Absolutely. Most RP takes place in spite of established lore, not because of it.
Edit:
TRP can be overwhelming, I’d personally recommend XRP or I think MRP is still a thing. If you do get TRP, don’t feel like you have to fill out everything-- or anything at all.
And find some people who will RP with you! Ask around, sometimes servers will have public events! Joining an RP-focused guild could be an option, as long as they aren’t uppity about it. If you happen to land in Earthen Ring, come look me up (Corvaliini)!
This! The whole point of RP is to create YOUR OWN lore and story. The world around you is just the setting. You make of it what you will! Head to a tavern and buy some drinks…get drunk and RP the heck out of it! Go on a fishing adventure with some friends and RP the heck out of it! There’s really no need to know much at all about WoW lore. That is unless you want to educate yourself on it and make it a part of your RP to enhance it.
If you’re shy, hanging around the RP hubs can get you connections too, or just let you see how things work. I don’t know about Earthen Ring, but Wyrmrest Accord and Moon Guard have public RP in the main city fairly regularly. If you go MG, just stay out of Goldshire. That’s not what RP is supposed to be.
First thing to know is that it’s normal for non-roleplayers to play on RP realms too. Nothing will be expected of you just for being there.
If you DO decide to RP, I’d strongly recommend starting with a Human. It’s a lot easier to “wing it” with a Human just because you’re a Human IRL. Yes, yes, this is a fantasy setting and if you want to get into the nitty gritty you’ll still need to look up timelines and such, but in terms of day to day behavior / mannerisms? Warcraft Humans are still just Humans, so it’s easier to get away with knowing nothing.
TRP3 is by far the most common RP addon these days. I prefer the more simplistic XRP/MRP, but somewhere along the way, people shifted more into TRP3.
This matters a -little bit- because not all TRP3 profile templates are compatible with XRP/MRP last I checked. IIRC, plain text worked fine, Appearance/Personality/History only worked for Appearance/History, and the other template was just not feasible at all.
It’s been awhile so maybe this has been fixed, but if not, TRP is the way to go because of these issues. You don’t want to miss out on chunks of someone’s profile.
Also, here’s a list of guides, if you’re interested.
Transmogs, I imagine, are a good part of RP as well. I’m not on an RP server, but I do like to think of Ahz as a person with some kind of story. He has been with me for well over a decade! Right now hes mogged out to look like some random traveler, going from town to town. After the events of BfA, he’s removed his battle gear and just wants to wander and be under the radar…we’ll have to wait for SL to see what happens and where his mog look goes from there.
See! RP is as easy as that!
I’ve never missed anything from using XRP afaik, some style sheet stuff might get broken, so that is another point to using TRP out of the gate.
As someone who pays $15/mo to pretend to be an elf online…
Mog is love, mog is life.
I carry casual mogs, formal mogs, and armor mogs on all my characters.
Mogs are big, big in RP. Half the reason most of us even do content.
Yes, come join a RP server! I’ll be honest, I tried playing on a normal server once and it was heckin’ weird. I don’t understand how people don’t want to RP, but apparently we are in a minority. haha
I’d say the basics are essential though
like about all the races and the plot of each expansion
My main RP toon is only vaguely aware of what happens in the xpacs, and definitely doesn’t have the slightest clue how Void Elves work. You only need to know the very, very basics. And even if you don’t, you can always just ask.
You don’t have to do this at all, OP. You can if it’s fun for you, but don’t get overwhelmed. RP is entirely for fun.
void elves are different because they are new. (not to the game, but to the actual world in canon)
I meant more like if you’re roleplaying as a 12000 year old night elf and you have no idea what the sundering was
Yes. This.
I just like my mogs, okay? I like feeling fancy.
Yeah. RP is cool because you can go as casual, or as serious as you want. You can pop into a hub every now and then for a bit of walk up RP, or you can go full ham with stories and plotlines and DMing and what-not.
Nice transmog.
Also, you can take any questions you have to World’s End Tavern, WoW’s RP board, or your RP server’s board, and someone will likely answer within a day or two!
Also, “your RP server” should be WRA. WRA Alliance needs to make a comeback dangit.
Amen, sister.
No Earthen Ring! We’re making a comeback too! 
It is true Alliance rp on WRA is practically non-existent.
Just role play an amnesiac. Problem solved.