint, but although the similarities are there, this ain’t Papa Tolkien’s Gimli in any way. Yes, they’re more comfortable under the mountain, but they aren’t short, broad humans with a penchant for gruffness or greed. I actually patterned their philosophy partly on Buddhist thought, kept the craftsman gene, but applied it to All of The Things rather than just armor, gem-cutting, and weapon forging. Then I removed the beards and gave them physiological traits that fit their below-ground lifestyle.

It took a while for one of my players to try and play this new type of “Dwarf”, and credit where it’s due, he nailed it. I rewarded him by having his character become divine living firmament at the end of the campaign. He yammered on and on about being turned into a permanent statue waiting for Shadahs Surespear’s second coming, but I thought he was rewarded in the best way possible.

Tomato, tomahto, y’know?

The Elves went through a similar transition, but when it came time to write Prelude to the Storm, I wanted to create something that deviated so much from the blueprint that it isn’t really recognizable as an Elf anymore. 

I’d already changed how they acted in my campaign world before the restructuring of the blueprint, and again, had a player who nailed the new Elf attitude so well that other players asked her to stop staring at them “like an Elf”. That’ll make more sense to most of you when Storm Clouds Gather comes out next year.

The Orman Perisie are so far physiologically from an Elf that the blueprint looks like it got tossed into the trash can and set alight. Some see them more as Dryads now in ancestry, and I can see the argument, but trust me, they were once pointy-eared.

The gods went through quite a few changes as new iterations of the game progressed, too. One of them even went and got killed by the players (with the help of some other gods who were feeling mean-spirited), but, as the saying goes, “He got better.”

And just in time for The Storm Cycle, too.

In this way, and in ways too numerous to count, my world has been tested, broken, stitched back together, fractured, and reformed. It’s like a sword that has been refolded to the point that it bends without breaking and has an edge sharp enough to cut other weapons as if they’re made of flimsy wood–a scene that you’ll get to experience in Storm Warnings, by the way, coming out in 2028.

I hope you all enjoy the world of Auren as much as my players and I have enjoyed play-testing it over the years. You should find it roomy and welcoming, but with lots of exciting challenges and surprises around every corner, too.

If I’m lucky, you’ll all come down with a serious case of PTLD.