Kickstarter-Watch: Tales of the Valiant

I didn’t make a post at the time of the whole panic around Wizards of the Coast considering changing the terms of licensing for their intellectual property. I was of the belief that it was a self-destructive step in terms of good will and public perception, but unlike most of the internet at the time, I wasn’t going to pretend to be a lawyer. The most sensible, measured, and honest article about the whole drama came from Arc Dream Publishing, publishers of Delta Green. Go read it.

Kobold Press is a company that I love dearly. They produce truly fantastic books and put out some of my favourite third party 5E content. I like their Midgard setting a lot. I’m coming to this Kickstarter as someone who wants to see a fantastic, successful product that will bring huge success to a company I love.

I guess that if this was going to be a very positive post, I wouldn’t need to include so much of a preamble, would I?

What is Tales of the Valiant?

Well, it’s a 5E clone. There are some tweaks and additions that people will find interesting, but what we’re getting here, simply, is 5E D&D. Again. You can see this for yourself via either the Tales of the Valiant website or the very well-presented preview PDF that they’ve put out. I love Kickstarter campaigns where the publisher puts out this sort of PDF. I think it shows not only honesty and a sense of preparedness but also a respect for the (potential) customer and a confidence in one’s own product.

I like the new luck system; it plays as a more developed, refined form of Inspiration. I like the fact that you can switch a fighter to be dexterity-based, rather than strength-based. I like the presentation (it’s very clean). I like this book. The tweaks they’re making work.

My question is, are they enough that this is a new game?

I don’t think so. Here’s what they state as the goals of the project:

• Make the rules easier to read, understand, and use.
• Reduce GM burden with encounter-building tools, exploration encounter tools, social encounter tools, and more.
• Rebalance some existing elements such as feats (now known as talents) and subclasses.
• Provide opportunities for PCs to make meaningful choices throughout every level of play.
• Make spellcasting cooler.
• Keep combat interesting for martial characters.

Tweaks.

I think the original name for this game, Project Black Flag was way more appropriate than Tales of the Valiant. Cos, you know, piracy implications…

No, no, I know this isn’t piracy. But it’s not very original, either. I feel like Kobold Press is making a mistake, and I’ll tell you for why…

First, they seem to want to be the Paizo and Pathfinder of 5E, which is a noble cause. Paizo came along, took D&D 3.5 during an unpopular edition change, and turned it into Pathfinder, giving a home to players who felt disenfranchised by Wizards of the Coast, and resentful of the new edition of D&D. That paid off for Paizo and they saw huge success, which continues to this day. The thing is, as we head towards a new edition of D&D, the situation is quite different to the 3.5 to 4th edition transition. At the time of that change, WotC were actively pushing 4E as being a departure, and arguable denigrating 3.5 in the process. This time, they are trying to downplay that they’re having an edition change at all, and are promising only minor changes which are all going to be fully compatible with 5E. Pathfinder also did try to address some of the problems of 3.5.

If Kobold Press were to do the same here, I’d hope to see some steps toward a better balance between caster and martial classes, but there’s nothing in the preview PDF that suggests this is happening. Ditto for the jankiness of higher-level play. It’s fundamentally 5E and other than a player having a particular moral issue with support WotC – which I can definitely respect – I don’t see much reason to switch games. If you love 5E, then you’ll likely love this, too; but enough to make the effort to switch? If you don’t like 5E, this doesn’t really solve any of the issues you likely have with the game.

I feel they’re also trying to react to the whole OGL fiasco (sorry, not the cool Fiasco) that we saw unfold a few months ago. It feels like a project mainly aimed at the folks who were outraged over that. Most of what they have put out thus far is from the 5E SRD, so I wonder if they launched early to try to capitalise on those residual feelings. It doesn’t feel like they’ve really written a game yet.

And it’s not like the hardcore Kobold Press fans are even crying out for this. Here’s a screenshot from the early discussions back in February:

I just don’t understand the point. Are people that desperate to play 5E D&D without WotC? Is this such a great system that it’s important that we divorce it from the company that originated it? I could name quite a few systems I’d rather play of a given evening, but most local groups want to play D&D.

And therein is another issue. This can copy D&D all it wants, but name recognition is important and powerful. Most of the D&D-fixated players here were not even aware of the OGL controversy. Most of them won’t be aware of the OGL generally, and they’re not going to seek out a game that is D&D in all but name when they can just play D&D. There is a dedicated, angry crowd that enjoys performative outrage who will eat this up, but I’d be willing to wager they are definitely in the minority.

Again, I love Kobold Press and I feel really uneasy reading back over what is a pretty negative post about a project which is presumably really important to them.

In terms of the Kickstarter, the books are pricey, but not ridiculously so. The $699 tier is hilarious, but it’s a limited tier and it’s almost sold out, somehow. The turnaround is scheduled to be a year, which is both a positive and a negative. It’s not a long wait for this sort of campaign, which is good, and Kobold have demonstrated that they can fulfil Kickstarters. I’m confident on that front. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for playtests though, which suggests to me that they’re not intending to change much more of the system. The shipping estimates look reasonable, too.

I still love you, Kobold, but I just don’t see myself picking this up.

You can click here to visit the project page over at Kickstarter.