Level Up A5E Thoughts

As I was about to embark on a Tales of the Valiant game, having meticulously crafted my characters, a sudden realization dawned on me.

All of 5E is seamlessly replaced by some other version of 5E.

It does not matter what you play.

...as long as it does not come from Wizards. Oh yeah, that OGL hurt runs deep. But the OGL hurt needed to happen because the old-school community was getting lazy. Now, they innovate and change the game to make it their own. I am glad it happened, but we won't forget.

But honestly, it does not matter what version of "Open 5E" you play. Tales of the Valiant, Level Up Advanced 5E, 5B, Low Fantasy Gaming, Shadowdark, or whatever your flavor of the game is. 5E has become "fast food" roleplaying, the same quick, everywhere, easily pickable, and many varieties of "every food" on every corner.

So play the 5E you like, and you don't feel guilty about supporting.

For me, right now, that is Level Up A5E.

My ToV Monster Vault and A5E Monstrous Menagerie work with ToV. I can play apples with apples and oranges with oranges. Or apples with oranges. If I want to play ToV and keep things simple, it's almost like a B/X game like Old School Essentials. If I want to play a game with near-infinite options, pillars of play support, and the best of old-school and 4E, I have Level Up.

Any way I play, I win.

I was reading a review of ToV, and someone said, "It was nothing to leave Level Up for." I agree with that, for now. ToV will go in its own direction, and it will probably take a few years to "get good." I will support them in their releases since I have nothing to lose, and they are all compatible. ToV needs character options badly, and their online tools must improve. The GM's Guide is yet to be released. But I have faith that ToV will improve rapidly.

ToV is still Open 5E, so it plays with most Open 5E games.

And both Level Up and ToV are compatible with your favorite 3rd party books. ToV is a more straightforward conversion, while Level Up needs a little game knowledge to do these, so they work well with the pillars of play supported in A5E (supply system, expertise dice, martial options, etc.).

But Level Up has years of great content, player options that blow my mind, and more classes than most 5E games. It has old-school rules that support the pillars of play. Death means something. Resting takes work. Some of the best ideas in 4E (commander style class, exploration challenges) are here. Level Up A5E is a time capsule of the "best of old-school 5E" from 2014, brought into 2024.

This is how old-school AD&D and 3E players played the game and what they wanted to see in 5E before Wizards took it into social-media la-la land with influencers, power gamers, identity gaming, and live play theatrics. D&D has declined under Wizards, and the 2024 art looks like "corporate office-scene clip art and AI." The fact that their design goal was to maintain compatibility with 10 years of broken first-party books doomed the game.

All my 5E adventures work together seamlessly. The AC, to-hit, damage, actions, and other systems are mostly the same. You can even play mixed classes between the games. It is funny since I found Level Up by thinking the monster book was a generic 5E monster manual, and I got it for Low Fantasy Gaming. I discovered it was its own game and thought I had wasted my money.

Well, I didn't.

I gave this game a chance, and yes, there are a few typos here and there, but the quality is high, and the support is excellent. I learned the game and saw a lot of what I liked. The community input for the development of this game was terrific. It does not need an SRD or OGL since the game has been rewritten entirely and has no reliance on any Wizards content.

And it does have an open license.

This was one of my first Open 5E books and meant freedom. We are lucky to have two complete implementations of 5E these days, and both are excellent. One is just starting, and the other is a mature, developed system. ToV is "nothing to walk away from Level Up for," but give it time. I can see playing ToV if you are heavily invested in Kobold Press books and Level Up for EN World ones.

But play either. If you can, support both. This is a guilt-free choice.

But pick the one that speaks to you.