World of Warcraft Setting

[Dragonbait]

Just as an aside for setting flavor and fluff - the Hoard/Alliance conflict would appear to limit character selection (choose a side, THEN choose a race and class) and yet, as indicated in the game, there is a HUGE amount of neutral groups who freely mix hoard and alliance races. I can't name those groups specifically since its been so long since I've played the game but I know there are many examples of trolls, humans, tauren, gnolls, and so on working together peacefully.

Its a tiny little world. An average citizen takes up a LOT of space in an area.

What is this? !!! A campaign world for ANTS!!! In order to be useful the world would have to be at least 10 times the size.

The game scales everything down to a reasonable size and its assumed that the continents are MUCH larger than they appear in the game.

 

[Voadam]

I played in a WoW RPG game and had a great time even though my knolwedge of the setting was limited to the Manual of Monsters and a little of the Lands of conflict book, i.e. almost none outside of the monsters.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The game scales everything down to a reasonable size and its assumed that the continents are MUCH larger than they appear in the game.

Sarcasm is lost on you Pinky

 

[JackSmithIV]

Dude, as a veteran of Wow All I can say is I'd never run an Azeroth game... it's too clichè and unispiring for me... =/

Its a tiny little world. An average citizen takes up a LOT of space in an area.

I think these things are only true if you're playing World of Warcraft: The MMORPG: The Game. The world is so much more than that in the MMORPG. If you take out raid instances, crafting in 10 seconds, and Barrens chat, and view Dun Morough as something you can cross in more than 8 minutes of tireless jogging, than Azeroth has alot to offer. It has an intrinsic theme of corruption, a colorful and diverse environment, and an accessable (and not always godly) cast of powerful and relatable NPCs. And if there's anything you can learn from WoW, there's so much to do. In fact, WoW offers so many opportunities for campaign seeds it's rediculous.

Look at Warhammer Fantasy Role Play. If you judged it based on Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, you'd miss the whole thing. The Old World is enormous. It's simply some of the most horrifyingly epic a dark, gritty, corrupt fantasy world can get. If you only look at it from the perspective of someone playing the MMORPG, you might miss the fact that a real denizen of Altdorf has a whole lot more to fear than PvP.

Open up your mind, look to the lore and core books, and find inspiration in the MMO, not restrictions. When we allow an MMORPG to warp our views of perfectly good settings to the point where we can't use them anymore, MMOs have truely started to beat out PnPs.

 

[Dragonbait]

Sarcasm is lost on you Pinky

d'oh!

 

[MadMaxim]

I'd say that my biggest concern with the Warcraft books are how unbalanced some of the mechanics are. That's perhaps more noticable in the old version which I own and not as prevalent in the newer World of Warcraft edition. I found a lot of the races to be rather unbalanced like the Tauren being just +1 level adjustment for being Large and having pretty favorable ability score adjustments as far as I remember. I very much liked the scout and healer class, but a lot of the prestige classes were busted in my opinion. The same goes for a lot of the feats which had descriptions and descriptors that sometimes didn't make a whole lot of sense (I remember a few feats being metamagic without having much to do with magic as such). I love the setting (played Warcraft 1 to 3 with expansions) and have run a couple sessions using the setting, but that was before World of Warcraft and the players didn't really get into the lore too much, so it was basically more fun for me as a DM than them as players. I'd love to give it another go, though

 

[Andor]

I think Azeroth could be a great setting. It's got everything from epic victory to tragedy (Thrall, Arthas), pathos (Blood Elves desperately fighting their addiction), heroism and comedy (anything to do with goblins).

You could do anything from a straight up monster bash fighting off the scourge to political intrigue and mystical horror as the PCs try to find out what the Forsaken and the Blood Elves are really up to. Or you could be a bunch of gnome and goblin traders trying to keep your ramshackle zepplin operational and turn a profit.

BTW, am I the only one who gets creeped out by the Centaur hide rugs?

 

[Yanomahir]

Surprisingly, there isn't a lot of resistance to the idea of a WoW PnP campaign among the gamers I know. I don't want to speak for others, but I get the feeling that the WoW world can be mined for some cool cliches and tropes, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Plus, some of the more dynamic boss fights in WoW could be translated to PnP, making for very tactical and fun encounters. I'm pretty sure that a Romeo/Juliet style fight could be interesting and terribly fun.

... at least 10 times the size.

Damn you, ExploderWizard. You just forced me to netflix queue a DVD that I haven't seen in a very long time. I'll send you a bill.