Where do you draw the line with this?
Obviously making your character super strong and breaking the lore in the game is generally seen as a bad thing and most people wont rp with you.
I’ve done tons of cool RP on my priest and she uses lots of arcane magic and heals through the use of her harp. Not exactly something a priest can do in the game but generally people still like rping with me as I obviously incorporate back-story and flaws into my character. I’ve done DnD style campaigns in WoW with the use of a dice add-on. Tons of discord RP. Several word documents with stories from my RP. Guild RP.
I find that my experience in RP generally depends on who your RP partner is and what they are OK with. My guild is one that lore-bends too, we are a Nightborne guild who worships Elune which is a rather large break in the lore! Some people are not OK with that at all and they leave the guild but there are many who stay and have a ton of fun.
Ultimately you can RP however you want as long as you have people to do it with but my question for the community here is what are your experiences like? How often do you break or bend the lore? Is this something you are outraged about? Or is it your standard practice?
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Don’t do it. When people break the lore to suit themselves I cut the ties and move on. I’ll use ignore to. I saw alot of this on Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord. I have not seen any of this on Emerald Dream but it’s different there having been an RP PvP server before warmode in BFA.
It’s a role playing game, not a chat room. Some people just don’t get that at all. As far as what you guys are doing worshipping Elune, how do you figure it’s lore breaking? That doesn’t change anything in the lore at all.
You’re doing what YOUR characters are doing and that’s one of the hallmarks of playing a role playing game. Lots of people have lots of reasons for the things that they do in game, you guys aren’t any different.
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Isn’t Elune the Night Elf goddess? Not something the NB would worship??
Also heroic classes aren’t anything new as far as the lore goes. Thrall is a Shaman and a warrior right? As long as my character is all powerful like these lore characters whats wrong with that? If my priest wants to use arcane magic then whats wrong with that?
The difference is lore breaking VS. lore bending.
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You’re still a priest, not a mage. You’ll never learn or know magic at all, ever. Unless of course you decide to remake your character as a mage. You could also add a bit of arcane flair by going inscription or alchemy too. Elune is the night elf goddess. I am not sure where she comes in at in the lore for the elves, but remember at one point their was only one type of elf. As far as heroic classes go, I am pretty sure they stick to one class. Alleria is a marksman hunter, Thrall would be enhancement.
Priests can use arcane tho. Roll blood elf and press Arcane tortent? To me its ok if my priest uses arcane magic sparingly as long as she is balanced out with other flaws.
See my point here is I do play like this. And many people are ok with it and come back to rp with me again. Its ok with them that we do these kind of things, and if we are just doing discord RP who cares but the people doing that one rp scenario. My question was simply trying to understand where the large portion of the community is on lore breaking vs lore bending. I’ve even played with people that play their characters as non-playable classes as well. Many people do draw the line and are ‘lore-elitists’ but some of us like to have fun and set our own parameters.
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I totally forgot about that! Blood elves could totally pull that off. I would take inscription or alchemy to polish off the character. As much as I love the lore for RP games, and I think you should follow it, but things like what you are describing do go along with the lore for certain. Until you brought it up I never even thought about that. That’s a very cool concept! If you ever roll up on ED let me know.
Let’s be real here - Major Lore Characters don’t fit cleanly into any one class or spec.
Alleria may be primarily a Marksmanship Hunter, but she’s also got Major Void magic going for her. Thrall may be a shaman that likes to get in close with a hammer, or these days an axe, but the scale of the Elemental stuff he’s pulled off is monumental, to say nothing of the fact that he spent all of Warcraft 3 as a ranged caster unit. Plus the Heavy Plate Armor he wore? Shamans can’t do that. Not to mention that, before he was a Shaman, he was a gladiator, or a warrior.
Don’t restrict your Roleplay by the limitations placed on your Gameplay. However, when it comes to going against Lore, I am more hesitant. If matters are simply unclear on a matter, I will tread cautiously, but may go ahead in the matter. If it doesn’t feel like it breaks anything, then why not? But if there is reason to believe a thing does go against Lore, even if there’s no solid proof of it, I’ll tend to shy away.
There are exceptions to all of this, but those are my general thoughts. Gameplay does not dictate lore, so don’t let it hold you back. But have some respect for the actual lore.
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I don’t care for outright lore breaking, though I feel as though lore bending is generally fine in moderation depending on what exactly one would qualify as such. Given how nebulous or otherwise devoid of fine detail the lore of this setting can be, I almost feel like speculative interpretations of various subjects is inevitable to help contribute to potential immersion within the setting. I feel like this best done when utilizing existing lore surrounding the subject, bind them together in a way that makes sense with what is already there. I personally feel like a lot of folks stray too far from this philosophy, going for more metaphorically brutish justifications for things they want for their characters or stories, but I digress.
To an extent, due to the aforementioned nature of Warcraft lore, I feel like it can hard to actually determine what would truly count as breaking or bending lore. Some people, for example, would likely consider a member of a particular race with a faith other than that which their race traditionally follows to be lore breaking; yet there can be a justifying narrative to support it, which does not explicitly breach anything definitively established. Beyond that there are also situations that have no official answer them, such as the legality of demons, and to some lesser extent Hunter pets, roaming around cities. Failing any official stance on the matter, we’re only left with fan speculation.
Overall, to me lore bending is fine in moderation, though I may think less of one who knowingly blatantly breaks clearly established lore to reach desired ends. More often than not I see no need to, and therefore take it as a sign of weakness in writing.
This doesn’t seem inherently lore breaking. While the portrayal of the Nightborne seems decidedly secular, Suramar under the Kaldorei Empire was more or less the spiritual capital. This along with some minor evidence that the Nightborne are at least still aware of Elune provides a foundation for Nightborne Elune worshippers to exist, especially as a more recent phenomenon or minority group.
You character also barely disrupts established lore, especially in regard to your race as there is no real lore for Nightborne Priests, and they’ve been shown to have some degree of arcane magic in most facets of their society. There is also legacy evidence of arcane magic being used by Leywalkers to heal, and while that is from a technically now non-canon source it doesn’t strictly go against anything in modern lore.
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I do not see multiclassing as inherently lore breaking unless the two classes are directly opposed to each other AND there are no examples of it in lore.
For example: Sir Zeliek was a death knight. One of the original 4 Horsemen, but he retained his faith in the Light and it was so strong that he fought almost exclusively with it, even as a death knight. Unfortunately, he is compelled to use it against the player character, which he CLEARLY hates doing. But guess what? That’s also an example of how a Light using death night can exist.
Secondly: Sally Whitemane, when raised as one of the Horsemen, retains her paladin power of Consecration as a player champion.
By some people’s rules I play a lore bending character because I do play a Death Knight who struggles against that new nature, retains his faith in the Light and yes, it does sometimes answer his call. And when it does, I also have it be -excruciatingly- painful. But he absolutely completely hates his nature, and would prefer the pain of the Light to giving fully into the darkness.
I also have him rolled as a Frost Mage, having learned some basics from a mage friend in effort to give him ranged abilities. I also have a Rogue version of him, trained in scouting and leather armor for missions that require greater subtlety.
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Yeah I can’t get behind that at all I’m sorry. This is just going way too far. To me you’d just be a bunch of different characters that all share in the same delusion. It’s just all too much. I get about wanting to be similar Zeliek and Whitemane but those are two very exclusive instances. If I were running a D&D game I wouldn’t let someone have multiple characters that they can switch up on the fly. I don’t know any DM who would let something like happen either.
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Thanks for the response. I agree that certain parts of the lore are definitely interpreted differently and people use different evidence to support how they play their characters. I think the more limited you are on what you deem acceptable in terms of lore-bending severely limits who you can RP with. Most people I find do some sort of version of this type of thing. Multi-classing or so on. I learn to accept it and appreciate peoples writing and creativity.
To offer my own take on certain things, I play Ashandra here as a darkfallen vampyr. Raised into undeath as a san’layn by - well - a san’layn. She follows old lore about Forsaken priests in regard to her profession, though she trends toward using The Light and Void from a scientific angle.
To an extent, it would sense for some to refer to her as a ‘Mage’ that studies alternative sources of power. She is a being of brilliant, unbending conviction who puts herself through absolute agony to continue using the knowledge and power she accrued in her mortal life. All to the end of aiding others.
She’s also, by happenstance, an enchantress and weaver on the side who happens to be knowledgable in more lasting uses of the arcane on inanimate objects.
There’s also the matter of her having dissociative identity disorder, and her alter - who I treat as a different person with different skills and an entirely different perspective - but that’d make the wall of text bigger.
The end point I am trying to make is; don’t be afraid to get creative with concepts. Maybe play them in a slightly different way - extrapolate based on established lore and figure out what’s reasonable.
Before everything went to the crapper, the Sisterhood of Elune were based in a temple that used to be located in the ruined part of Suramar. She wan’t a big thing among the Highborne who were into themselves more than any other figure save Azshara, but then again, everyone, even the lowborn Kal’dorei adored Azshara.
Actual vampires are NOT San’layn. Arthas got his hands on vampiracy thanks to the Vrykul. The ONLY actual vampire that’s in the game you fight on the shores of Stormheim. You get a quest by a highly intelligent Murlock that gives you quests to fight the vampire and the vampire lord that is there, who is also a Vrykul.
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They’re cursed with an insatiable need to drink blood, have bat-like ears, fangs, among other traits. Not to mention the very same murloc speculates that said vrykul suffer from the exact same curse as the san’layn.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and drinks blood like a duck - it’s a vampiric duck. I feel like drawing a distinction is incredibly pedantic when it seems very clear Arthas just got the curse from the vrykul and applied it to elves.
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There are vampire bats in the world, but that doesn’t make vampire bats vampires.
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I used to be more of a stickler for the lore, but as Blizz has shown a distinct lack of consistency in the worldbuilding for some time, I have also grown to ignore more and more of what they put out in favor of filling in the gaps myself.
I don’t completely disregard the lore, nor do I outright break it, but I do often quite heavily bend it. Mind you, 90% of my RP nowadays is private because I’ve found public RP to be much lower quality lately, and this helps avoid conflicts because you can have conversations about what is okay and isn’t okay.
In terms of regular public RP I’d say its best to stick closer to the lore itself mostly for reasons of simplicity and not having issues arguing with people, but ultimately I don’t care. If you have some weird stuff going on with your character I don’t agree with, I won’t RP with you. It’s not that hard.
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Honestly, I sort of disagree here. A dedicated priest might not have the skills of an archmage but depending on the race or upbringing your character, has it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for them to know some cantrips, maybe some basic beginner-level spells - especially if they’re from places as soaked in the arcane as Silvermoon or Dalaran or Suramar where magic is just an everyday, mundane sort of thing.
Like, IRL, I grew up around car people. I know how to do basic maintenance tasks, maybe a couple of things more advanced than your average person from what I picked up watching my dad and neighbor do. I wouldn’t call myself an expert or a mechanic, but when you grow up surrounded by a thing, it’s hard not to pick up some bits and pieces of the thing.
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What would really make that look good would be using toys for various “spells”. Could also add enchanting, alchemy, or inscription to the character too.
First of all, this is why people leave ED and go to WrA. This entire statement and the one before this are very close minded and unnecessary, and I remember when you all merged with VeCo and Maelstrom and tried to discredit existing guilds’ personal lore too. I digress with this though.
Warlocks, for example, use shadow and arcane magic. Magic isn’t something you have to be born with either, it’s been shown that demon hunters and priests can develop magic through many means later in life, and people who are born as arcane mages can learn many other forms of magic too (elves and draenei in particular. A priest having arcane magic is perfectly acceptable in lore because 1, arcane is pure magic. It can be bent into frost, fire, shadow, or nature magic, so why not holy magic too? Priest has moves such as Psychic Scream, Levitate, Fade, etc and this seems more arcane than holy, which is flipped with mages having slow fall show a holy animation cast too. The classes aren’t lore established, their guidelines for players and game balance in PvP.
Also, priest already breaks a ton of “lore” rules in game, as orcs and undead shouldn’t be capable of casting holy magic, but do.
I have a lot I could say and go on with but this already sort of handles the jist of it to my satisfaction.
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