Creating a WoW mage

Rules Discussion
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So I was wondering: is it possible to create a World of Warcraft mage using OL rules? Not from the get go, it seems, but that’s what character progression is for, after all.

First, we need to determine what a WoW mage should and shouldn’t be able to do.

WoW mages are typical glass cannons - powerful at range, with pitiful defences and non-existent melee skills. So, no Agility, no Might, no Fortitude for you! Same goes for social attributes, given that WoW is not that kind of game (although, given that we’re talking about conversion into a role-playing tabletop game, some social attributes may see some growth in the future).

Now, what a WoW mage CAN do? A lot of things, actually. They can blow stuff up with elemental magic (Energy). They can create food and drink out of raw mana (Creation). They can teleport and open portals (Movement). They can dispel enemy buffs (Protection). And they can polymorph enemies into harmless sheep (Alteration). All in all, such a character would require a whole lot of supernatural attributes.

Finally, for mental attributes, we’re left with… not much, really. WoW does not put any emphasis on intellectual side of magic and spellcasters, but some measure of education and cognitive capacity seems appropriate.

I guess, at 1st level, a typical WoW mage in OL would look someting like this:

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You can always use videogames for inspiration (I do that a lot myself) but be careful not to exactly mimic how things work in a game. As you mentioned WoW puts no emphasis on social or mental traits, which works fine for a game where a lot of people skip through dialogue to get to the next quest faster, but is kind of strange for a living world run by your GM.

There was an interesting novel I read, called “Mogworld”, which was written from the perspective on an NPC in an MMO world. It did a very good job of showing how normal MMO PCs are supremely strange and almost horrifyingly obsessed with loot and progression…

So: great concept, but don’t feel the need to stick too close to the source material. You’ll have more fun if you treat your character like a person rather than a set of statistics and gear.

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