As someone who started to rp over 15 years ago within the Classic timeline, which included and referred to many things that by now are considered non-canon such as the Warcraft RPG TTRPG style books, I’m curious on whether people still use this source occasionally.
From what I’ve gathered over the years, some things that are included in these books are fairly universally now regarded as ‘bad’, like the age table for races, where e.g. elves are not considered adults after a couple of decades or even centuries. Other things were simply overwritten with new lore.
But what about the prestige classes, such as templar? Do you think these can be implemented into the current setting? Or perhaps there are some people out there who still use the old sources as a primary foundation for lore and world-building?
Gardenfarah hit the nail on the head. If it adds flavour and enhances roleplay without contradicting the official canon, then it’s fair game to me. I’d expand this beyond stuff like the RPG books too — custom lore by players themselves inhabits the same grey area for me. If it’s added to an OC or a story with a light and careful touch, I’ll roll with it unless it proves too much a departure from the tone and themes of the setting.
WoW has extremely scarce, thin lore of its own and I’m not about to drop lore in favour of nothing regardless of its quality – or what Blizzard says! Things that were directly retconned and replaced by something else, better or worse, I will adhere to but a lot of old (especially TTRPG) retcons weren’t replaced with anything. It was just Blizzard blanket-removing flavour from their setting so they didn’t have to sift through it.
I try not to make any references to the TTRPG lore as it is, as you say, non-canon, but out of lack of flavour it is something I use as a ‘base’ in absence of something else. One example I can think of in my own RP is dragon ages, which came from the TTRPG but we don’t have a full confirmation (other than whelp > drake, thanks to Wrathion) of their actual ages now.
Of course, I’ll never outright claim it’s canon when discussing something, but it’s a decent enough basis to use for characters.
Anyway!
There’s various RPG things I’ve been known to draw from, so long as it’s not counter to current stuff (as others said) it can add some good zest to what you’re trying to portray.
For me, RPG can be used as source of inspiration for yourself as long as it doesn’t contradict canon lore.
So, you saw some cool class in RPG? Feel free to adapt it into canon lore, using elements from canon to achieve the result you want.
However RPG should never be used as a way to justify/take issue with something in RP. Ages of races are good example. No, a 100 years old elf isn’t a child just because RPG said so.
To use this as a stepping stone to expand, in the canon, elves do reach adulthood at the same age as humans. Young elves who are full of wanderlust and who “act too human” aren’t taken seriously by society — they are adults legally, but society adds an unspoken asterisk to them where their own juvenile (by elven standards) behaviour earns them a great deal of condescension. When an elf grows out of this phase (depending on the individual) and they act as society expects mature elves to act, the rest of society accepts them as equals. Thus the maturity and "adult"ness of an individual elf is determined by their own behaviour, and not in the amount of years they’ve lived, but it does not infringe their legal status as an adult and all that entails. Sylvanas enlisted as a Farstrider at the age of 18.
Those who never grow out of that phase are gently encouraged to leave Quel’Thalas and find other ways to serve their people abroad. Farstriders are often the prime example of this, but almost (yet not entirely) all the High elves of Dalaran began their station in the city that way originally, even if they’ve since matured with age as expected. “Acting like a human” is an elven euphemism for juvenile behaviour. Vereesa is a prime example of such an elf who was encouraged to leave Quel’Thalas because she wasn’t fitting in due to her behaviour being “too human”.
It’s funny you mention the templar, as a friend of mine used to RP one of those. And I don’t mean just a fancy title, but like, -the- actual Argent Templar from the warcraft RPG. And while Desartin here is not one, if he refers to a templar, it’s usually to one of those that can fell hordes of undead all by themselves.
The retcons of mage lore actually work really well I think - because while I don’t think the arcane is corruptive and attracts demons anymore, it’s entirely believable as an in-universe hypothesis.
It’s like real-world science, our knowledge and understanding of things changes over time. It’s not that the way things function have fundamentally changed - we just better understand it now. So maybe your mage believes (or grew up with the belief) that fire and frost are conjured from the elemental plane, but now perhaps follows the more “conventional” knowledge that it’s just superheated/supercooled arcana?
(Disclaimer here that I think that’s how it used to work/how it currently works - ultimately it kinda doesn’t matter - a fireball is a red hot ball of fire so it’s kinda irrelevant as to how it manifests or where it comes from when said red hot ball of fire is thrown at someone. It’s still gonna burn!)
Certainly, though the difference again is that it’s the elf’s own behaviour which determines when they’ll be taken seriously, not a milestone of age. An elf at the age of 18 who displays great deal of wisdom will be treated as an equal from the get go. A 400 year old elf who never grew out of it will not, and they were kindly asked to leave home to find better ways to spend their energy in service of their people.
It’s the other way around. The idea that a mage’s fire is just arcane mimicking the properties of fire is the belief for which mages get ridiculed for still believing. While mages themselves will never truly know the objective truth because every mage perceives magic differently, leading to them believe that their perception is the objective truth — Medivh flat out says that believing in that theory is the one (1) and only objectively wrong conclusion, and it was deemed an outdated belief even before the First War. We’ve since had objective confirmation that a mage’s fire is elemental fire being controlled via arcane magic.
Also correct, and ultimately this is what Medivh advocates for. Getting bogged down in the details is useless — when you conjure fire, fire appears. That’s all you need to be concerned with.
The TTRPG has some lovely stuff but also some bonkers stuff that I don’t know how I would react to if I saw someone incorporate it because technically it was not debunked anywhere officially.
Like that women on Azeroth can turn into metal golems if they spend too much time at a forge.
“In time a sister of steel surpasses her mortality through “Steelflesh Ascendance” and becomes a being of living stone and metal. Her type changes from humanoid to elemental.”
That’d be a weird thing to just assume everyone knows as common fact - but as some niche bit of folklorish belief specific to a very few people that’s kinda sick, honestly.
Some parts of RPG lore can make sense as the past that are now gone by some reason or another. For example, among Pandaren RPers it’s not uncommon to view the now non-canon clan structure of Pandaren society as a part of their pre-Sundering empire, either as an inspiration or as a warning. After all, there was a reason for Shaohao to think that his people needed to grow beyond what they were, and that the empire is not the way to make it happen. Otherwise he’d at least name a heir before abducting the throne…
Wrathion was just the first one to come to mind.