World of Warcraft Tabletop

[Lost Demiurge]

In days of long ago, White Wolf's Sword and Sorcery line published a 3.5 conversion for World of Warcraft. I picked up the books, enjoyed reading them greatly, and stuck them on the shelf.

Now, with Cataclysm released for WoW and a whole lotta goodness added to the game, my eyes have been drawn once again to those books...

Has anyone else used the S&S WoW conversion? Played or run it? What are some pitfalls to watch out for, what are some good points of the system? What books are good, what books should be avoided? I noted that the Forsaken are kind of screwed up... The core book just slaps a D&D style undead template on them and moves on. I mean... Really... No constitution score, destroyed at 0 HP, and harmed by positive energy? Are there any good fixes for this that require minimal effort on my part? I COULD just ask players to ignore the template side effects...

Ah well. So, hopefully someone here can tell me their experiences with the system...

[WinceRind]

Well I always thought that Forsaken were Undead - the reason they're not in game is solely for balance reasons.

Otherwise, they're rotting, they don't procreate, and all that. And I freaking love 'em.

Sadly I don't know much about World of Warcraft tabletop game rules - I've only had a glance at one of the rulebooks, and that was quite a while ago.

But I think the Forsaken thing is entirely correct - they are undead, they were healed by Deathcoil in Warcraft 3 and harmed by Holy Light, and so on. Just because they're not mindless like most undead in Warcraft, doesn't mean they aren't undead. They're kinda like liches in regular D&D, imo.

What if robots gained sentience? Would they be alive? I don't think so. And when I say "robots", I mean real gears and bolts kind of robots, not Warforged that are magical and that can mean anything. So if you had a robot, a construct, and said construct was able to gain sentience and intelligence and rebel against those who control it - the classical robot uprising sort of thing, which is pretty much what Sylvanas did in Warcraft only with the undead instead of robots, they'd still remain constructs because being sentient and intelligent doesn't warrant being biologically alive.

Although, from balance point of view, I'd imagine it can be annoying. But on the other hand, being undead also has benefits - like immunity to a lot of things.

And you have to consider that various "resurrection" spells are there generally only for the players convenience, else all the important heroes would not stay dead, superhero style.

So um, yeah. And when Sylvanas got backstabbed in the new quest chain in Silverpine Forest in WoW, they didn't just call for a level 10 priest. The valkyr chicks had to sacrifice themselves just to raise her, and she was "dead" only for a few seconds, so it's really more like restarting someone's heart then actual resurrection.

[Sir Swindle89]

I don't think S&S did the new, more comprehensive set of books. I know the old ones they did.

I've ran it a couple of times. nothing really stood out as broken, even the Forsaken. You have to keep an eye on engineering, It's a really freeform system so the DM has to sanity check a lot of it.

[Volos]

You could always just refluff 4E into WoW Tabletop. It would be pretty much the same thing. Though I always found the idea of a MMORPG translated into a tabletop RPG somewhat redundant. Why bother getting together to roll dice and play a game that you could use a computer to do the same thing? Since you are going to base most abilites off the MMORPG, the feeling of playing a tabletop game is already somewhat lost. Atleast that is how I have experienced it.

[randomhero00]

makes you wonder why warforged have con...

[Foryn Gilnith]

makes you wonder why warforged have con...

The same reason Undead should IMO. Some chassis are more durable than others. Some corpses are thicker or harder or have stronger wills than others.

@OP: I've never gotten past one session of the game, but it seems to be pretty standard 3.5, although the Tinker system might be unique.

[Delusion]

You should note that wow retconned a lot of things away that were presented from that tabletop version.

Forsaken being harmed by light etc.

[Akal Saris]

I've also only played one session, and it was of the slightly earlier Warcraft RPG. From what I saw it was pretty harmless. A lot of the stronger classes aren't present for fluff reasons (cleric, druid), or had their spell lists curtailed (wizard, sorcerer), so it basically makes D&D more balanced towards T3 without even intending to do so.

[Lost Demiurge]

You could always just refluff 4E into WoW Tabletop. It would be pretty much the same thing. Though I always found the idea of a MMORPG translated into a tabletop RPG somewhat redundant. Why bother getting together to roll dice and play a game that you could use a computer to do the same thing? Since you are going to base most abilites off the MMORPG, the feeling of playing a tabletop game is already somewhat lost. Atleast that is how I have experienced it.

It's one hell of a rich and flavorful world, that's why. And it's one that every member of our group has an understanding of. I don't have to waste as much time explaining things.