I really, really want to play Tales of the Valiant. I am annoyed that D&D 2024 is sufficiently interesting that it is hard not to also want to play it (and is the easier sell, of course); so Tales of the Valiant is mostly getting "behind the scenes" love from me as a GM while I wait for that tipping point when I think that it will also be an easy sell to my players. Really, it needs two things from my perspective to become the next ruleset we try out: more subclasses for players, and Roll20 support. We currently have neither!
Right now, the TotV Player's Guide has 2 subclasses per character class. This is in contrast with D&D 5.5 which manages 4 subclasses per class in the PHB, and also has a tome out on dmsguild.com right now which updates the remaining 69 subclasses out there. So D&D 5.5 has a clear advantage here. Kobold Press has been catching up with ancestry options (well, ancestry and lineages in the parlance of TotV), with two PDF resources out adding a plethora of previous species to the mix, but nothing yet for new subclasses.
The other thing TotV needs to get adoption rates going (for my group, at least) is Roll20 support. I know they are committed to Shard Tabletop, but last I check Roll20 support was promised and it's for better or worse where many people staked out their VTT gaming ecosystems. I also happen to have TotV set up on Alchemy Tabletop, which is a really cool and weird alternative...and I find both Alchemy and Roll20 more intuitive for myself than Shard....Shard has a great player interface, but does not have the sort of resources I would need as a GM to run games; it seems like it is better designed for pre-published modules. I mean, you can probably run homebrew on it well enough, but honestly my old brain can't figure it out; Roll20's more broadly applicable interface has ruined me a bit.
Anyway, the point is.....Tales of the Valiant is really close to adoption in my group, but as seasoned old players they need more variety in choice than the core books currently offer, and most of my players are not in the habit of manually updating existing 5E stuff to match TotV's conversion requirements, so honestly if someone could just take the time to put out a new book of subclasses or even a conversion document that does the work it would be simply awesome. As GM I do not fret this stuff, I have all I need for the game now, and then some! But for my players? Yeah we need more stuff for them.
As GM though: there's Frog Gods' new Tome of Horrors update which is surprisingly good (it brings in a lot of unusual stuff to BFR/TotV not seen in a while), and Legendary Games has popped out some BFR compatible books as well, including Mythos Monsters, Sea Monsters and some modules. There are other books out already, though maybe not at the ideal pace....and a lot of scenarios, which is not (imo) what TotV needs right now half so much as new subclasses and stuff for players.
So! What I guess I am saying is: TotV can stand on its own two feet if it can ramp up content in a manner consistent with its Big Dog competition. It will forever be the niche game played by D&Ders who are no longer infatuated with WotC, but it can totally own that market....if it can give their largely older, veteran base more material to work with. Just my thoughts!
EDIT: One other thing Tales of the Valiant badly needs: A forum!!! If I want to look for useful Pathfinder 2E advice I can go to Paizo. However there is no unifying forum I am aware of for Tales of the Valiant (I believe they have some sort of Discord but....referring to my prior comments about being an old guy....I find Discord a rough place to have a standardized forum, ime). Right now, if you look for places to talk about TotV, good luck! You mostly get lengthy topics on other forms where people try to talk about TotV and then get trashed by people who dislike it for various petty reasons. So yeah....I really think the Kobolds would benefit from setting up some sort of forum for their product, where fans of the product can actually converse and exchange ideas and content. Just saying.
....And if I am wrong, and there is a good place for this, can someone point me in the right direction?
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