One of the things that I love about Tales of the Valiant is that it is a drama-free version of the fifth edition. I can play with all my fifth edition books and never need a physical copy of either the 2014 or 2024 Dungeons & Dragons. I own my PDFs, and I do not need to sign up for a website to have an electronic copy at hand or on my phone. It makes it easy to support the 10-year legacy of great products for the 2014 D&D.
Everything works. People complained that the game offered nothing new, but there are plenty of balance improvements and other tweaks to the system that significantly improve the quality of life. The game is designed to be easy to teach and learn. All the exploits are fixed. I don't need to patch the game with a later book, as all the fixes are in the player's guide and ready to use.
Inspiration or luck? Whatever you want to use, plenty of people prefer the luck system to the inspiration system. You could use both if you wished, but luck is enough. I like the luck system in Tales of the Valiant because it does not require a game master to grant inspiration. A player can manage the system on their own, occasionally receiving bonus luck points from the game master if they want. This speeds up play by giving players a trackable resource without gaming the inspiration system or exploiting role-playing for mechanical gain. One of the most annoying things about 5E is when players constantly try to take advantage of the inspiration system to gain an unfair advantage.
I have a library of my best-of-the-best fifth edition books on my shelves, and Tales of the Valiant runs everything without me needing a single book from Wizards of the Coast. It's zero drama, and I don't get constantly sucked into D&D YouTube, watching the latest drama videos posted by that clickbait crowd over there. I understand that clicks pay the bills, but at one point, I just get so tired of it all, watching the outrage of what the company did this time, and I stop caring altogether. I don't have any time, energy, or emotion left to spend on the stupid things a Wall Street company does.
I want to play a game that works without drama.
Tales of the Valiant also does not insult old-school players. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, and all the other classic humanoid monster creatures are in the Monster Vault. They were removed from D&D due to fake Twitter outrage by people who likely don't play the game. I want the real world removed from my games as much as possible, and I enter my fantasy world to enjoy the adventures there.
Being reminded of current-day social strife is the last thing I want when I'm playing my fantasy game.
We left a silly few years of history, and we are living with the damage. I want a game that is made for the fans. Tales of the Valiant does not go out of its way to anger people. There are some admittedly progressive nods in ToV, and I understand and support them. But the designers realize that people love how the game was, and that experience should be preserved and supported.
Tales of the Valiant feels like playing Windows games on Linux while sidestepping Microsoft and our AI overlords. I can support the game companies I like, protect my privacy and freedom, not hand money to Microsoft as they sell my personal data, and own my hardware all at once. With Wizards and D&D Beyond, the AI is coming, and I want to own my PDFs, characters, campaigns, and ideas without having them fed to the digital beast.
I can create ToV characters on the Shard Tabletop and even print character sheets. Everything D&D does, I can do here, and I can own my digital copies. Not changing the game too much from 2014 D&D is a feature, not a problem. If you want a completely different game, play Shadowdark, Draw Steel, Dragonbane, or Daggerheart. If you wish to play something slightly different, play Level Up A5E.
Now, I have a choice when playing 5E.
I am making an informed and ethical one.
This is not just about anger, either. I enjoy the design of Tales the Valiant far more than I do either 2014 or 2024 Dungeons & Dragons. Everything that I like about the fifth edition is here, cleaned up, ready to go, and fun. Everything on my shelves works without change. All of the dumb exploits are fixed, which I understand makes some people angry, but I don't like having to sit there and ban exploits. All the money I spent on books for the fifth edition can be used and enjoyed, and I can get my money back without having them sit in my garage and storage crates.
There isn't too much wrong with the fifth edition; my biggest complaint is that characters are too invincible and heal too quickly. This is easily fixed with a few mods. I can tune this game to run exactly like an OSR game with just a few minor changes. The game can be just as deadly as I would like it to be with just a handful of tweaks and adjustments. I can enjoy the in-depth character builds and the progression without having to abandon the game and feel I wasted my money on my entire fifth edition library.
I like Tales the Valiant and keep it on my shelves. The money I have spent on the fifth edition will not be wasted, and I will get the gameplay I bought.
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