“The goal here is to recreate D&D in Azeroth, not to recreate the MMO experience.”

The Dungeons & Dragons: World of Warcraft Gameplay Expansion allows Dungeon Masters to run games in the world of Azeroth where players battle bosses in dungeons inspired by the MMORPG. But lead designer James Wyatt never wanted those adventures to feel too much like the video game.

“There have been times in D&D's history when it has leaned a little bit closer to the MMO experience, with short rests being shorter and spells being a little bit more like buttons,” Wyatt told Polygon in a virtual interview. “That’s not the direction we wanted to go. What this book is about is the world, and how to make that world the setting of your D&D game.”

D&D 4th Edition was released in 2008, four years after the launch of WoW, and it entirely reworked the 3.5 Edition ruleset by turning both weapon attacks and spells into a set of powers that could be used at will, once per encounter, or daily. The shift, combined with language that divided classes into roles like Defender, Striker, and Leader, led many players to criticize the new rules as being too much like WoW.

“I think there's an anxiety among the fandom about losing what they love to the new wave of entertainment,” Wyatt said. “I think 4th Edition followed WoW’s lead in a direction that wasn’t great for the tabletop game.”

D&D: WoW provides rules for translating all of WoW ’s classes and builds into D&D, but Wyatt focused more on getting the feel right than upping the complexity to be more in line with a WoW character’s ability rotations and cooldowns.

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