When designers fix 5E, they often make it more complicated by adding layers. This trend is evident in Level Up Advanced 5E and the 2024 D&D books. I see more and more layers and ways to regenerate resources (outside of the short rest, which should be the de-facto way of combat encounter resets), and the entire 5E game feels like this "advanced" version that feels hard to play. Some parts of D&D 2024 feel like "Homer's Car" additions to the game, making it needlessly complex.
It takes more game design skills to simplify and streamline a game than to make it more complicated.
Adding junk is easy.
Taking it out is hard.
The overabundance of 'gimmes' in 2024 D&D, especially the easy resets for resources like inspiration and wild shape, has thrown the game off balance. We're playing a CR+1 or CR+2 game, with players repeatedly resetting these limited-use powers. It's a worrying sign for the game's fairness and challenge.
Also, in every review I watch, there seem to be all these "special case tweaks" to the 2024 D&D rules here and there, meant to patch a flaw in gameplay. This creates many exceptional cases during play to keep track of. The team they brought in seems to be a "rules team" more focused on fixing and writing new rules than simplifying and streamlining the game. I suspect this "advanced 5E" D&D 2024 will be a more challenging game to master, and the exceptional cases will turn many new players off.
Shadowdark proves the opposite; you can take most everything out of 5E and still have a classic game.
One of the design goals of Tales of the Valiant was to make the game easy to learn and teach new players. If the ToV team was forced to make a patch for a class feature (and write a few extra paragraphs of rules) or simplify the feature and focus on fun, they chose the latter.
Time after time, making class features more straightforward to use will speed up play for everyone. I suspect ToV will be the faster and more streamlined version of 5E to play than either 2024 D&D or Level Up A5E.
I returned to Tales of the Valiant, and the game feels like a simplified version of 5E, closer to Shadowdark than either Level Up or 2024 D&D. It is a strange feeling since this is the same game at its core, but ToV just feels more streamlined and more straightforward to grasp and master than the other games. I felt the ToV version was more accessible with my 3rd party books than either 2024 or Level Up.
Level Up sticks to the CR+0 2104 balance, and I love that "level" feeling to the 5E rules. The game is almost new compared to 5E; this is a 2014 fork from the main rules, like how C&C is a D&D 3.0 fork.
Tales is a CR+1 game; the monsters and characters hit harder.
With 2024, we have yet to see since there are no monsters out yet.
I was not juggling so much "extra junk" and "add-on fixes" in ToV, which allowed me to focus on the third-party book's powers and abilities and enjoy that designer's work better. You get a lot of YouTubers who equate "more" with "better," which is not always true. I could "improve" chess by adding subclasses, spells, special powers, stamina bars, short rests, and all sorts of cruft that require 1,000 pages to explain - but the game isn't chess anymore. It is "mutant chess" and loses the ability to be a universal, cross-culture, no-language-needed game that anyone can enjoy.
I can go to anyone and play chess with them, even though I don't know how to speak with them.
I can teach it to someone else without knowing their language. This piece moves this way, and that one goes that way. This is a capture. I go, then you. This is winning.
We can play in 10 minutes, showing things and giving examples.
Shadowdark gets that design philosophy.
Tales of the Valiant leans towards the "simple design ideal" more than any other current-day version of 5E. Once you set ability scores, you never go back to them again. Ability scores are not modified after creation. ToV's systems never force you to go backward. Even the luck system is forward-looking.
A lot in ToV is "designed in" with this "stealth mindset" to make things flow very nicely. You never even see it, but the game's rules and character creation flow are exponentially better than Level Up or 2024 D&D. You don't see it if you are a 5E veteran; you skim through and go, check, check, check.
But pretend you don't know 5E and reread the book.
Like Shadowdark, this game's natural and comfortable design makes it best for new 5E players. Parts of this book remind me of the BECMI presentation; it is that good.
The game is like my old-school Nintendo Entertainment System for 5E; I can plug any third-party book into that as the core system, and it works. I am not messing with 2014/2024, and I own the PDFs of the core books. I am not adding in Tasha's or any other expansion. I don't have to think about a subclass introduced in an add-on book. There are no "outside systems" in the game which cause incompatibilities.
If I have a fantastic setting book like Svilland, I will play that with my base ToV book. Yes, we will use luck rather than inspiration, but luck is much better. What I love about ToV is that "NES" feeling, where I can grab my ToV book, grab this one, and play without distractions or piles of books weighing me down. Yes, I can do that with 2014, but I own my ToV PDFs and do not need an online service to play.
Again, simplicity and clean designs win.
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