Wow... It finally happened. People have been saying it would for a while and I never really believe it, but Blizzard has put the RPG books on a non-canon level. I'm of the thought that it's so they can do whatever they want to now without past lore holding them back, as well as justify lore errors, but that's a completely different topic. This topic here is to try and make the RPG books at least hold some sway in CotH lore and the way we do things.
The spells in the books may be overpowered, and some of the items a bit silly, but they still host a massive amount of information on Warcraft lore and the way things work. We base the entire prestige system on these books, as well as the current addition of the Runemaster and Necromancer classes and the abilities that we're given with them. More important than that in my mind however, is the background, the history that comes with the books. I based the entirety (nearly) of an almost sixty page guide on the tauren on the RPG books, filled to the brim with gathered knowledge on customs, history, stories, tradition, and the like. On Tauren alone. On the old forums it was one of the most 'liked' topics on the site with almost thirty. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, the exact opposite really, I'm trying to show just how important the RPG books and their information really are.
How would we have any information on the specifics of the orcish, darnassian, zandali, and dwarvish languages we use ICly without the RPG books? Or the specifics behind each individual nook and cranny of each and ever zone in the entire world of warcraft without the books? Once again going back to history, we would never know about things such as the Blood River War in ancient Orcish history that destroyed the Dark Scar clan, nor that the Dragonmaw clan has relations with the Torchbelcher tribe's warriors and magi in Loch Modan to fight the dwarves there. As someone who runs events, and depends on these small details to reach a level of immersion that I find totally impractical but utterly enjoyable, the quality that I feel will be going into my RP will be severely hampered by a group of people we are purposefully putting ourselves at a distance from because of rules exactly like this.
We're a community here, on a server dedicated to bringing good RP without the judgement of Blizzard dictating (too much) who, what, when, where, and why we RP. Instead, we have unlimited freedom to do as we so please and alter not only the world, but the lore that's been given to us along with it.
Thoughts, questions, and concerns are all very welcome.
I personally enjoy the RP books and their lore greatly. This news upset me, too.
I was pretty upset about it, too.
I completely agree on the depth of information the books offered on things. I say we stick to them and screw whatever derp at Blizzard decided to throw them out.
First, they turn the Ninja-Assassin, Demonic race of Draenei into stupid space goats.
Then, Rhonin and friends go back in time.
But this? Ugh...
Yes, please. Do it. DOoooOoooOooo iiiit!
The RPG books are the most comprehensive source of Warcraft Lore that exists.
Also,
this.
Since I derped and accidentally necroed a thread, I'll post what I posted in here instead.
I, for one, support using some of the RPG books to fill in lore (like we do anyway). But, regarding flammos' suggestion, the reason we don't use the d20 as a strict metric to solve things is because it's based on a system with levels, character sheets, grid-based movement, and 5 kinds of dice (and for that matter, little or no PvP RP). If people RPing here wanted that, they'd go play D&D sometimes like I do instead of trying to replicate one complicated game inside of another. The systems are simply not directly applicable.
tl;dr: Lore, and nothing else.
I meant just the Lore, not the speciffics of xdx damage and levels and so on.
Just the descriptions to classes, races, spells and so on. So we know what does what, and how stuff is, where there are blanks or where there is ambiguity.
I.E. Not the mechanics. Just the info'.
... I'm fairly certain there's nothing wrong with referring to the RPG books for more obscure points of lore and what not.
Most of those books from what I hear make sense. Just take what you read from there with a grain of salt, and apply what should be applied to your RP.
I love the RPG books and think it is a bit rash to throw them off and keep as Blizz like as possible.
The cool thing about Rping on a private server is that everyone( for the most part) knows the books, enjoys them, and uses them to make cool events and storylines and such.
If I wanted a Blizzard-like 'do what we do' server... I'd RP on retail, and that is something I'd rather not do.
Allow me to repost this here, as it is somewhat relevant;
Quote:I think there seems to be some miscommunication on the way we're handling the d20 books now. By no means are we just disregarding them entirely- as it was said in this thread, that's a lot of stuff to just ignore. What we're doing now is being selective with the lore we want to see from the d20, and the lore we want to be put into CotH.
As in 'this prestige title should have x spell, but not y.' or 'x prestige should exist, but y should not'. We of course take inspiration from classes from the d20, because for quite a few that's the only real indication of them that we get-- but we're trying to avoid taking everything and thus ending up with bizarre skillsets and classes.
Granted, as was mentioned above, the stuff we don't put in may be something people want, and that's alright. There's a reason we're being open with the prestige skillsets, and that's because no matter what set of abilities we lay out it is likely going to be missing something.
Whether that's missing the ability for a cool rogue attack or the ability to turn invisible and spit bees into your enemies hair is the reason we're going to be evaluating all of the suggestions and not just saying 'look at this and get it from there', though.
We're not ruling out everything. We're just stopping the whole 'take it
all or leave it
all' approach that was implied before.
(07-01-2011, 10:09 AM)Rigley Wrote: [ -> ]Allow me to repost this here, as it is somewhat relevant;
Quote:I think there seems to be some miscommunication on the way we're handling the d20 books now. By no means are we just disregarding them entirely- as it was said in this thread, that's a lot of stuff to just ignore. What we're doing now is being selective with the lore we want to see from the d20, and the lore we want to be put into CotH.
As in 'this prestige title should have x spell, but not y.' or 'x prestige should exist, but y should not'. We of course take inspiration from classes from the d20, because for quite a few that's the only real indication of them that we get-- but we're trying to avoid taking everything and thus ending up with bizarre skillsets and classes.
Granted, as was mentioned above, the stuff we don't put in may be something people want, and that's alright. There's a reason we're being open with the prestige skillsets, and that's because no matter what set of abilities we lay out it is likely going to be missing something.
Whether that's missing the ability for a cool rogue attack or the ability to turn invisible and spit bees into your enemies hair is the reason we're going to be evaluating all of the suggestions and not just saying 'look at this and get it from there', though.
We're not ruling out everything. We're just stopping the whole 'take it all or leave it all' approach that was implied before.
...Why? I mean, if a Prestige Class has all the characteristics described in the RPG Books - which, frankly, aren't all that OP if you take 'em with a grain of salt and use them responsibly, so as not to hinder RP - no one can complain that you did it wrong because you'll be able to point to the books and go 'That's how Blizz said they work.', and the complaint-rate would be far lower, due to how the class wouldn't really have anything more to gain as there would no longer be any basis for gain.
Basically, what I'm afraid will happen is another retail-ification of the Prestige Classes, with all the interesting non-combat spells and abilities - such as Zones of Truth, Detecting Thoughts and Lies and Magic Circles, and Clairvoyance/Audience and Hold Person and so on are going to disappear, in favor of purely Combat-oriented skills.
Why not just point to the RPG books and say 'Blizzard said it first' - but only as regards Prestige Classes - and just let Players work their way from there. Why the need to reach an insanely difficult consensus: First among the GM team on the abilities of each class, and second between the GMs and Players that end up complaining about them? Players should do their research on abilities and skills anyhow before attempting a Prestige Class...
The point of it is to remove lots of difficulties that came from the prestige system last time, from the exact thing you're proposing. We had multiple issues with people using abilities from the d20 that they thought were reasonable, but to the GMs and others did not.
In example: Necromancers healing living characters
As far as approving other spells, I really don't think it will be as difficult as you may think- It shouldn't be hard for a few people (or just an admin) to look at a spell and go 'yeah, that seems alright'. This also lets other people see what their class can do, as it brings this spell to the attention of the rest of the forums.
EDIT: As well, GM approval of prestiges isn't a terribly hard thing. What may be more difficult is coming up with adequate explanations for their training where the d20 is silent, though.
(07-01-2011, 10:41 AM)Rigley Wrote: [ -> ]The point of it is to remove lots of difficulties that came from the prestige system last time, from the exact thing you're proposing. We had multiple issues with people using abilities from the d20 that they thought were reasonable, but to the GMs and others did not.
In example: Necromancers healing living characters
As far as approving other spells, I really don't think it will be as difficult as you may think- It shouldn't be hard for a few people (or just an admin) to look at a spell and go 'yeah, that seems alright'. This also lets other people see what their class can do, as it brings this spell to the attention of the rest of the forums.
EDIT: As well, GM approval of prestiges isn't a terribly hard thing. What may be more difficult is coming up with adequate explanations for their training where the d20 is silent, though.
...There's no reference that I could find in the RPG books for Necromancers healing living characters. I'm not sure that's such a good example.
And as for training? It's as easy as showing them how to do an ability and having them learn it. I remember breaking up Sylvandre's training into ten posts(Durr, ten levels of a Prestige Class in DnD terms). The big abilities/skills would be highlighted, whereas the spells the Warden gains, as per Magic & Mayhem, would come via scrolls describing how to cast them.
Anything beyond the RPG books depends on the writer's skill, as far as Prestige Classes are concerned..
The d20 being de-canonized was really not a surprise to anyone that was actually watching the direction Blizz was taking the lore. There were several big problems with the d20...one being that it was written during Classic and didn't have the lore retcons and changes in BC or WotLK.
The de-canonizing of the books cleared up a lot of ambiguity at certain points of lore. The living DK issue is, of course, one of them, where the d20 was the source that contradicted in-game lore and made them possible. Another one I can think of is priests healing undead via shadow magic, which has now been retconned indirectly by both that and the lengthy discussions on how Light-based healing works on undead.
Little lore bits, like culture and the like, aren't a big deal to keep. But, when it comes to actual mechanics and how the world itself works? That should be based on what we see in-game. After all, not everyone has the d20 books and should be required to read them.
(07-01-2011, 10:59 AM)flammos200 Wrote: [ -> ]...There's no reference that I could find in the RPG books for Necromancers healing living characters. I'm not sure that's such a good example.
Huh. Well, then that issue was even more confounded than I had thought in the past.
That's not to say there were not other indications, though- if I recall I remember one of our own GMs using a runemaster's rune to ICly fly, on another note.
Perhaps something that is indicative from here is that not all of us have the books; heck, for all I know that rune was something made up off the top of the head, like that necromancer spell was. By approving a spell list and adding on to it through player suggestions though, that won't matter; if the ability looks reasonable, then it gets added. If not, then it is discarded.
And as far as the note on the training goes, I suppose I'm at fault for never having gone through the process of writing a prestige thread to experience how these should be laid out. In short though, we're trying to provide a
basic outline to how one would train as a certain prestige. How they would likely find an instructor and how they would be treated along the way. People can do other things, of course, but we kinda feel that this might help them along the way.
Also I kinda dislike the idea of having a post centered around only learning an ability, though I doubt that's what you were really pointing towards there. There tends to be a lot of process and indoctrination in a lot of prestiges- Wardens having the law hammered into them, Shadow Hunters with the loa and their rituals- so I think more of what I'm trying to get at is how these things incorporate into the training.
If that makes sense. It probably doesn't. I should probably just shut up until I'm back.
(07-01-2011, 11:25 AM)Rigley Wrote: [ -> ] (07-01-2011, 10:59 AM)flammos200 Wrote: [ -> ]...There's no reference that I could find in the RPG books for Necromancers healing living characters. I'm not sure that's such a good example.
Huh. Well, then that issue was even more confounded than I had thought in the past.
That's not to say there were not other indications, though- if I recall I remember one of our own GMs using a runemaster's rune to ICly fly, on another note.
Perhaps something that is indicative from here is that not all of us have the books; heck, for all I know that rune was something made up off the top of the head, like that necromancer spell was. By approving a spell list and adding on to it through player suggestions though, that won't matter; if the ability looks reasonable, then it gets added. If not, then it is discarded.
And as far as the note on the training goes, I suppose I'm at fault for never having gone through the process of writing a prestige thread to experience how these should be laid out. In short though, we're trying to provide a basic outline to how one would train as a certain prestige. How they would likely find an instructor and how they would be treated along the way. People can do other things, of course, but we kinda feel that this might help them along the way.
Also I kinda dislike the idea of having a post centered around only learning an ability, though I doubt that's what you were really pointing towards there. There tends to be a lot of process and indoctrination in a lot of prestiges- Wardens having the law hammered into them, Shadow Hunters with the loa and their rituals- so I think more of what I'm trying to get at is how these things incorporate into the training.
If that makes sense. It probably doesn't. I should probably just shut up until I'm back.
Err, yes, it's part of their runecasting abilities. Runemasters don't really tattoo that many runes on themselves, but rather study the patterns and cast spells by drawing runes. They're part melee-fighter, part Inscriber. The ability to Fly is given by a number of patterns. From the Storm ley-line pattern to the Motion ley-line pattern, they each have something that could make the Runemaster fly. For the record, the Storm Pattern was in the books on the cliffs above Stormwind and the Motion one in the Badlands.
...And it makes sense, doesn't it? An area of Azeroth attuned to flying critters and the like, or tall mountains or strong winds, which is reflected by the Runemaster in their kinship with the air.
The way the number of spells a Runemaster can learn is limited is by allowing them to learn how to draw only three out of eleven patterns so they balance out with other base classes. And that's in addition to the Simple Runic Tattoos that they get which enhance their melee skills only.
Ah. Well, in my view, their spells are pretty much drawn from the law itself, and the Night Elves' sense of justice. Or so I interpreted them. Thus, having the Law at heart was practically a prerequisite to casting any Warden spell or using any ability. Kinda' like how the Paladin draws spells from the Light.