Yep, I'm definitely familiar with the WoW d20 game (and the "Warcraft" game immediately before it). I ran a couple of campaigns back in the day. (Playful_Eye/Moonwolf and Koogrr were in those, and even Gwendel played on occasion.) Alas, the balance factor was way, WAY broken.
Basically, while a lot of work was obviously put into gathering all the lore and filling in a few gaps and so forth, there was a lot of inconsistency about how they were treating the underlying base mechanics of d20 and classes and monsters, and such, and how much they were just "re-skinning" D&D basics, and how much they were trying to introduce Warcaft/WoW stylings.
A prime example would be the relationship between Hunters and Pets, and Druids and Animal Companions.
In the MMO, Hunters are the ones with Pets, whereas Druids do not.
In d20, Druids have Animal Companions, while Rangers (the nearest Hunter equivalent) have a watered-down version of them.
In WoW d20, Druids ALSO have Animal Companions ... and they can Wild Shape ... and they've got spells In WoW d20, Hunters will eventually gets pets ... at level 5. And they aren't as good as Animal Companions. Basically, Druids in WoW d20 were able to out-pet the Hunters!
Another problem was the matter of the cosmology. D&D has long had a big tie between Alignment and certain classes, such as Paladins. Paladins are kind of like Fighters/Warriors, but with these cool extra powers, but the downside is that they have to answer to a higher power, and so forth.
But in World of Warcraft, you have (just for starters) the Scarlet Crusade and evil paladins but they aren't anti-paladins or such. Their powers are indistinguishable from completely good-guy paladins. Same goes for their priests, who all invoke the powers of the Holy Light, and you can quite well have two opposing forces of paladins and priests, both sides invoking the power of the Holy Light against each other, without any higher power going, "Hey, waitaminute, my followers, I'm not going to grant power for you to obliterate each other!"
And then there's the world-setting: in World of Warcraft, you can pretty much expect that you'll be running into every sort of monster, or some flavor thereof, pretty much anywhere on the planet, and whether you're level 1 or level 70, you're going to be in for a fight. In d20 WoW, if there's a murloc, it's level X, and will only be a challenge for a certain narrow range of levels, and then if you have any more murlocs show up, you're either going to have to beef them up with character levels (an arduous, time-consuming process, NOT to be done on the fly), or else they're just a joke, easily taken out with a single spell or sweep attack.
While World of Warcraft owes a great deal to D&D for inspiration, trying to translate the setting back into any flavor of D&D I think requires a little more finesse to work properly. (Or at the very least ... I could have really used some *adventure modules*. There were plenty of sourcebooks, but I don't think I ever saw a single "dungeon" I could simply put the heroes through, without having to make stuff up from scratch.)
All that said, it *has* occurred to me that if I run a tabletop game again, one of the (many) possible settings could be Warcraft. I have plenty of minis that could work, and I could probably "reskin" a D&D dungeon with Warcrafty trappings and name-drops. It would mostly depend upon how many of my potential players are familiar with and/or like the setting.
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Date: 2023-08-20 09:16 pm (UTC)Basically, while a lot of work was obviously put into gathering all the lore and filling in a few gaps and so forth, there was a lot of inconsistency about how they were treating the underlying base mechanics of d20 and classes and monsters, and such, and how much they were just "re-skinning" D&D basics, and how much they were trying to introduce Warcaft/WoW stylings.
A prime example would be the relationship between Hunters and Pets, and Druids and Animal Companions.
In the MMO, Hunters are the ones with Pets, whereas Druids do not.
In d20, Druids have Animal Companions, while Rangers (the nearest Hunter equivalent) have a watered-down version of them.
In WoW d20, Druids ALSO have Animal Companions ... and they can Wild Shape ... and they've got spells In WoW d20, Hunters will eventually gets pets ... at level 5. And they aren't as good as Animal Companions. Basically, Druids in WoW d20 were able to out-pet the Hunters!
Another problem was the matter of the cosmology. D&D has long had a big tie between Alignment and certain classes, such as Paladins. Paladins are kind of like Fighters/Warriors, but with these cool extra powers, but the downside is that they have to answer to a higher power, and so forth.
But in World of Warcraft, you have (just for starters) the Scarlet Crusade and evil paladins but they aren't anti-paladins or such. Their powers are indistinguishable from completely good-guy paladins. Same goes for their priests, who all invoke the powers of the Holy Light, and you can quite well have two opposing forces of paladins and priests, both sides invoking the power of the Holy Light against each other, without any higher power going, "Hey, waitaminute, my followers, I'm not going to grant power for you to obliterate each other!"
And then there's the world-setting: in World of Warcraft, you can pretty much expect that you'll be running into every sort of monster, or some flavor thereof, pretty much anywhere on the planet, and whether you're level 1 or level 70, you're going to be in for a fight. In d20 WoW, if there's a murloc, it's level X, and will only be a challenge for a certain narrow range of levels, and then if you have any more murlocs show up, you're either going to have to beef them up with character levels (an arduous, time-consuming process, NOT to be done on the fly), or else they're just a joke, easily taken out with a single spell or sweep attack.
While World of Warcraft owes a great deal to D&D for inspiration, trying to translate the setting back into any flavor of D&D I think requires a little more finesse to work properly. (Or at the very least ... I could have really used some *adventure modules*. There were plenty of sourcebooks, but I don't think I ever saw a single "dungeon" I could simply put the heroes through, without having to make stuff up from scratch.)
All that said, it *has* occurred to me that if I run a tabletop game again, one of the (many) possible settings could be Warcraft. I have plenty of minis that could work, and I could probably "reskin" a D&D dungeon with Warcrafty trappings and name-drops. It would mostly depend upon how many of my potential players are familiar with and/or like the setting.