World of warcraft general. Discuss the lore of the warcraft universe and its potential uses in ttrpgs

Yes, it used piece of frostmourne as its base.
Not all of it through.

alright, question from someone who's been out of the loop on Warcraft fluff for ages
Warlords of Draenor basically retconned the First War, right? Like, the Orcs were never corrupted by the Burning Legion and all that? Why was the Warcraft movie focused on the old version of the First War which never happened? Was it ever explained in any capacity?
Best I could figure is they went with muh alternate timelines, but from all of the interaction with the Bronze Dragonflight in the game, there shouldn't be such a thing as alternate timelines. If you went back in time it just made a new timeline, they wouldn't have cared about preserving the correct history and all that shit because from their point of view, nothing would change at all.

It's alternate timelines. They've fucked the lore harder than ever this expansion. Their quote on the matter is "don't worry about it too much XD it's just for fun!"

>Warlords of Draenor basically retconned the First War, right?
No, Warlords was an alternate reality of uncorrupted but warmongering orcs trying to take over the main universe's Azeroth.

In the main universe (read: The one we'll be spending Legion), the first war still happened as normal.

>Why was the Warcraft movie focused on the old version of the First War which never happened?
Actually, the movie was more like an alternate take on the first war. It's not quite how it happened in 'our' timeline, but also close enough in broad strokes to fit perfectly fine. It's important to get potential fans used to 'true in broad strokes, detailed fucked up by a dozen writers' early.

>there shouldn't be such a thing as alternate timelines.
That's handwaved by "fancy magical trinket made based on the mechanics of the Timeless Isle." In other words, it doesn't follow the standard laws of time travel.

It's stupid, we know, but time travel usually requires the superhero maxim: It's about making the story possible, not making the story make sense. Multiple writers, no in house communication, et al. Just replace optic blasts with arcane blasts.

alright cool, thanks for explaining as well as can be hoped.

>World of warcraft general.

Happy to be of service.

>isn't that how you we a setting
I don't know what the hell you just said, but I think I agree with it.

The tl;dr version of WoD is basically that alternate universe in the past Draenor was accessed by Garrosh, but his plan failed and he died like a bitch. The only thing you need to know is that alternate universe Gul'dan, got sent through a portal to our world and is the only thing of any relevance to come out of WoD.

Alternate universe Gul'dan also has a different backstory to the one that we know, so he is basically a completely different person, but can still feel a connection to the one that died.

WoD is hilarious in hindsight

They started to make it, then realized it was a terrible idea mid-way through. Which was perfect, if they had realized it earlier they could have scrapped the expansion and replaced it with a better one, if they realized it later or never realized it, WoD would actually be about warlords of draenor.

But they realized it at the mid point, and thus had a massive swerve in direction right in the middle. And it's amazing

>World of warcraft general.

That isn't remotely what happened.

They swapped in a bunch of the devs that were working on Titan, because they have to do SOMETHING with the assholes they're paying.

Cue clusterfuck and nobody knew what the fuck to do.

Why is there so little love for the Draenei in the lore? They were a one hit wonder in BC and then got some recognition in WoD, but other than that, they get ignored. Why? They are the most advanced race, magically and technologically; they are the longest lived race; and they are the most original looking race.

You ask why, then explain precisely why

Why?

youtube.com/watch?v=i3io2Cgbiqg

There's some bits about them colonizing a few areas of the world no one else is currently living at. I think one is around where the Wildhammer dwarves are hanging out.

They also pop up as NPCs in a few other areas scattered across Azeroth.

The gist is usually "Hey, we want to live here. Will it upset anyone if we build a town here?" Because, you know, displaced race that lost their home. Then lost their new home. Then their ship crashed. And they gradually lost a lot of their great technology as they couldn't get their hands on proper materials and a lot of their engineers have died.

I get the feeling that most draenei are either paladins kicking ass or trying to, since they're paladins or they just want to find a quiet corner of Azeroth to never have to deal with crazy shit ever again.

...then the Legion shows up. Here's hoping they don't lose their third home!

At its core, Warcraft lore is really great, but the problem is their is so much shitty lore that weighs it down.

The solution is, if you're running a tabletop roleplaying game, you get to pick and choose what lore to use and what lore to chuck.

In my opinion, the strongest stuff is the humans vs orcs stuff, and the further you get away from that with stuff like night elves and blood elves and draenei and pandaren and what not, the weaker the lore becomes. That's just my personal preferences, though, and others might really love night elf lore. Again, beauty is you get to pick and choose. It's a lore buffet and if you think the chicken wings are shit you don't have to put them on your plate. Your lore plate.

Being cute space goats is suffering.

It is my opinion that your opinion is why Warcraft lore is so fucked today

Bitch

>I don't want anything interesting
>I want orcs and humans stabbing each other like every other fantasy setting
I kid, though, feel whatever you want.

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Is there a really good system for Warcraft roleplay, one that emulates WoW on the tabletop?

>In my opinion, the strongest stuff is the humans vs orcs stuff, and the further you get away from that with stuff like night elves and blood elves and draenei and pandaren and what not, the weaker the lore becomes.

Hello Kosak. Surprised to see you on a thread like this.

Seriously though, to each their own. Even if it is people like you that keep the horde vs alliance conflict alive long after it should have by all accounts permanently ended.

I don't see a problem with conflict between the Horde and the Alliance. A strained relationship between them is interesting

Outright war, on the other hand, ruined the setting

I can agree to that: it doesn't make sense that they're still trying to do the Horde vs Alliance conflict, even if that's the stuff I like.

She was banged by the dragon who was even older
And who is older-she or Thrall?

They're around the same age, I think Thrall might be a bit older

got any more pics of the ship that never was?

I wish there was a game solely about the Draenei. Shit would be cash, yo.

Jaina is older than Thrall.

a year younger. thrall and arthas had the same age in the manual.

Jaina should be a couple years older than Thrall, given that Jaina was born before the First War.

I completely agree with that. The two sides being stuck in a cold war neither side wants to turn hot is one of things i like about pre-cata azeroth. Open conflict however should by all accounts have ended with Warcraft 3.

Didn't SC2 have a Protoss campaign? I'm joking.

>Outright war, on the other hand, ruined the setting
>Warcraft was ruined from its very inception
deep

4e?

Is there a 4e Warcraft conversion? I know they did it for 3.5e.

You don't really need one, unless you want to represent the classes 1:1.

I'd kind of like it to play a lot like World of Warcraft rather than D&D but in the Warcraft universe.

>represent the classes 1:1.
Impossible in 4e. Outside of stale meems, it's not actually in any way like WoW. More like FFT.

What is it specifically that you want to emulate?

I was just going off the wc3 manual.

So, basically, Titan was fucking up WoW both while it was developed (because they reasigned people from the WoW team and made it understaffed) AND after it was scrapped (when the people came back and had no idea what they are doing)?

Good job, Blizzard

I've been working on a homebrew one

Still stuck on races though, and I haven't even touched classes yet

Warcraft Trolls are hard to make in 4e

>Impossible in 4e. Outside of stale meems, it's not actually in any way like WoW.

It's the closest to WoW you can get that I know of, short of making a new game lifting mechanics wholesale. It is still closer to FFT, yes.

>I'd kind of like it to play a lot like World of Warcraft rather than D&D but in the Warcraft universe.

What does that even mean?

Well, like the spells and abilities. If I'm playing a Warrior, I want to be able to Charge and Heroic Strike. I'd also like to do at least one version of specializations. Also ability scores should be pretty much the same.

Basically, is there a game that plays pretty much like WoW, except it's a tabletop, rather than a game that's just D&D using the Warcraft setting?

You'd have to make one from scratch for that

Could be worse. They could have done really financially stupid, like can WoW, announce Titan the next day, and then can Titan.

I've seen companies do stupider things. I will never fucking forgive NCSoft...

Sometimes, you have to loosely interpret lore for the sake of game balance. Troll regen, after all...
>I'm regenerating 5 HP and you can't stop me!

It means, when I play something like the Star Wars d20, it doesn't quite feel like Star Wars. It feels like I'm playing d20 with Star Wars in it. But when I play EotE, it feels like I'm playing a Star Wars movie.

Well I was trying to turn the racial powers in WoW into racial encounter powers in 4e

But beserking, well, that's an attack speed increase. Which isn't really a thing in 4e, so it doesn't work.

>If I'm playing a Warrior, I want to be able to Charge and Heroic Strike.
4e powers, closest you can get in a turn based environment.
>I'd also like to do at least one version of specializations.
Do you want to be a two-hander Fighter, a sword-and-board Fighter or a dual wielding Fighter? 4e has you covered.
>Also ability scores should be pretty much the same.
Uh... That requires some mechanical find and replace. Swapping Cleric to have INT as its primary stat is as easy as replacing every instance of WIS with INT. Secondary stats, not quite so much.

Unless you're thinking vanilla, when getting strength AND intellect on pally plate wasn't surprising.

TL;DR: You can kludge a 'close enough' version, depending on how you define 'close enough.' Otherwise

Well, when it boils down to it, attacking faster and attacking harder are very comparable, in terms of DPS. Since you're working with fraction of a minute rounds instead of a 1.5s GCD, representing it as a bonus to damage would work to represent it.

But orcs already have an "attack harder" racial encounter power

As in, I just straight copied the 4e half-orc power over for orcs, because it fits really nicely.

Also, which stats trolls get racial bonuses in is also tricky

Unfortunately I am not currently on the computer where I had everything saved, so I can't post what I've done so far here

Right, but in relation to WoW, how does a d20 system not fit?

What mechanics would you need that aren't included, or which mechanics are clashing?

Wanna see my 4e WoW notes? I'll share a few of the races.

>Orc (Half-Orc)
>Remains unchanged from Half-Orc.
Because it works.

>Tauren (Minotaur)
>Remains unchanged from Minotaur.
Really, it was the +2 to Nature that sold it.

>Forsaken (Revenant)
>As Revenant, except that their ability scores are: +2 CHA; +2 CON or STR.

>Troll (Longtooth Shifter)
>As Longtooth Shifter, except that their ability scores are: +2 DEX; +2 STR or WIS.
For the Forsaken and Trolls, I based the bonuses roughly on their starting stats in WoW, but tweaked a little for the different stat spread and the need to accommodate some added variety.

>wow.gamepedia.com/Race
I may be more lax about kludging rules than you are.

I had no idea that Arthas cuckolded Kael. That's awesome.

top tier bants here

>BHC

Nah, it's better than that: Kael wanted to hook up, but never even got close.

Jaina gives all the guys the cold shoulder.

Well, I'd also like similar mechanics. Like a Warrior has rage, Rogue action, casters mana, that sort of thing.

Mine was a bit different for some of those

My orcs had +2 STR; +2 CON or CHA as their racial bonuses

My Tauren had the earthsoul genasi racial power instead of goring charge, because it's basically war stomp.

My forsaken had to choose either elf or human as their past soul option, and had +2 CON; +2 INT or CHA as their racial bonuses

Not Arthas, They definitely hooked up. They talked about getting married and having kids. Arthas ending up calling it off though because he felt like he was too young to manage fathering a family, the silver hand, and learning to be a king.

>>orcs in game
>>hunched over, strong looking but not glamorized

>>orcs in cutscenes
>>tall and jacked like a bodybuilder

why tho

>WC3 Arthas
>literally the best bants of any video game character that isn't 100% comic relief

>WoW Arthas
>haha you lied to that guy and it was funny so i kill him instead of u kthxbai
Saronite: not even once

It's like you've never even read Arthas: The Rise of the Lich King.

Is it decent? The only warcraft book I've read was day of the dragon and that was like 15 years ago.

if it has : bants and KT bromance im in.

Yes. That book was full of shit

What would Sylvanas done to Arthas if KT didn't show up? Being serious here.

>you know i already checked rule 34 though

The movie is the fucking worst in this regard.
Do they not fucking realize human proportions in warcraft are weird?

Left him with an itch he could never scratch.

I thought that was weird too. Everything is stylized and cartoony like Warcraft except the humans, so you get things like Lothar's hands not even able to grip an orc's fingers.

The way magic works in DnD is very different from how it works in Warcraft, for one.

In DnD, you're limited by the amount of spell slots of certain level, and by what spells you prepared for those slots. So if you prepared fireball 3 times you can cast it 3 times, and you can't choose to cast a different spell with that slot unless you rest and re-prepare spells.
In Warcraft, casters are instead limited by their manapool. A mage can keep casting fireball until running out of mana, and if the target is immune to fire damage they can instead just cast frostbolt or something.

4e is different (although, still not mana): casters have both daily spells and spells that recharge after a short rest (~5 mins) as well as at-will spells that can be spammed as much as they want.

Is mana a thing in WoW? I mean, I know it's a "thing" but do you actually have to pay attention to it? I was under the impression cooldown management is more important.

Conversion to mana system is actually easy: encounter spells cost 1 mana, you have mana equal to the number of encounter spells you have, daily spells cost 2 mana.

Not that simple, as you either get daily powers that refresh on a short rest or spammable daily powers.

There's a reason psionic classes (beside Monk) in only use power points for encounter powers and still have dailies as a separate mechanic.

Though daily powers could be the REALLY long cooldown spells, like Bloodlust.

Yeah, the tradeoff here is that while you do get to reuse dailies, in the combats you do you get less "big" spells total.

I think it's relatively balanced, especially since few dailies are 2x as strong as an encounter.

/thread

Of course few dailies do 2X as much as an encounter

If they did, they'd be bullshit OP. It's not how strong they are that matters, it's how many actions it takes to do them.

Action economy is everything in 4e

Yeah, and you pay for the better result/action with having less powerful actions in total.

Like, sure, if the combat only lasts 2 rounds, then spending your 4 mana on 2 dailies seems worth it, but 4 encounter powers, or 2 encounter + 1 daily probably would have worked out better for most other combats.

Torture + kill Arthas.

Followed by hot banshee on banshee sex

My point is that 1 daily costing the same as 2 encounters is not a fair trade

1 daily costing 3 encounters is probably closer, depending on the dailies and encounter powers in question, of course.

As a general rule though, I'd try to avoid using a modified 4e power system for Warcraft, it's better than 3.5 or 5e for sure, but it still doesn't match up with spellcasters, let alone warriors or rogues with their crazy resources

>but it still doesn't match up with spellcasters, let alone warriors or rogues with their crazy resources

Then again, tracking those is kinda shit in a tabletop anyway (unless you massively simplify them, at which point you could modify 4e to do it imo).

finally a thread without any horde wank

fucking disgusting people

fans of the horde should be banned from these threads (and the game)

Reminder that the Horde is the most interesting faction.

youtube.com/watch?v=5U71Rvr5ZNQ

Doctors recommended Horde players to reduce their sodium intake.

Then who would the Alliance fight?

gtfo of these threads, you piece of shit. horde fans are the cancer ruining these threads and the game/lore/setting in general.

you are a dumb, worthless idiot

Yaay, more faction warfare.

it's not warfare you faggot

stop pretending to be neutral when you're really just a horde sympathizer

gtfo of these threads and stop shitting up warcraft with your awful faction

WE

WUZ

KANGZ

>It's the closest to WoW you can get that I know of, short of making a new game lifting mechanics wholesale.
As long as your criteria of 'like WoW' are 'actually works' and 'mechanics were actually thought out and not written on a hunch'
And I'm not certain the latter applies to WoW

you're a bit late

>All this false flagging

SIMPLY EPIC!

>Do you want to be a two-hander Fighter, a sword-and-board Fighter or a dual wielding Fighter?
Did you just fail to mention grab-an-enemy-by-the-face-and-drag-him-all-over-the-combat-map Fighter?!