Kobold Press, famously known for its third-party Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks, has just launched a brand-new Kickstarter. This is crowdfunding the first supplementary book for the publisher’s in-house RPG system, Tales of the Valiant. With funding completed in around 30 minutes, there’s a clear audience for this game, which advertises itself as a compatible but alternative rules set to D&D 5e. Despite this, I still can’t get excited about diving deep into Tales of the Valiant.
I’m keen to try pretty much any tabletop RPG I can get my hands on, but these itchy fingers have hesitated when it comes to Tales of the Valiant (ToV). My copy of the game still sits in my RPG folder, with lots of reading left to do. Why, I’ve asked myself, am I bouncing off a game that clearly excites so many?
The answer: Tales of the Valiant is too hesitant to differentiate itself from Dungeons and Dragons. If it wants to spark my interest – and survive as a long-term D&D competitor – it needs to do much, much more to stand out.
When it was first announced, Tales of the Valiant’s major selling point was that it played like fifth edition – but it wasn’t under the thumb of a problematic publisher. Wizards of the Coast had recently turned off a serious chunk of its audience by proposing restrictive changes to its OGL. Competitors raced to produce alternative gaming licenses, Wizards hastily backpedaled on its plans, and among the chaos, Kobold Press announced it had been working on the mysterious ‘Project Black Flag’ (now ToV) all along.
Veterans of the RPG scene will be experiencing some deja vu, as this origin story bears some resemblance to that of Pathfinder. Currently D&D’s biggest rival on the TTRPG market, Pathfinder started out as a response to Dungeons and Dragons’ changing editions.
When fourth edition and its updated gaming license put Paizo’s D&D content in jeopardy, the publisher decided to release its own, improved version of D&D 3.5e. “3.75e” was a popular name for the game’s first edition, and the preservation of 3.5e’s rules was even part of Pathfinder’s initial marketing.
People clearly wanted more of the same, but Paizo wasn’t content to rest on its laurels. Back in 2016, Pathfinder’s original lead designer told Polygon that Paizo didn’t want to simply reprint 3.5e for all eternity. Entirely new classes were added as part of this initial overhaul, and many changes were made to the system’s overall balance.
Pathfinder had distinctive differences as well as similarities for selling points. Almost two decades later, its original D&D DNA is almost unrecognizable. The rules, lore, and character options Paizo has created since departing from D&D are excitingly unique.
Occasionally, Paizo and Wizards of the Coast draw on similar wells of inspiration (it was bound to happen – after 50 years, what hasn’t D&D done at this point?). However, in these cases, their output is clearly distinguished. Journeys from the Radiant Citadel and the Tian Xia books both drew setting ideas from non-white cultures, for example, but they don’t even remotely resemble each other.
So far, Tales of the Valiant has shown little sign of standing out. Its Player’s Guide offers a sparse range of character options, with the classes ranging from ‘slightly different’ to ‘basically identical’ in comparison to D&D 5e. With so few choices, many fans online have admitted that they use the book more like a supplement, picking and choosing which rules they incorporate into their Dungeons and Dragons games.
The core rules themselves have plenty of good ideas. Luck and Doom adds a new layer to balance and storytelling, and some individual classes shine as improved versions of the 2014 DnD classes equivalents. But overall, this is an adaptation of 5e without much material difference – much like the 2024 Player’s Handbook Wizards of the Coast just released.
To be fair, this is basically what Kobold Press advertised. When I interviewed the game’s lead designer, Celeste Conowitch, last year, she explained the aim was “to make sure 5e stays playable on people’s tables”. A fresh coat of paint and some balance fixes were mostly what was promised.
But that was 2023, a time when the D&D OGL scandal stung the community far more than it seems to now. With the core rules now available, Tales of the Valiant needs to secure a long-term brand. The first supplementary books seem like it’s continuing to chase D&D’s shadow, unfortunately.
New subclasses and character options are promised, but many seem like additional D&D ports rather than original creations. Even the setting that these extra books are built around feels familiar.
The Labyrinth is a world-between-worlds that was already established in Kobold Press’ Guide to the Labyrinth, and it’ll be further explored in these new books. The Labyrinth makes it easy for you to link any setting (including 5e ones, as this book is still 100% D&D-compatible – Kobold Press hasn’t given up publishing third-party titles just yet). It’s a fairly dark setting, and the new preview document on the Kickstarter Page shows there is a big focus on factions.
This sounds an awful lot like Quests from the Infinite Staircase, a recent D&D book that rehashes a decades-old setting from the game, mashed together with the factions of Planescape.
As I said, there’s currently a strong audience for this Tales of the Valiant Kickstarter. Many of the backers will be long-time fans of Kobold Press and their excellent supplements for D&D. Perhaps a significant portion of them want to distance themselves from Wizards of the Coast without having to learn a markedly different rules set.
But I wonder how long the interest of these two parties will continue. And with Tales of the Valiant still not confident enough to let go of its 5e compatibility, I wonder how many of these backers are D&D fans and Kobold Press fans – but not committed Tales of the Valiant converts.
For more D&D revisions, here’s how the new Player’s Handbook changes DnD 2024 backgrounds. Or, for something more familiar, here’s everything you need to know about DnD races.
Source: Wargamer
