Amidst an endless array of personal family turmoil (ranging from family health issues to cat problems to dying cars) I thought I'd take a few minutes to decompress with an innocuous blog post. Specifically, to call out a fine post over on the Kobold Press Blog! This one, in fact.
The Kobolds provide a bit of an overview on why one might consider Tales of the Valiant even in the face of the new D&D 2024. I have heard a lot of interesting feedback on D&D 2024, and one thing I've noticed is that the new rulebook is much likelier to cause consternation and conflict if you are a newer gamer. No one I've talked to who takes umbrage at any level with the new repackaging of the rules has been through the various prior edition changes, notable in particular being 1E to 2E, 2E to 3E, 3E to 3.5E, and the most egregious of all: 3.5E to 4E. That last one was, on a certain level, not a change of editions but a change of game systems, draped in the corpse skin of the game the mimic replaced.
I like to frame it like this: from my jaded ancient gamer perspective, there are about as many notable changes in D&D 2024 to the regular 5E D&D as there were between Call of Cthulhu 5th and 6th edition. Were there changes? Yes. Can you still use everything that came before with what is coming next? Totally. Is the new rules mainly just incentivizing you to buy it by being cooler, offering more options, and packaging everything in a very clean and organized package? Totally.
Tales of the Valiant comes in to this discussion with the idea that it offers what amounts to 90% of the same game, with the last 10% looking darned similar and just being a mess of tweaks and mods for a particular feel and style. It has its own merits, but I really do think I could run a campaign with mixed 5E PHB, 2024 PHB and TotV characters all at the same table, so long as I am clear on which underlying variant of the rules we are all agreeing to abide by. They are that close.
What Tales of the Valiant offers that is different from the new 2024 D&D however is style and character: it's presenting a distinctly Kobold-Pressian representation of adventuring that looks and feels a lot like the D&D I thematically have enjoyed for many years now. It's got a traditional vibe to it that makes it feel different from the newer 2024 D&D, which is so far totally fine but also feels like it is trying too hard to be too many things to too many people at once.
What this all gets down to is that while I rather like the new 2024 PHB, I think I can hold off using it until its two complimentary volumes are out, so I plan to convince my playing group we should give Tales of the Valiant a spin for a few months so we can really grokk the subtleties here. I want to see if the promise that monsters hit harder and the game is a bit tougher is true, because I like that concept space. I also like how TotV does the lineages and heritages, it provides more versatility and flavor, something I feel is a bit weak in the 2024 PHB edition, where it feels like "least troublesome presentation" was the order of the day.
That said.....neither of these systems have half elves or half orcs, and that is just weird. It's one of those moments where you have to ask what curious logic was on display to invalidate the notion of people of mixed race, and what sort of madness percolates under the guise of good intentions to think that somehow such notions had to be expurgated from our fantasy tales?
Ah well.
If I manage to get this off the ground I shall report more soon.
I really miss Half Orcs.
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