History TabletopGame / WarcraftTheRoleplayingGame

** The background lore emphasizing the conflict between "arcane" and "divine" magic, with arcane magic consistently described as irredeemably evil, with its practitioners being doomed to corruption - despite many good arcane spellcasters being present in lore.

* CreatorThumbprint: The authors have a tendency to favor the "classically good" races of humans/elves/dwarves vs. the "classically evil" races of orcs and trolls. The first edition's core book only had orcs and tauren as playable Horde races (with half-orcs also being more common in the Horde than the Alliance), and even the second edition, while claiming to contain all the essential information in its core book, didn't even touch on the Horde's faiths beyond shamanism until the release of ''Horde Player's Guide'' in 2006.

* CreatorThumbprint: The authors have a tendency to favor the "classically good" races of humans/elves/dwarves vs. the "classically evil" races of orcs and trolls. The first edition's core book only had orcs and tauren as playable Horde races (with half-orcs also being more common in the Horde than the Alliance), and even the second edition, while claiming to contain all the essential information in its core book, didn't even touch on the Horde's faiths beyond shamanism.

* CreatorThumbprint: Arguably, the authors have a tendency to favor the "classically good" races of humans/elves/dwarves vs. the "classically evil" races of orcs and trolls.
** To those who discovered [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft the WoW videogame]] first, trolls can come off as DemotedToExtra and draenei even more so. This is arguably because a lot of details about... well, things in general, but trolls and draenei in particular, were added ''after'' the tabletop game had been written.
*** Clear example: draenei became a playable race, and so got their history fully fleshed out, in January 2007, with "The Burning Crusade". The Alliance & Horde Players Guides weren't published until ''2006''.

** One of the more infamous examples is with Alterac Valley, a battlefield where dwarves and orcs fight for ownership of the titular valley. Blizzard had always advocated that which side truly had the right to the Valley was ambiguous, but then Creator/WhiteWolf, in one of their sourcebooks, declared that the ''dwarves'' were the rightful owners, and that the orcs were the bloodthirsty invaders who deserved to die for ''daring'' to intrude on the almighty Alliance's lands. Needless to say, both Blizzard and the fanbase were not amused.

A tabletop roleplaying game using the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' ruleset, set in the ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' setting. Part of the WarcraftExpandedUniverse.

During the interval between the release of The Frozen Throne expansion pack for Warcraft III and the first release of WorldOfWarcraft, BlizzardEntertainment approached WhiteWolf with a deal; while most famous for their WorldOfDarkness, {{Exalted}} and, later, {{Scion}} gaming lines, they also had a branchline called "Sword & Sorcery", which worked in D20 gaming lines, such as the 3rd edition revamp of {{Ravenloft}} and their own ScarredLands campaign setting. The result was a tabletop game allowing players to use the familiar rules of Dungeons & Dragons 3.x to play in the world of Blizzard's Warcraft setting.

Eventually, ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' was released and so an updated version, "WorldOfWarcraft: The Roleplaying Game" was released. Rather than replacing the original game, this was intended to be used as an updated version, moving on several years in-universe and being set around the same point in time as ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' was when the books were released. In addition to the updated corebook and monster manual ("Monster Guide"), the new splatbooks released under its banner were:

* AlwaysNight: According to the pre-WoW sourcebooks, the lands of the Night Elves were said to be in a perpetual night.

* ArmedWithCanon: Blizzard and WhiteWolf tend to come into these kinds of conflicts from time to time, with Blizzard vying to keep the story faction-neutral, and WhiteWolf adopting a noticeably pro-Alliance standpoint, often having little to say (or only negative things to say) about the [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman non-human]] or [[BeautyEqualsGoodness non-attractive races]].
** One of the more infamous examples is with Alterac Valley, a battlefield where dwarves and orcs fight for ownership of the titular valley. Blizzard had always advocated that which side truly had the right to the Valley was ambiguous, but then WhiteWolf, in one of their sourcebooks, declared that the ''dwarves'' were the rightful owners, and that the orcs were the bloodthirsty invaders who deserved to die for ''daring'' to intrude on the almighty Alliance's lands. Needless to say, both Blizzard and the fanbase were not amused.
** There were a number of other issues where WhiteWolf took a distinctly different stance from Blizzard:

** It should be noted that these are all from the original, pre-WorldOfWarcraft sourcebooks, so these differences are partially attributable to [[RetCanon changes in the game-lore]].
*** Indeed, WorldOfWarcraft was even the source of some {{Retcon}}s in the bookline, such as the Horde Player's Guide noting that the Darkspear and Revantusk Troll tribes are more open to female independence due to their membership amongst the Horde.

** TheDogShotFirst: World of Warcraft lets us know that the bandit kingpin Van Cleef was originally the leader of a guild of stonemasons who turned to thieves when the nobles of Stormwind refused to pay them for rebuilding the capital. Even though it was made clear enough that the corrupt nobility was to blame, the rpg retconned the event into Van Cleef demanding insane amounts of gold for the work and flipping out when the king refused to pay him extra.

* UndergroundMonkey: A rare example of player-races being based on them. Forest Trolls are literally nothing more than Jungle Trolls with a different language (which is explicitly stated in the Horde Player's Guide), while Sand and Ice Trolls possess an equally minor difference.

A tabletop roleplaying game using the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' ruleset, set in the ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' setting. Part of the WarcraftExpandedUniverse.

** TheDogShotFirst: World of Warcraft lets us know that the bandit kingpin VanCleef was originally the leader of a guild of stonemasons who turned to thieves when the nobles of Stormwind refused to pay them for rebuilding the capital. Even though it was made clear enough that the corrupt nobility was to blame, the rpg retconned the event into VanCleef demanding insane amounts of gold for the work and flipping out when the king refused to pay him extra.

*** Indeed, WorldOfWarcraft was even the sources of some {{Retcon}}s in the bookline, such as the Horde Player's Guide noting that the Darkspear and Revantusk Troll tribes are more open to female independence due to their membership amongst the Horde.

*** Considering the dwarves are natives to Azeroth and the orcs came over from Draenor ''as'' bloodthirsty invaders in the first place, which is what the entire first two games revolve around, it's not really that ambiguous a situation to begin with.

** It should be noted that these are all from the original, pre-WorldOfWarcraft sourcebooks, so these differences are partially attributable to [[RetCanon changes in the game-lore]], and probably a certain amount of DidNotDoTheResearch.

However, eventually, Blizzard Entertainment chose to stop promoting the line, and so it ended after those final seven books, being rendered obsolete by the videogame it was meant to cash in on. Blizzard has also declared in 2011 that the role playing game should not be considered canon anymore.

* ActualPacifist: In the ''Shadows & Light'' manual, it's stated that Elune, the goddess of the night elves, is a pacifist (in fact, if one observes its stats she has no attack bonus, only grapple bonus). She has abilities like a song that will make everyone that hears it to drop its weapons and cease to fight.

*** The Blood Elves are only a small faction of the survivors of Quel'thalas and care about nothing but magic (Sourcebook: Alliance & Horde compendium)
*** Illidan was trying to become the new lich king in order to conquer Azeroth (Sourcebook: Alliance & Horde compendium)
** It should be noted that these are from the original, pre-WorldOfWarcraft sourcebooks, so these differences are partially attributable to [[RetCanon changes in the game-lore]].
*** Indeed, WorldOfWarcraft was even the sources of some {{Retcanon}}s in the bookline, such as the Horde Player's Guide noting that the Darkspear and Revantusk Troll tribes are more open to female independence due to their membership amongst the Horde.

* CanonImmigrant: These games arguably introduced the idea of goblins as a playable character race before they became playable in WorldOfWarcraft.
** The worgen may have originated in these books as well.
** Quite a few concepts and [=NPCs=].
* CreatorThumbprint: the writers made it very obvious they preferred Humans, Elves, and Dwarves over the other races (especially [[DemotedToExtra the Trolls]] and the entirely absent Draenei) in the series. Even in the Horde Player's guide, they'd go on about elves, dwarves, and humans.
** Draenei being absent is explainable by the fact that, during the period in which the RPG was written, uncorrupted draenei [[RetCanon didn't exist yet]]; the only draenei in the games until then were the Broken Ones and Lost Ones.

* ExpandedUniverse: What the game was created to be, as a way to help flesh out the world beyond the roleplaying games.

* NoWomansLand: [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Female trolls]] are just breeding stock and property used to make more trolls. ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' heavily disagrees however, as there are many female trolls leaders like Arlokk, Mar'li, Lor'khan, Jeklik, and Primal Torntusk in various troll tribes, various troll males [[http://www.wowhead.com/quest=3822 treating]] [[http://www.wowhead.com/quest=7842 their mates]] [[http://www.wowhead.com/npc=28902#comments with respect]], and troll mooks coming in both genders, so this seems to be a Case of ArmedWithCanon.

* SacredHospitality: Subverted. In a short story in the Lands of Conflict sourcebook, a group of soldiers find refuge in a peasant's home in post-fall Lordaeron. Having been fighting the Scourge for days, they are grateful for the hot food and beverages the peasant offers. Unfortunately, the peasant is actually a Scourge agent who was using hospitality to fish out information about troop movements. Once one of the soldiers lets slip some details, the peasant [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kills all the soldiers]].
* RetCanon: Well, more like Canon Marches On, but a lot of elements that players of the MMORPG take for granted are missing from the tabletop RPG because they came out after it was concluded. These include, but are not limited to, draenei as player characters, the dubiousity of half-orcs (these were based on the now-retconned idea of Garona being a human/orc hybrid instead of an orc/draenei hybrid), the existence of the Naaru, details on Pandaria...
** This is also a notable source in some of the canonicity issues (trollish gender attitudes, for example); the gamebooks came out before the game created those details.

* AdaptationExpansion: What the RPG basically tried to do with a lot of elements, given how few a lot of details were in the actual games.
** Now CanonDiscontinuity, leaving a few things without canon descriptions, until exposition is dropped in canon works.

*** The setting of Warcraft revolves around the conflict between arcane and divine magic (Sourcebook: Magic&Mayhem).

** It should be noted that many of these are from the original, pre-WorldOfWarcraft sourcebooks, so that is partially attributable to [[RetCanon changes in the game-lore]], and were even the sources of some {{Retcanon}}s in the bookline, such as noting that the Darkspear and Revantusk Troll tribes are more open to female independence due to their membership amongst the Horde.
* BadassBookworm: Brann Bronzebeard. He's a member of the Explorer's Guild, which makes him a dwarven AdventurerArchaeologist. He's also a Mountain King in-game, like his brother from Frozen Throne, he's a veteran of the Second War (the events of Warcraft II), and by the time he's finished writing Lands of Conflict & Mystery, he's been across every part of Lordaeron, Kalimdor and even Northrend, rubbing shoulders with very powerful figures indeed.

* HalfHumanHybrid: Half-elves and half-orcs are playable races in the Alliance and Horde Player's Guides respectively.

* OurCentaursAreDifferent: They're purportedly the offspring of one of the children of Cenarius (a PhysicalGod in the guise of a giant stag) and a daughter of the Elemental Lord of Earth. They're also one of the AlwaysChaoticEvil races of the setting.

* SpecialSnowflakeSyndrome: Explicitly discussed when it's mentioned players are almost certain to want to play things like a multi-classed character, a "multi-pathed" Arcanist or Healer (both of which are technically impossible by game lore), or a half-elf with Night or Blood Elf lineage (despite the fact that the game is set too soon for such half-breeds to have occured).

** Quite a few concepts and NPCs.

* EverythingsWorseWithBears: Played straight with the corrupted Furbolgs, but subverted with the non-corrupted ones and the twin Ancients Ursoc and Ursol, who were renowned for their love of art and brewing.
** Though being on the wrong side of a rampaging Furbolg Totemic certainly doesn't make non-corrupt Furbolgs look like an aversion.

* OurCentaursAreDifferent: They're purportedly the offspring of one of the children of Cenarius (a PhysicalGod in the guise of a giant stag) and a daughter of the Elemental Princess of Earth. They're also one of the AlwaysChaoticEvil races of the setting.

* Before this statement, Blizzard went back and forth on the issue. In the end, the tabletop RPG just had too many errors and ideas that did not reflect Warcraft as it is or was.

* Lands of Conflict: A "setting gazetteer" covering the lands of Lordaeron in the wake of the events of The Frozen Throne.

* Lands of Mystery: A follow-up to Lands of Conflict, covering the lands of Kalimdor and Northrend.

** Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game gives us a definitive list of Titans and their responsibilities, at a time when the only one mentioned in-game was Sargaeras.

* ElementalEmbodiment: The elemental monsters, plus the four Princes themselves from Shadows & Light.

* RetCanon: Well, more like Canon Marches On, but a lot of elements that players of the MMORPG take for granted are missing from the tabletop RPG because they came out after it was concluded. These include, but are not limited to, draenei as player characters, the dubiousity of half-orcs (these were based on the now-retconned idea of Garotha being a human/orc hybrid instead of an orc/draenei hybrid), the existence of the Naaru, details on Pandaria...

* UndergroundMonkey: A rare example of player-races being based on them. Forest Trolls are literally nothing more than Jungle Trolls with a different language (which is explicitly stated in the Horde Player's Guide), while Sand and Ice Trolls possess an equally minor d

** It should be noted that many of these are from the original, pre-WorldOfWarcraft sourcebooks, so that is partially attributable to [[RetCanon changes in the game-lore]].
* AuthorsSavingThrow: The books that are part of the WorldOfWarcraft the RPG line tend to be better informed and at least try to stay closer to game canon.
** The misogynistic/patriarchial aspect of Troll culture is not dropped, but it is noted in Lands of Mystery and Horde Player's Guide that amongst the Darkspear and Revantusk tribes, this is fading away in a similar manner to the more gruesome aspects of their voodoo religion, and females can still take positions of power if they are particularly strong and skilled. In other words, only the trolls that are still AlwaysChaoticEvil [[PoliticallyIncorrectBehavior act like this]], whereas PC trolls are explicitly different.

* SacredHospitality: Subverted. In a short story in the Lands of Conflict sourcebook, a group of soldiers find refuge in a peasant's home in post-fall Lordaeron. Having been fighting the Scourge for days, they are grateful for the hot food and beverages the peasant offers. Unfortunately, the peasant is actually a Scourge agent who was using hospitality to fish out information about troop movements. Once one of the soldiers lets slip some details the peasant, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kills all the soldiers]].

* ArmedWithCanon: Blizzard and WhiteWolf tend to come into these kinds of conflicts from time to time, with Blizzard vying to keep the story faction-neutral, and WhiteWolf adopting a noticeably pro-Alliance standpoint. One of the more infamous examples is with Alterac Valley, a battlefield where dwarves and orcs fight for ownership of the titular valley. Blizzard had always advocated that which side truly had the right to the Valley was ambiguous, but then Whitewolf, in one of their sourcebooks, declared that the ''dwarves'' were the rightful owners, and that the orcs were the bloodthirsty invaders who deserved to die for ''daring'' to intrude on the almighty Alliance's lands. Needless to say, both Blizzard and the fanbase were not amused.
** They'd also frequently focus on Elves and other pretty races and give little focus or say negative things about the [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman non-human]] or [[BeautyEqualsGoodness non-attractive races]]. An Example of this is the Rpg saying the Blood Elf Farstriders kill all trolls they come across, [[MoralDissonance including their allies]], yet they claim they are NeutralGood.

*** Arcane magic is always evil and anyone who uses it becomes a dick (Sourcebook: Core Rules and Magic & Mayhem)

*** The Blood Elves are only a small faction of the survivors of Quel'thalas and care about nothing but magic (Sourcebook: Alliance&Horde compendium)
*** Illidan was trying to become the new lich king in order to conquer Azeroth (Sourcebook: Alliance&Horde compendium)
** It should be noted that these are all from the original, pre-WorldOfWarcraft sourcebooks, so that is partially attributable to [[RetCanon changes in the game-lore]]. Furthermore, Arcane Magic being a corruptive force is actually an established part of the setting, at least since [[RetCanon Warcraft III]], where it was revealed to be the source of the demonic invasion.

* EverythingsWorseWithBears: Played straight with the corrupted Furbolgs, but subverted with the non-corrupted ones and the twin Ancients, who were renowned for their love of art and brewing.

* MoralDissonance: Blood Elf Farstriders [[FantasticRacism lynch any troll they see]], including their own allies, the good Darkspear tribe. Yet WhiteWolf says the FarStriders are the epitome of valour and honor.
** Keep in mind, at the time the RPG is set, Blood Elves hadn't joined the Horde yet, but are instead just a neutrally antagonistic faction, like Dark Iron Dwarves. They have no allies amongst the trolls, and it should be noted that even in the games at the time the Darkspear tribe was an exception to "all trolls are AlwaysChaoticEvil".

* UndergroundMonkey: A rare example of player-races being based on them. Forest Trolls are literally nothing more than Jungle Trolls with a different language (which is explicitly stated in the Horde Player's Guide), while Sand and Ice Trolls possess an equally minor difference (with Great & Dark Trolls being more powerful than that, but still using the Jungle Troll's stats as their base). Half-Ogres are simply Mok'nathal with the Orc Blood trait swapped for the Human Blood trait. Half-Night Elves trade access to one racial feat for access to another, while Half-Blood Elves have a different array of spells available to the ones provided by the Half-High Elf racial feat.

* AlwaysNight: According to the pre-WoW sourcebooks, the lands of the night elves were said to be in a perpetual night.

* ArmedWithCanon: Blizzard and WhiteWolf tend to come into these kinds of conflicts from time to time, with Blizzard vying to keep the story faction-neutral, and Whitewolf adopting a noticeably pro-Alliance standpoint. One of the more infamous examples is with Alterac Valley, a battlefield where dwarves and orcs fight for ownership of the titular valley. Blizzard had always advocated that which side truly had the right to the Valley was ambiguous, but then Whitewolf, in one of their sourcebooks, declared that the ''dwarves'' were the rightful owners, and that the orcs were the bloodthirsty invaders who deserved to die for ''daring'' to intrude on the almighty Alliance's lands. Needless to say, both Blizzard and the fanbase were not amused.

** There were a number of other issues where whitewolf took a distinctly different stance from blizzard:
*** Arcane magic is always evil and anyone who uses it becomes a dick (Sourcebook: Core Rules and Magic&Mayhem)
*** The setting of warcraft revolves around the conflict between arcane and divine magic (Sourcebook: Magic&Mayhem).
*** All warcraft undead are free-willed (Manual of Monsters)
*** The blood elves are only a small faction of the survivors of Quel'thalas and care about nothing but magic (Sourcebook: Alliance&Horde compendium)

* CanonImmigrant: Brann Bronzebeard, the third of the Bronzebeard brothers, was introduced here as the BadassBookworm sibling of Muradin and Magni.
** These games arguably introduced the idea of goblins as a playable character race before they became playable in the videogame.

* HumanNotepad: Runemasters in tend to completely cover themselves with runic tattoos.

* MoralDissonance: Blood elf Farstriders [[FantasticRacism lynch any troll they see]], including their own allies the good Darkspear tribe. Yet Whitewolf says the Farstriders are the epitome of valiance and honor.

* SacredHospitality: In a short story, a group of soldiers find refuge in a peasant's home in post-fall Lordaeron. Having been fighting the Scourge for days, they are grateful for the hot food and beverage the peasant offers. Unfortunately, the peasant is actually a Scourge agent who was using hospitality to fish out information about troop movements. Once one of the soldiers lets slip some details the peasant, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kills all the soldiers]].

A tabletop roleplaying game using the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' ruleset, set in the ''{{Warcraft}} setting. Part of the WarcraftExpandedUniverse.

* Shadows & Light: A "high tier" splatbook covering TheMultiverse of Warcraft, details on the various god-like entities, or Eternals, (the Titans, the Ancients, the Elemental Princes, the Dragon Aspects), rules for creating new Eternals, the rules to serve as the Warcraft RPG's version of the Epic Player's Handbook from D&D, and prominent figures from the videogames, such as Thrall, Jaina Proudmoor, Arthas, etc.

Eventually, WorldOfWarcraft was released and so an updated version, "WorldOfWarcraft: The Roleplaying Game" was released. Rather than replacing the original game, this was intended to be used as an updated version, moving on several years in-universe and being set around the same point in time as WorldOfWarcraft was when the books were released. In addition to the updated corebook and monster manual ("Monster Guide"), the new splatbooks released under its banner were:

* Alliance/Horde Player's Guide: Two seperate books focusing on fleshing out the races of the Alliance or Horde respectively. Included new races, creature classes (allowing a player to play more powerful beings, such as Dryads, Abominations, etc), spells, feats, items and other such details.

However, eventually, Blizzard Entertainment chose to stop promoting the line, and so it ended after those final seven books, being rendered obsolete by the videogame it was meant to cash in on.