Dungeons and Dragons: World of Warcraft Aims to Capture MMORPG Fantasy Experience at the Table

Today we’re talking more about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion for Dungeons and Dragons. TTRPG Insider and other reporters were invited to a press debrief to talk about how the game is adapting Azeroth’s 30+ years of history into a single volume.

I got to speak with principal game designer James Wyatt back in August about the release during GenCon, but are now doing a deeper dive into what is expected in the book. It’s a particularly curious addition since it is the first volume in Universes Beyond, D&D’s new initiative to produce books in partnership with other IPs.

Wyatt, senior game designers Joey Haeck and Ben Petrusor and game designer Erin Roberts spoke with the press about the game.

D&D World of Warcraft, the first entry in the Universes Beyond, offers a preview of how the team aims to adapt more than twenty years of video game lore and history into a format playable at the table.

The team confirmed that the book will be focusing on Azeroth. While past WoW expansions have traveled to other worlds in the setting (Outlands in Burning Crusade, Argus in WoW: Legion, elemental planes in Cataclysm etc), the book centers on the main world and the various regions, and centers its dungeon design on regions from World of Warcraft’s original release (lovingly described as Vanilla) and Wrath of the Lich King, the game’s second expansion that centered on the conflict with the iconic villain of the same name.

That said, it is a player’s setting. The book is written with the idea that it is your specific tables’ variant of the Azeroth timeline, allowing DMs to explore alternate stories. For example, what if the Lich King won? What if former Horde leader Garrosh Hellscream won the Pandaria conflict and was not killed in Warlords of Draenor? What if everything was murlocs? It offers fans of the game’s lore an opportunity to delve deep into the setting.

Haeck describes the book as a toolbox for DMs to tell stories in the setting, expand it, and offer distinct encounters and experiences centered on the eight dungeons in the game.

Those dungeons are appropriately leveled to match the leveling experience in WoW, with the Westfall-based Deadmines serving as a first option, while the endgame-focused Icecrown Citadel remains a high-level dungeon to experience.

The dungeons are also designed with D&D’s distinct flexibility in mind, Haeck emphasized. While most dungeon runs in WoW are straight combat runs, players can approach the experiences and problems in a number of ways. Perhaps they find an alternate route that helps them get straight to the end-boss. Maybe they talk or bribe their way to the end.

At the same time, players should not expect this experience to resemble the traditional MMORPG experience where players will raid a dungeon multiple times in hopes of getting loot, or grind out combat encounters to increase their level (assuming not on an XP -based table, that is)

“We want this to feel real to you,” Haeck emphasized. “We don’t want you to feel like you’re playing a video game.” That includes allowing players to exit dungeons and return without worries of bosses respawning.

Collaborating with Warcraft Team on Capturing the Process

The book's production involved the Blizzard Entertainment team heavily, according to Wyatt. He hosted a “secret arcana” (as opposed to the traditional Unearthed Arcana), featuring playtests of Shadowfang Keep with Blizzard employees. Some of them were longtime D&D fans, while others were new, but it helped them get a feel for the dungeon.

It also meant ensuring that each species had a distinct feel of the setting. Dragons in WoW, for example, are organized into five different-colored variants based on the traditional D&D dragons. This meant they had to have special abilities. Blue dragons, for example, are masters of magic. So they gave the blue dragon a “spell freeze breath” that not only does cold damage but creates an anti-magic zone.

Iconic NPCs like the mage Jaina Proudmoore and the demon hunter Illidan Stormrage have also received statblocks. Traditional factions on both the Horde and Alliance will be available to players to help them explore, from the shamanic Earthen Ring to the Dragonflights. It was also confirmed that player parties will not be forced to create Horde-only or Alliance-only parties, as both factions will matter only as much as the DM determines. It’s a decision that reflects how WoW has slowly broken down its factional barriers in recent years, making cross-faction play far easier.

The game did incorporate professions; a traditional way that players are able to create and make their own gear in-game without raiding. Both gathering and crafting professions will be in the game. Players will have tools to skin monsters, build gear and enhance their gameplay in a very WoW-esque style while also incorporating the crafting rules mentioned in the 2024 DMG.

The team confirmed that content from World of Warcraft Forever, an alternate history of the setting announced at BlizzCon 2026, will not be included. The content will only be updated as far as the first path of Midnight and the introduction of the Haranir, (Retail WoW is currently on 12.1, Curse of Ulatek. A new expansion, titled The Last Titan, is expected to release in the next 1-2 years to close out the current trilogy of expansions the game is centered on.)

Wyatt joked about writing a second book if he were allowed, but nothing was confirmed.

Whether you’re a designer, content creator or just the biggest fan at your table, TTRPG Insider delivers in-depth reporting, original interviews and regular roundups of the news that you will not find anywhere else. Let us help you become the best designer, player or dungeon master at your table.

Subscribe now and get the advantage you require to excel in this exceptional hobby and industry.

What World of Warcraft: Azeroth Provides

The book will offer tools to adapt nearly all of the character options (and even some NPC races) into playable options.

The book will offer sixty spells, twenty-five magic items, all of the game’s professions, and twenty factions. The game centers mechnaically on seven dungeons

Fifty monster stat blocks and thirty dungeon bosses will be made available, from Illidan to Arthas himself.

Blizzard Entertainment released a list of the six new subclasses featured in D&D Azeroth:

• Oath of the Ebon Blade Paladin (for Death Knight players)

• Oath of the Holy Paladin (for actual paladins)

• Demon Hunter Ranger (for Demon Hunter players)

• Shadow Domain clerics (for shadow priests)

• Discipline Domain clerics (for disc priests)

• Path of the Elements Barbarian (which leans into the fantasy of shaman)

Three traditional D&D subclasses will also be updated to better fit WoW’s aesthetic.

• Swashbuckler Rogue (for Outlaw Rogue players)

• Spiritual Guardian Barbarian (likely a play on a druid?)

• Warrior of Mystic Brews Monk (for brewmaster monk)

The remaining WoW classes will use reflavorings of already established D&D classes. The Dracthyr Evoker, for example, will use the sorcerer class.

You can preorder the digital or physical version on D&D Beyond now. The book releases in early access on November 3, with the full book going live on November 17.

I will admit my own bias around this book as I am a longtime World of Warcraft player. I joined during Mists of Pandaria and have engaged with its roleplaying community for over a decade. There are a lot of stories I’ve written with friends in that period, and a lot more to be said about the very distinct community that has formed there. But that’s a different newsletter.

Getting the chance to officially run WoW with official resources is something I am very excited about, and I’m already planning to run my own WoW D&D table.

At the same time, it’s an interesting look at what may become a more core part of the game. IP conversion via Universes Beyond may become more common in the coming months and years… how well it converts will tell us much about the hobby's appeal.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to [email protected].