ToV PDF Thoughts, Part 10

Part of me is sad that 5E is being seen as only D&D.

It's frustrating to see so many fans who have moved on, and the subsequent backlash from them as Wizards updates every campaign setting. People are angry and make statements like...

They are ruining it. Thus, all of 5E is garbage.

It is a sad reflection of the culture, and many 5E versions don't need to be unfairly portrayed in this light. Tales of the Valiant is doing its own thing. Is ToV progressive? Slightly, but it is not overtly political and in your face. It is primarily presented as middle-of-the-road and viewpoint-neutral. Once you put politics in a game, it takes away from the immersion I crave and pay good money for. I want to be taken away from this world and see a new one through gaming.

Playing a game is like putting on a VR headset and being taken to another world. Remind me of this one, and I realize I am still wearing a VR headset and in one I want to forget.

I meant this when I asked, "Have all the best players left 5E?"

In a way, they have walked away and won't even consider an alternate version of the game.

To many, D&D is Star Wars, and both have been ruined. Pick a reason, Wall Street greed, politics, ruining settings, carelessness about stereotypes, AI art, firing people, the dumb things they say weekly, changing things that don't need to be changed - the reasons to walk away from D&D cut across every political line.

They've pissed off everybody.

People are also sick of 5E. We are 10 years down that road, and people want something new. Once you have "done it all" in a system, it gets to be like the MCU; all the best stories are told, we just see variations of things we have already seen, and the audience hungers for something new—things they have not seen before.

Some are so bought into D&D Beyond that they can't walk away. Nor should they. If someone is having fun there, why should I tell anyone to stop? But the anger around everything is way too high. People now feel they have to defend it.

Me? I feel bad for all the creators that a Wall Street company tried to silence. I was deep in the OSR and watched the fear, anger, and hurt up close. Everyone there is walking away. Pathfinder 2 walked away with the remaster. Troll Lord is walking away with their de-OGL-ification efforts. ACKS2 is free from the OGL. EN World rebuilt their licensing, and they have an SRD-free version. Tales of the Valiant is ORC-licensed.

Everyone is still walking away.

Yet many remain.

People have broken ranks. Other communities outside Wizards are strong. People see their game as their identity and beliefs. That force is much stronger than anything keeping people in D&D. If you feel the people writing the game hate you or mock what you grew up with, you won't play their game.

Even something as dumb as changing a miniature of an iconic painting is enough to confirm people's beliefs that "they hate us." Every mistake, intentional or not, no matter how silly or small, is bias confirmation on both sides. They hate us. Like it or not, we are here.

I read things where people won't even give a Wizards-free version of 5E a chance. Granted, they have bought into new games and chose never to return. I had all 5E in my sell boxes in the garage; I was there and know how they felt. Even the Kobold Press and Level Up books were in there; if I got rid of most of them, I could live without them all.

The sooner I could get rid of those books, the sooner I could bring positivity back into my life.

5E felt like negativity and hate. Even the books I liked reminded me of the time, and it felt like COVID days returning with all the hate, uncertainty, and fear.

The chapter needed to end, and the book needed to be closed.

We all needed to move on.

But Tales of the Valiant came, the PDFs dropped, and I saw a glimmer of hope: that we could have a world where the game brought people together without those feelings of negativity. We could have better things and not throw it all away.

I had lost hope in them.

But I had found it again.

I wonder if this will last or if it is a false hope. I really don't know. Even if Tales of the Valiant fails, I have Level Up Advanced 5E and still like that game. I would be happy if I sold off the 5E books that dragged my collection down and stuck to what works best with that game.

But I will give Kobold Press a chance like I gave Pathfinder 2 a chance. It didn't work out with Paizo, and I feel bad that game wasn't for me. But Kobold Press deserves the same opportunity.

Things will be different this time.

But, at least, I have hope.

I dream of a world where we can all play together again.