Too Much Like 5E?

Wizards has changed D&D with every major revision. They may say, "This edition is evergreen and will never change," but there are two things I would say to that:

• Every Major point release of D&D has been incompatible.
• All the people who pushed the evergreen idea are no longer with Wizards.

I fully expect that a version of D&D will break 5E compatibility someday. Companies need to sell books, and resell you the same books in the new system, so D&D will inevitably break compatibility with 5E. The new designers will want to leave their "stamp" on the system; nobody works on legacy creative IP these days, and refuses to change what they own. They just don't. We see that with movies, comics, games, and TV.

D&D is also an asset; it could be sold. We don't know. We are talking Wall Street here. Everything has a price tag.

Even if a future new edition requires a conversion guide or is only loosely compatible, that will force most people to upgrade their books, rendering the old books unusable. In three to five years, if a version of D&D comes out that renders 15 years of 5E books as useless, what do people do? Yes, you can continue with what you have, but what about third-party support? What about new players? Aren't we allowed to use the old system and have a license, for which we can publish and sell books that work with the original 5E?

And seeing all these YouTube channels saying "ToV is too similar to 5E" is hilarious. If you want that, MCDM RPG, Daggerheart, Pathfinder, Dragonbane, and many other fantasy games are "not like 5E" at all. You have plenty of choices!

There is a specific "sidecar compatibility" design goal of ToV, and they accomplished that beautifully. You can play the same adventure, with either set of rules, and barely be able to distinguish the differences, except for a few minor improvements here and there. You can use ToV as 5E expansion books and play alongside 2024 if you prefer. You can use ToV's monster book with 2024, or if a player likes the ToV ranger better than the 2024 one, they can play with that.

ToV is both a stand-alone system and a product improvement for both 2014 and 2024 D&D.

I have a decade of the current edition of 5E books. In 5 to 10 years, I don't have any assurance that these will still be supported. Oh, wait, I do. And the system is published under an independent, open license. This will continue to work and serve as a commercial model for publishing indefinitely. Saying "well, it is too similar to what I have" does not solve the publishing problem, and that is a selfish "well, what about me" sort of statement.

This is much like how an emulator simulates the original hardware to keep a game playable. Tales of the Valiant is the best "5E emulation" we can buy and support.

Yes, I have my 2014 5E books, the ones with the names of all the designers they removed, first printings. Yes, they still work. Will I play with them? No.

I want to support the future of publishers and a version of the game that has over 10 years of books written for it. I want an open license. I like books and a storefront. I like owning my PDFs. I want to support an ethical company with values that align with my own.

Give this game a few years. People will come running when everything gets broken. I just saw this ahead of time because I know my history.

It is also a fantastic game.