Settings: Lost Lands

 

I like Frog God Games' Lost Lands setting for 5E. Since this was initially written for Swords & Wizardry, it has this distinct, old-school feeling that I can't find elsewhere. This feels like a world where magic is rare and special, but it is not a low-magic world. You can still have magic here, it just isn't all over and rubbed in your face as a technology replacement. Average people can still be amazed by magic, and that is fun and makes characters feel special.

The setting has maps, maps, and more maps! You mostly never go wanting for a town or city map here, since those are always included, and a thankful design choice they made. Many modern 5E adventures don't even include a town map, and I feel cheated out of the cartography I expect. The adventures also feature NPCs, as well as detailed area descriptions of all the places in the world.

This is also flexible enough to allow you to expand to other locations yourself and easily add your own. In some settings, I don't get that feeling, as if the designer would be angry if you started changing things. Lost Lands is more of a highly detailed blank canvas, ready for you to play the adventures published here, or make your own.

Evil is very evil here. Rappan Athuk is a mega-dungeon and home to a notorious old-school evil classic villain. I won't spoil it, but the influence and corruption this place spreads slowly creeps outward, causing chaos and evil to flock to this place, take hold in its underground temples and caverns, and bask in the wicked glow of fiendish power. It is one of the best classic mega-dungeons ever crafted, and they have a 5E version that would fit Tales of the Valiant nicely.

I like the gritty, realistic, medieval world setting. This is gritty, dirty, messy, and also at times, the locals are suspicious of outsiders. It is a vast world, but every place feels small and detailed enough to become a hub of adventure. The fantasy races here are more along the standard old-school mix (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.), which is also nice since there are not 101 mixed fantasy races running around, and nothing feels special. 

You can play a dragonborn or another exceptional heritage, but you will likely be one of the few here and always attract attention, sometimes suspicion, and questions. This is good roleplaying material, and I like my special backgrounds to feel special, giving players opportunities to immerse themselves in their culture and character.

Clockwork automations in this setting are optional, which is a plus for me. I don't like too much "steam tech" in my fantasy games, since it begins the slow slide into too many modern conveniences and gunpowder. Get too many robots running around, and you are playing science fiction.

They also have two of the best city settings, Bard's Gate and the Blight, with huge books dedicated to each. The Bard's Gate setting is a typical "good city" setting with plenty of interesting places. The Blight is more of a grimdark, evil city, perfect for backstabbing and evil campaigns, or even masked vigilantes fighting to protect the innocent. These are two of the best city settings in 5E right now, with Midgard's Zobek being up there, too.

Frog God Games has adventures and plenty of complications for sale, so you will never go without something to do here. They are all fantastic quality, but also written for the 2014 D&D standard, so you may need to up their challenge levels, toughen up the creatures a CR, or port in the ToV monsters to maintain challenge levels.

This is a solid, well-constructed, fun setting worth your time and interest. It is also not Wizards, yet remarkably detailed and filled with tons of adventures. This is worth your time, and is one of the best Open 5E settings out there.

YouTube: Tales of the Valiant RPG- Beyond the Black Flag, and Why My Take on This Game is Different

Today, we have an oldie but goodie video, especially for those interested in the game and deciding whether they want to jump in. Please watch the video all the way through, and don't forget to like and subscribe! This is another of my "best of the best" channels, and the coverage of various games is always a welcome sight.

This is the best video for explaining what the game is and isn't, and presents everything in a positive, fun, and informative light. This is top-quality work, and hugely helpful for new players and those interested.

One he hits on is "Tales of the Valiant is not a setting." This is why I love the game: it's setting neutral 5E, all the way down to the planes and metaverse structure. I am not tied to the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, the Great Wheel, all the planes of existence, all the planar product identity, the MtG imported fluff, the cartoon references for toy sales, and all the tie-ins and nostalgia baiting.

A clean-room fantasy 5E without Wizards is precisely what I want.

There are times when I feel obligated to play in the official worlds, and I get the feeling that "my ideas are not welcome" in D&D unless they fit into the established framework of the product identity. I can't come up with a world that changes too much, alters the structure of the planes, or even limits what classes and linages are available. I must adhere to the Wizards' standard set of everything, and my ideas must align with theirs.

This is also why ToV is so much better for indie settings like Lost Lands. There is no "Tenser the Wizard" and no "Tenser's Floating Disc" to remind players that "we are not in an official setting, but his name is still here." There are no reminders stuck in here to pull people out of the world and the immersion I want to create. A version of 5E with all the product identity stripped out is the best "neutral base" of a system you can use for anything.

And Wizards is strip-mining and ruining its classic settings, along with leaving them unsupported. Greyhawk does not need to be modernized, and if you do, you ruin it. The Forgotten Realms were pronounced dead back in D&D 4E after they collapsed the Underdark, and with the newest changes, it feels too much like Baldur's Gate 3, a fantastic game, but that is not the Realms I grew up with.

Tales of the Valiant feels like a generic game where you can do anything, but it remains true to its 5E core.

Most importantly, my ideas come first.

The CR+1 Issue

Both Tales of the Valiant and D&D 2024 are balanced at a higher power level than D&D 2014. ToV is balanced at a one-level-higher power level difference, as their monsters hit harder and are more sturdy. Kobold Press has always balanced its monsters on the more challenging side to keep combats exciting, and seeing their game increase the power level of characters to that extent is not surprising.

Many things in D&D 2024 are one or even two levels higher, given what I'm hearing about the overpowered classes. I wonder if D&D 2024 is actually a CR+2 game, at least in the character area. Players of both games are finding earlier adventures easier with either set of rules, especially so on the D&D 2024 side.

More power always sells, and this is the bane of many games and their later expansions. It is rare to find a design team that cares about late-game balance and crafting expansions that don't blow out the base books' content. In D&D's case, they upped the power level of the entire game to sell it as something you should switch to. ToV's design upped the power level, but they also shifted class features to levels where they could be used more, the fun ones appear earlier, and you have a better experience playing the class.

ToV's classes are superior in most areas. They make sense and give me a satisfying feeling when building them. I look forward to leveling. They feel right, given monster power and balance.

Now, in ToV, you can always swap the adventure's modules out with the tougher ones in the Monster Vault. This is what I would do, and likely the balance issues would resolve themselves since ToV monsters offer me more, in abilities and power level, than either D&D game. I could also rebuild the encounter using the ToV tools and balance it myself, but that defeats the ease of use of buying an adventure where the work should be done for you.

This issue has prompted me to store many of my third-party 5E monster books and to pare down my library to the items that work best with ToV. There is no monster shortage in ToV, as we have monster books overfilling the Kobold Press store over there, the game's Monster Vault, and a second Monster Vault shipping this year. There are thousands, all balanced to the higher power level that ToV supports.

Adventures are another story, at least the ones not published by Kobold Press. If an adventure has tons of custom monsters, that will be a less-useful book than one that uses mostly foes from the game's bestiaries. Of course, I can swap in ToV monsters or add a monster or two to the encounters, and that is a better way.

One of the settings I am exploring for ToV is the excellent Lost Lands setting, initially written for Swords & Wizardry but converted to the 5E system. Many of the physical books in this series are out of print, but I have a shelf full, and the PDFs are often your only option. However, I love the old-school vibe and feeling of these adventures. The world is "down & gritty," as an old-school setting should be, and the adventures, maps, locations, and NPCs are generous and of high quality.

Frog God Games consistently delivers "meat on the bones" in these books, and when you need a town map, it is there for you. When an area needs to be created as a sandbox, you get it. When there should be an important NPC with stats, you get them. While there is conversion to ToV, the amount of "quality, good stuff" in these books is very high, and that keeps me from doing all that work and focusing on encounter balance.

Encounter balance is a thing in 5E, isn't it? Most of my prep is encounter balance. It's strange how games like GURPS and Cypher System don't even think of encounter balance. I am a video game designer in 5E all the time, trying to balance "game boards" and "design boss fights."

Mystara and Lost Lands are my two favorite non-Kobold Press settings. Mystara wins on nostalgia and setting flavor, while Lost Lands has the adventures, detailed maps, and towns all laid out for me. Do not sleep on the Frog God Games 5E books! They are some of the best old-school feeling conversions out there, and take a game that can sometimes feel "too 5E" and make it more into an old-school experience.

Tone is everything.

Lost Lands also features one of the best mega-dungeons of all time, Rappan Athuk, which has been converted to 5E. This will have the CR+1 issue, but again, play ToV enough, and you will be easily able to rebalance stock 5E encounters for the ToV power level. This is a mega-dungeon that can sustain years of gaming, not even to clear the entire thing, but used as a campaign setting where characters need to visit from time to time to accomplish specific quests on the various sub-levels.

This is a "place of great evil and power" that will attract various evil factions. You could have a small part cleared by the characters, and they later return to find the entire area taken over by a new group with entirely new plans. Or they could come back and find a cleared area now inhabited by strange spirits and demons that whisper in the darkness and prey upon the unwary.

You can also easily expand this dungeon with your own areas, branch off and make your own caverns and ancient temples, and put your own creative mark on the dangers and mysteries here.

This place is a vast "evil mana battery" that empowers all sorts of wicked, vile, and nefarious factions. There is a reason for this, and that is on the dungeon's deepest levels.

Also, learn to swap monsters for the Kobold Press versions. Doing this will also create a level of surprise and uncertainty in your encounters, and allow you to feature some of the outstanding Kobold Press designs in the various monster books they created for 5E. The Tome of Beasts (and the Creature Codex) series by Kobold Press is very nice since they list creatures by type in the appendices. This way, if you need an undead creature, you can always go to the back of the book and have a list of them in that book.

The cover of Tome of Beasts III looks like a Rappan Athuk monster encounter in the woods outside the insane caves and tunnels beneath the unholy ground. That book is made for a place like this.

Better yet, we are finally away from the overused "product identity" monsters of D&D, which tend to be overused and in sore need of being retired to the Monster Hall of Fame. That thing on the cover? I have never seen or fought that before. A D&D mind flayer or beholder? Again? Nostalgia is a significant toxicity issue in D&D, and those original monsters were designed to be "things we never saw before." These days? They are 50-year-old creatures, overused, and in a mid-life crisis.

New monsters cause the thrill and excitement in the game! Always go for the new ones! Even if you are uncomfortable running them, your players will be thrown for a loop, fighting the unexpected, and constantly on their toes and excited for what is next.

This is how it used to be back in the day.

Nobody knew what to expect.

Make your game just like that.

Another great tool that Kobold Press gives us is the free Monster Search tool on their homepage (link in the sidebar). Here, I conducted a search for CR 3 to 6 undead monsters, which will provide a list of different ones to choose from across their books. This way, I can add the new monsters from the Kobold Press and ToV books to my adventure, so I can change the sometimes "stock 5E" ones in these adventures to something unique and fun from the twisted minds of the Kobolds.

There is also a free encounter builder on the Kobold Press site! Check the sidebar. If I needed to completely rebuild a boss fight, the tool is there for me to use. The software and website support put ToV above any other 5E clone, with no D&D Beyond subscription, and no VTT subscription needed. If they ever release a free character builder with export functionality, that will seal the deal.

Do not forget the monster templates from the ToV Game Master's Guide! If you ever wanted to create a zombie owlbear to terrify your players, this is the way to do it. You don't always have to use unique monsters from the Kobold Press books; the templates let you make a hill giant skeleton, shadow worms, element-infused variants, and many other interesting combinations.

You could see the CR+1 issue as something that makes the game seem like it has less support, but this is an opportunity to change up encounters and put my own spin on these adventures with a bit of care and work. Do you play an adventure, and feel that the monsters are generic and uninteresting? You have the tools to fix that.

Give me the tools, monsters, and a little time to take an adventure to the next level, and I will do that.

ToV and the tools Kobold Press gives you make it easy.

Tales of the Valiant, Player's Guide 2: Last Few Hours!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deepmagic/players-guide-2-new-power-for-5e-and-tov-players/description

There are only seven hours to get the Player's Guide 2 for Tales of the Valiant. This does not ship until January 2026, so if you want early access, sign up now or risk waiting!

There has been a notable upswing in support over the past day, so I hope they can reach the $250,000 stretch goal. With over 3,000 backers, this is also a strong indicator of support for the system, particularly among those seeking Open 5E games as they try Daggerheart and transition to a longer-term support version of 5E.

The link is on the sidebar!

Tales of Mystara: The Emirates of Ylaruam (GAZ2)

One of our first problems with Mystara was that the map felt too small. The desert of Ylaruam was 200 miles tall by 400 miles long, which felt remarkably small to us, considering it was home to such diverse cultures and peoples. We need to start here first because this scale problem affected our entire game.

We tripled the per-hex scale to 24 miles per hex (on the 8-mile per hex map).

This expanded the desert empire from an area half the size of New Mexico to one that spanned from El Paso all the way up to the top of Colorado, encompassing everything to the Pacific Ocean. Now THAT was a desert. This was certainly one that could exist in a fantasy world, yet still be large enough for the people and cultures to live there without feeling the need to expand and constantly fight with their Viking neighbors to the north and the Greeks to the south.

This made everything huge and put a lot of empty space between cities. This is how we envisioned the world: a more realistic and expansive one, akin to an Epic Mystara campaign. A 24-mile hex means that at a normal travel pace, only one hex per day is moved. To get across the desert from north to south, following the trade route, took 20 days on our scale, and 6 on the official scale. Twenty days felt right, and it gave the map room to breathe and for us to dot little towns here and there.

It seemed strange to us as kids that you could get in a plane and look across the desert to the mountains on the other side. At this scale, the entire map felt right, and you could have cultures and peoples in this area; they could develop in isolation, and there would not be too much "fast travel" bringing everyone in constant contact.

This means every other kingdom on the world map triples in geographical size. This sort of change affected the entire setting, transforming it into a smaller continent, the size of the Upper East US Coast, on a map the size of America or larger.

https://mystara.thorfmaps.com/known-world-8/

Using the above maps from the very nice Atlas of Mystara site, we figured the map, as-is, at 8 miles per hex, was about half the size of the US. Looking back, that is plenty fine of a size, and we probably overdid it. It is roughly 1,300 miles on a side. Ours was about 4,000 miles on each side, or the distance from Miami to Anchorage. The map still worked at that scale.

I will probably cop out at this point and say the scale doesn't really matter. Set it to something that can be easily divided into the 24-mile movement rate, and you're all set. You can keep it 8, but 12 and 24 work well, too.

We adjusted the map scale because we loved this part of the setting and wanted more of it.

The People and Places

This is a sort of "Arabian Knights" setting, with some Mongol-type influences to the north, and an ancient Egyptian culture that once existed here and is now represented by the ruins of the lost empire. There used to be a Nile-like river running through this land, so that serves as our basis for the "Aegyptian Empire" (as we called it) before this one, and it is sort of a cool setting that feels better than the similar one in Golarion.

This is a pre-Islamic Middle East, where the cultures and peoples are rich in history and culture. This is a folklore-style setting, familiar to us kids in the 1980s who watched movies like Sinbad and Indiana Jones on Saturday afternoons. It is not meant to be an accurate reflection of history, but rather a myth and legend-style portrayal of a place where cultures are presented with respect. However, it opened the door for us as kids to learn more about this place and its people and cultures.

The Emirates of Ylaruam, page 38

The art was fantastic and gave us a window into another world and culture. People today forget, "This is how you could play D&D" back in the day, and we had a campaign that took place here, delved into the culture and traditions, and explored this world. The Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk were considerably more Western European for decades (and still are with all those British accents), while Mystara was sitting out here 40 years ahead of its time and culturally diverse.

Right. Sorry to break the narrative. TSR and Wizards forgot for 40 years, chased money, and forgot all the great culture the original setting once had. I can still look at the above picture and say "this was D&D" without needing to dress Orcs up in cosplay costumes. This is how we grew up. This was respectful. This was cool. This was steeped in culture and different people. This opened the door for us to learn about the world.

Remember, the Mystara setting was targeted at younger children, so the world was going to be more based on fairy tales, myths, legends, books we read as kids, and movies we saw at the cinema. We did not have access to the plethora of fantasy movies, video games, and books we do today. We can't judge this by today's access to information and the history of video games and fantasy media. Go back to the 1980s and use that perspective, if you can, and play this to honor and respect the people of that era.

It's a fun time if you're familiar with the source material and can play this more as a pulp adventure, featuring ancient empires and deadly intrigue. Mix in the lore of the djinns, some of the evil Egyptian gods looking to arise from the desert, snake-like naga cults, scorpion-people, other classic pulp elements, and you have a fun time. Use balance and respect, and avoid leaning into stereotypes; you can play this just as we did, as something for us to take part in, meet the people, and enrich our small world with a broader picture of the world through folklore and myth.

Two of our long-standing PCs came from this area and had excellent and rich ethnic backgrounds. These were wonderful characters whom I will never forget.

Where Does ToV Fit In?

Well, to start, let's flip to pages 291-297 in the Tales of the Valiant Game Master's guide and start finding a few inspirational sources.

Ah, Dune is in here, and that is also mentioned in GAZ2. The Thief of Bagdad is mentioned in the film section, which is a classic 1940 film with an amazingly diverse cast for that era, with many groundbreaking special effects. Aladdin, The Pirates of Dark Water. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. The Prince of Persia video games. I know I'm missing even more. Tales of the Valiant is packed full of inspirations from this era, and they are a massive part of the Fantasy Inspiration appendix. The image on page 31 of the Worldbuilding Chapter of the GM's Guide could have come from this land.

Tales of the Valiant Game Master's Guide, page 31

Tales of the Valiant is precisely this sort of pulp high adventure.

Being a step away from D&D helps, since that game feels too entwined with the source material and the official settings of the Realms, the Planes, and Greyhawk. D&D lost its spirit of adventure and became more about optimization, product identity, and combat mechanics.

Tales of the Valiant is a step more generic than D&D, since the "generic fantasy" genre and D&D have diverged paths. D&D is more about the D&D experience, such as Baldur's Gate and all of the product identity. Tales of the Valiant does generic fantasy far better without any D&D-isms slipping in and reminding us we are not playing in the Forgotten Realms again.

And Tales of the Valiant has the goofiness and spirit of adventure to pull off a campaign like this and do it well, feeling fresh without feeling like "D&D played in a not-D&D setting." A "not D&D game" does the job better, without distractions, and lets me focus on the people, places, plots, and story.

I look at those two sample pieces of art and can say, "ToV would do this better."

My game would not feel like a transplanted set of rules in a niche, boutique setting. D&D has that "setting elitism" with its published worlds, where nothing else feels like it measures up.

The guy on the cover of GAZ2? A barbarian dervish. It works. The lineage, heritage, and background system work well. The dancing woman? Perhaps a bard, perhaps a sorcerer. The veiled woman? A mage, possibly. They don't feel like D&D characters to me.

They feel like Tales of the Valiant characters.

Video: EXCLUSIVE: Tales of the Valiant Witch Class Preview!

 

Nerd Immersion has an exclusive witch class preview over on his channel! Please head over there, watch the full video, like it, and subscribe, as his coverage of Tales of the Valiant is some of the best on YouTube.

The witch looks fantastic, and it does not tread on other caster classes, managing to feel unique and mechanically different than other casters.

The witch is a new class in the Player's Handbook 2 Kickstarter, and that is counting down to its final days. Jump in now to get your hands on this early, or else you will be waiting until next January. The link is in the sidebar, do not wait!

We are seeing new designs and mechanics out of the Kobold Press team here, and it looks like their team is flexing their renowned design chops and doing the long-wanted and needed "new things" that many wanted out of this game. They had to get the required 5E compatibility classes done in the original books, and now the game is taking on its own identity with the expansions.

Oh, and it is all D&D 2014 and 2024 compatible. Like the witch? Use it in any system you prefer.

We're moving on to the new stuff, and it's exciting.

Mail Room: Labyrinth Kickstarter

My Labyrinth books came today, and I have the World Book and Adventure book, along with the early backer coin. What I love about Tales of the Valiant is all the core books coming out this year, and there is a considerable level of excitement around a new game forming and taking shape, with all the options and settings that are being created.

D&D 2024 does not have this level of support. We have a second Player's Guide, the Labyrinth setting books, and a second Monster Vault. Kobold Press is outdoing Wizards in the D&D 2024 launch year. While Wizards is losing its leadership, Tales of the Valiant is forging ahead with exceptional 5E support.

And the game is far better designed than either the 2014 or 2024 D&D versions. ToV is a premium version of the 5E game, designed to front-load the fun and fix all the problems. It does not eliminate the humanoid monsters or hide them with bland, generic templates. It maintains the status quo with many of the favorites and does not introduce unpopular changes that were seen in the 2024 D&D edition. Nothing sucks, and that is a considerable achievement.

Of course, the product identity monsters owned by Wizards are not here, but then again, those are tired and need to be retired to the Monster Hall of Fame. They were new 45 years ago in AD&D, but we need new monsters now. The purpose of them back then was to give us monsters that we had never seen before. 45 years later, we have seen them so much that they have outlived their usefulness and novelty.

This is an excellent book that links together thousands of campaign worlds and gives you room to create many of your own. You don't need to drag in a Great Wheel, a thousand planes, infinite realities, product identity IP locations, and all the gods of every setting to have an interconnected universe.

This product supports all Open 5E settings and creators, providing a framework for us to explore them from. This is an essential and key product for establishing an open framework outside of Wizards' IP that supports third-party creators without requiring any ideas from D&D.

The strategy Kobold Press is following to build Open 5E is ingenious. They are clever little critters.

Is ToV Perfect for Mystara?

While any game can run a Mystara campaign, and especially any version of B/X or the Rules Compendium, I have not returned to this world for a while, and it was my first campaign world to run, so I really have fond memories of the place. These days, most of the world's information is stored in the Vaults of Pandius, an excellent resource for maps and other information. The DM's Guild also has all the classic Gazetteers to buy.

If I were going to play Mystara today, my first feeling would be to go for an excellent OSR game, such as Old School Essentials. But, what about 5E? Can Tales of the Valiant handle this well and give you a meaningful play experience in this world?

Tales of the Valiant has a Basic D&D feeling. It may be the game's focus on new players and its organization that presents everything you need to know one step at a time. Where 2014 D&D felt like D&D 4, and it adopted that planar model of the world, ToV feels more grounded and down-to-earth for me. The focus of ToV is on the campaign world, where D&D's focus moves to the planes quickly.

However, I must return to the basic D&D feeling that ToV has. Even the fact that there are only two subclasses per class plays into this feeling that ToV is a starter game, and the more in-depth options shall come later. Myself? I am not having any problems with porting them in from wherever I want, so the subclass issue is a moot point. Even Shard VTT has a plethora of options to choose from. We are also receiving a comprehensive core book expansion for all classes very soon, with Player's Guide 2 (PG2).

Part of the joy of playing ToV is learning to forget most of D&D. It sounds like nonsense, but it is true. Something about ToV has that "new car smell" to it, and the way the books are written is infectious with their positivity and message of fun. Yes, I am still "playing 5E," but it feels new again.

That feeling of newness reminds me of the same sense of wonder when we explored Mystara for the first time. This is a Dwarven kingdom! This is where all the Elves live! This is a magic kingdom! This stuff was cool back then, fresh, unexplored, new, and it hooked us for life.

Now, I have been playing since the late 1970s. I have been down the road with D&D far longer than most. Your feelings may be different since 5E "was your first time" with a roleplaying game, and you still have those "new feelings" with that game.

I have seen D&D handed off to Wizards and have witnessed 25 years of them remaking the game six times (D&D 3E, 3.5E, 4E, 4E Essentials, 2014 5E, and 2024 5.5E). I have seen them try to pull back the OGL twice (the OGL scandal and GSL with 4E), and lived through the horrors of the TSR legal department days. I still have a submission guidelines letter from TSR. Wizards got a lot right with 5E; the nods to old-school design were in the correct direction, but it drifted off with Tasha's into a more generic system.

With ToV, I don't have to work with the 2014 book, plus the fixes from Tasha's and X, Y, and Z. I have one Player's Guide, with everything fixed and in one place. The best of 2014-2024 is presented in the book, in a base game form, with everything sorted out, better organized, and with the rules and rusty parts replaced and fixed.

Just like my Basic D&D books were fixed, easy to use, all in one place, and my one-stop shop for knowing what a rule was. D&D 2024 tries to do this, but they started to fundamentally change the game (weapon masteries, no humanoid monsters, bastions) to the point where core things in the original D&D game were left out or added on, increasing complexity.

D&D 2024 was written for system masters.

Tales of the Valiant is written for beginning players, just like Mystara. This is why I get that feeling.

Nothing is preventing ToV from driving the world of Mystara. The lineages in the core game, and even the supplement one, cover all the options, plus a few more, nicely. When Player's Guide 2 rolls around, we will have even more. We have Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, and Kobolds to cover Thar. Shadow Elves can be Elves, tweaked somewhat for their underground nature, or we could use the Drow from PG2.

The only odd choices are the Syderean lineage with the Celestial and Infernal choices, since basic D&D and Mystara avoided demons in the world due to the game being targeted at a younger audience. Include them if you want them, but don't feel forced to.

The classes adhere to all D&D standards, so there is no problem there. The mechanist is the only standout, but by the end stages of Mystara, they had introduced airships and all sorts of technology, so I don't see anything that would prevent them from feeling at home in the setting.

The monsters are just fine. The TSR product identity monsters never played a significant role in Mystara and were more standard for AD&D, Greyhawk, and the Realms. You have a fine collection in the Monster Vault as it is, covering all the D&D basics.

I am sitting here trying to find a problem, or even a "it doesn't feel right" issue with ToV and Mystara, but I can't find it. With the 2014 or 2024 D&D, I can see a few problems, like some of the Greyhawk and Realms lore and monsters creeping in. There are no mind flayers or other psionic creatures in Mystara. While ToV has demons and devils, you can omit them if you desire. The ToV monster selection feels closer to Basic D&D than 5E's, even without the beholder and a few of the others, which we always saw as "AD&D monsters."

If you ever wanted them, the 2014 Monster Manual is not that far away.

Also, multiclassing is an optional rule in ToV, and in Mystara, it was never a huge thing. That setting is turned off. It's not a big deal, but you can turn it on if you'd like. However, a more pronounced "race as class" dynamic was present in the setting. While ToV does not have that, the builds and characters in Mystara tended to be more straightforward than today's Frankenstein D&D multiclass builds.

Also, at this point, Mystara is so far gone from the D&D canon and support that ToV feels closer in spirit, while D&D feels like it is the Forgotten Realms' home system. Even Greyhawk at this point does not feel like a "5E world," and that feels closer to AD&D for me, truthfully. The plane-hopping gets both D&D 2014 and 2024 down, since they need to keep pushing that IP. Mystara had minimal planar travel and dimension-hopping plots, and it was a giant sandbox world that focused inward on itself.

One of the best parts about Mystara is that all the excellent B and X module series were set there, and if you were lucky enough to pick up the Goodman Games remasters, you have a lot of the classic adventures in this world. Even if you don't, you can still pick up the original adventures over on DM's Guild and convert them yourself by just swapping the monsters out for something similar.

I sit here and have a counter-argument in my head, "You know you can do all this in 2014 D&D?"

Yes, true, but what I am trying to find is whether the feeling of Mystara feels closer to ToV or 2014 D&D. I can't say it does for 2014 D&D, and 2024 feels even further off from the setting since the art is all wrong and introduces concepts that aren't in the setting. The 2024 Monster Manual gets rid of the humanoid monsters, which is a travesty, since they are a central part of the Mystara setting, especially with Thar. D&D 2024 does not do the classic setting justice.

So it comes down to 2014 D&D or Tales of the Valiant to take the crown of Mystara. Given that 2014 D&D is now living in the past, and it still has several issues that ToV fixed, ToV is the better game. It has that new-gamer feeling. It is different enough to compel investigation into new builds and synergies. The monsters hit hard, just like their B/X counterparts, but they don't have the piles of hit points that D&D 2014 or 2024 gives them, so the fights are faster and more exciting.

Feeling-wise, ToV feels closer in spirit to the original Mystara setting than does D&D 2014. easily convert from 3rd-party 2014 D&D books. That beginner-friendly vibe, the colors, the art, and the choices made in presentation just sing Mystara to me, far more than D&D 2014. ToV feels like a B/X version of 5E, just in its simplicity and construction. These days, with the new hardcovers we got, there is no problem with subclass choices, lineages, or heritages. You can convert from 3rd-party 2014 D&D books easily. It will get even better in January 2026 when Player's Guide 2 ships.

ToV is the better choice for how Mystara is presented and feels. To me, the setting feels alive again.

Tales of the Valiant: Long-Term Support 5E

I have no idea what is happening with D&D 2024 these days. All the top people are gone. They had this massive release, then nothing. Their former brand leaders all joined Daggerheart. People are getting laid off. It sucks, but then again, D&D 2024 did not fly off the shelves and sell out like Daggerheart did.

Was D&D being held up by the Daggerheart fans? Were they a few of the last holdouts? When MCDM RPG (Draw Steel) releases this year, will all the Matt Colville fans jump ship too? The old-school dungeon crawl fans have already left the building for Shadowdark or the OSR.

Will the last holdouts of D&D be the 2014 crowd that have a decade of characters and books they don't want to give up? That is where I am right now. If I did not have ToV, I would abandon the system. I don't like Wizards, and the support is mediocre at best, with many ho-hum releases and nothing to get excited about. I would have A5E, but they do not support their game as well as Kobold Press does theirs, with two new core books being crowd-funded just this year.

Level Up A5E is a solid version, but we need to throw our support behind the company with the best support and the chance to take a strong role. Daggerheart, Draw Steel, and Shadowdark are tough competitors, each with a claim to being the heart of D&D.

Playing ToV means I have a company out there curating the game, releasing new books, supporting it with adventures, and they are invested in keeping it going no matter what happens to D&D. I am not worried at all about the next 10 years of support. I can buy new core books. The game is in better shape, with a solid team of designers who are committed to their roles. The designers are not quitting anytime soon.

Tales of the Valiant is Long Term Support D&D.

D&D is rapidly heading towards its next edition with the soft sales and adoption of the 2024 books. I give it three years, if the entire IP isn't sold first. If a 6E is announced and the whole game goes "card-based," or the IP is sold, expect a massive influx of players to ToV. Currently, few have a reason to switch other than liking the ToV system better or its principles of open gaming.

The OGL thing that happened to Paizo and Pathfinder 2 will happen again. It just takes one week of bad WoTC news, and chances are, it is coming. People will likely opt for one of these systems, and for those who still want and like 5E, ToV will be the easy choice.

Shard Tabletop is the Best ToV VTT

I signed up for the Shard Tabletop VTT, and this has the best Tales of the Valiant support I have ever seen. The entire system is built around supporting 5E, so the VTT is highly focused on 5E and only 5E, ensuring that everything in the 5E system works perfectly. This one is worth dropping Roll20 over, since the development team has their act together regarding variant 5E versions and system support.

It is a little strange at first, but it becomes second nature once you learn the system. Don't let the sample starting adventure throw you; once you get everything set up, it looks just as good as Roll20, and the entire interface is more straightforward.

Tales of the Valiant Subscriptions

They have player and GM subscriptions to the entire ToV Kobold Press library. This is a great way to start, but it can get a little pricy. With all you could buy, this is the cheapest way to enjoy a lot of books, and find the ones you want to purchase and keep permanently on the system. Bite the bullet for a few months, subscribe, find all the books you want to use character and monster options from, and concentrate on collecting those first. Then draw down your subscriptions and focus on the best of the best.

With other VTTs? Forget it, buy the books up front, or you don't play. Roll20 is expensive in comparison, and it does not currently support Tales of the Valiant.

Source Tools!

In Shard VTT, you get access to the same editing tools the developers use. Want to turn a 5E race into a ToV Lineage? It's not hard, and you can simply port it in with about 30 minutes of work, allowing all the special features to automatically add themselves to the character sheet. Your changes and mods are tracked in a special "My Content" area so you can manage your changes easily. If you find an error in the data files, you can edit them - even in the books you purchased.

You can create spells, lineages, heritages, backgrounds, monsters, equipment, and anything else in the game with these tools and add them to your games. This is a level of power many VTTs will never let you have, yet Shard makes it easy to mod in and add your own content to your games.

For Tales of the Valiant, this is critical. While the Drow are not in the game until Player's Guide 2, I added my own custom lineage using an earlier Kobold Press book for 5E. When PG2 releases, I will simply delete my custom lineage and swap in the official Drow in each character. It was easy to add, and it will be easy to update. You can even choose the art!

You can easily port in your favorite non-ToV and third-party content into your games this way.

I am using Shard's Esper Genesis 5E system to run a Star Frontiers 5E campaign, and I can add that game's races as custom 5E races, with all the game's abilities programmed into each entry. This "custom content" stays with my Esper Genesis game selection, so I do not see it in my ToV characters. I can create and add 5E versions of the Star Frontiers monsters, robots, equipment, weapons, and aliens, too. If I want to pull in the 5E SRD or any other bestiary on Shard, and reskin those monsters, I can, too. There are videos available on how to import classes and utilize the conversion tool built into the VTT, so adding complete character classes, with all their tables and options, is not difficult.

I have the power.

Game System Switching

You can create custom game systems with your core books, and even create "starter set only" or "core book only" rule sets. If you have another version of 5E on the system, such as Esper Genesis, which is also supported as a rule system, you can switch to it, view your characters, and access all the books you want right there.

Also, you can edit the rule systems, so if there are duplicate entries or things you don't want, you can disable them, and they won't show up. You can enable or disable features on a book or even an individual item, so if you have a monster book you bought but don't want in a rule set, you can turn it all off with one checkbox. You can re-enable it at any time, too.

In my Esper Genesis Star Frontiers 5E game, I can turn off the Esper Genesis races and just have the core five Star Frontiers ones, if I want, and these will be the only allowed and displayed selections when you create a character. If I add races later on from the adventures, like the ones in the Volturnus series, I can make those and enable them as options.

I talk about Star Frontiers a lot, but this is a game without a 5E implementation, and the fact that I can hack that in and make it work speaks volumes. Tales of the Valiant has native Shard support, so hacking things in is even easier. If you have anything in 5E you want, adding it is easy once you watch a few videos and learn where things go.

Printable Character Sheets and PDF Exports?

Hero Lab is struggling to support anything more than the basic books for Tales of the Valiant and has gone months without releasing a new book on their store. Additionally, they have not yet implemented the printing or exporting to PDF functions in ToV. Custom content is not well supported. I like Hero Lab online, but their ToV implementation is struggling and needs more attention, as well as additional content to purchase.

In Shard VTT, I can print any 5E character sheet, including ToV. Using Windows' "print to PDF" option, I can export a Tales of the Valiant character to a PDF and have that for myself. All of the options from my owned or subscribed content export just fine.

Compared to Hero Lab, with Shard VTT, I have character creation tools, a full 5E VTT, mod-ability, a content store, custom content, characters that instantly import into games, and multiple game types supported, all in one place. I also have printing and PDF exports.

There is little comparison here in functionality, and the strength of a 5E-only VTT shines through. Even as a tool to support printing PDFs to play on the tabletop, Shard is superior to many character-sheet-only apps.

Downsides

The subscription fee and rental fees are downsides. The interface is not as intuitive as Roll 20, at least to start. The sample starting adventure is confusing and complex. There is a little more to learn with the custom content tools. I would like a few more character organization tools (or I have yet to find them), such as folders. There is a lot to buy (a good and bad thing, honestly). The system only supports 5E.

I am still on Roll20 for other games, but for 5E, Shard is my home virtual tabletop (VTT).

A Solid VTT that Allows You to Mod

If you are a Tales of the Valiant player with a lot of third-party 5E books, and you want to mod those options in and "have it all," Shard is the VTT for you. There will be some work involved, but it is not difficult and does not require programming. Since ToV is 5E adjacent, you can keep your physical library, and any books not on Shard yet, you can simply port in the best-of-the-best and have it.

If you solo-play ToV, Shard VTT is a dream come true. Even if all you do is print PDFs for your tabletop games, the tool is well worth your time and money.

If you run multiple 5E-style games, such as Esper Genesis, alongside ToV, this is also the perfect VTT for you. While other VTTs have EG as a ruleset, Shard lets you get in and hack and mod the system to create your own custom science fiction universe. You get much more than just the rules on Shard; you get the developer tools and can customize your rulesets to your heart's content.

The highest recommendation for ToV players and 5E rules hackers.

Tales of the Valiant is my 5E

Tales of the Valiant is my 5E. I know this will be around, as it is, for the next 10-20 years at least. D&D, I am not sure about, since D&D 2024 had a soft launch and an adoption rate; we are closer to D&D 6th Edition than any of us expected.

We have an Open SRD and license for Black Flag Roleplaying. This is being actively added to the Kobold Press, since new classes from the Player's Guide 2 are now in the process of being added once the Kickstarter ends. This isn't a "one and done" Creative Commons release; new classes will be added, and the SRD is a living document that will be continually updated.

Wizards have released two CC updates, but there is no new content for the past editions yet, nor have they promised that new content from expansions will be added. Kobold Press is outdoing them on the SRD and licensing front.

Third parties can play and make ToV and 5E content with this license. This is the best of all worlds for publishers, since they can just slap "ToV/5E compatible" on their books, use the Black Flag SRD as-is, and never worry about compatibility issues or licensing again.

Brand loyalty isn't enough, and concrete actions speak volumes.

Compatibility is the key. This is why ToV "did nothing new" since it is both a game and a publishing model for third parties to divorce themselves from the yoke of Wizards and all the industry drama and Wall Street shenanigans. I supported the original OGL creators, so I support a publishing model that allows the community to move forward and never be subject to such attacks again.

However, ToV introduces many new features, even within compatibility. They fixed all the 2014 classes and kept them as close to the originals as possible. Luck and Inspiration are interchangeable. The spells are balanced. The monsters are far better versions than the 2014 ones. The math is far better. Everything is upgraded and feels shiny and new.

The art is one of the few issues some have with, being above average to excellent, with many amazing pieces, but not universally perfect. There is a higher art bar, and while there are some odd choices and cartoony elements, they do not detract from the in-game experience. Some set a super high art bar, and the game is excellent, but people are spoiled by books filled with a 10/10 piece on every page. To me? The art is impressive and effectively conveys a fantasy game in various genres, ranging from family-friendly to edgy.

I like the art; it fits the tone, transitioning from serious to cartoony, and it's better than most games.

Additionally, there are third-party 5E books that can adjust realism and combat difficulty, completely compatible with ToV. Still, in general, ToV's monsters hit harder, and the combats are faster, addressing another common issue with 5E of the fights being too easy and the combats dragging on. The Kobold Press designers work hard at making the rules work well, fixing problems with individual monsters, spells, and classes, and making sure the game stays challenging and fun.

The Orcs, Goblins, and other humanoids are in the game as monsters. We are not being told to exclude them from our games as bad guys. They are also there as character options. We can make them bad guys, good guys, gray-zone guys, or edgy anti-heroes. The game lets us make our own minds up about these things, and that is a welcome and refreshing change from current-day this-and-that.

Thank you.

All my 2014-2024 5E books are supported as-is. Sure, I can use my 2014 D&D rulebooks, but what about new players after those go out of print? I want a game that a new player can buy and own today, and in ten years. Sure, there will always be used copies out there, and stocks that still won't sell, but going forward, I want a currently for-sale, well-supported system that people joining my group can pick up and be interested in without the 2014 or 2024 confusion.

Kobold Press is a ton more ethical than Wizards of the Coast. Why do I support someone who does not hold my values?

Everything feels patched, fixed, better working, cleaner, easier to understand, and better presented here. The Game Master's Guide is a 10/10 book, universally loved as one of the best refereeing books in this generation of games. The book is fantastic and outdoes both the 2014 and 2024 D&D DMGs combined. We get monster design rules, too! That was abandoned in 2024 D&D, and that is a massive loss for the game, as it allows people to create their own worlds and put their ideas into the game.

The Kobold Press store is impressive, easily equal in terms of a Paizo to Pathfinder. The support for this game is off the charts good. We have our second Kickstarter of the year for a core book. Supported? Better than 2024 D&D in many cases. We've got two new core books this year so far! D&D 2024 is still struggling with last year's releases, and there are things in the works, but not to this level.

And if you like 2024 D&D, all of this is cross-compatible, even the ToV classes, if you prefer them over D&D's attempts. I like ToV since the third-party support is far better, and the company is ethical and solid. The company's previous adventures, monster books, and expansions offer numerous options and content, which can easily lead to feeling overwhelmed.

The Labyrinth setting is far better than the Great Wheel, and far more open to more imaginative worlds and adventures. This sold me on planar adventures for the system, and I usually loathe those things since they ruin campaign worlds and turn them into bedroom communities. There are no "gods to hunt and kill" out there, since those exist in a space outside reality and are in a proper place thematically. The Labyrinth fixes all the D&D endgame problems and focuses the planar game more on adventure and exploration. Finally.

And I own my PDFs. They are not linked to a subscription service. This is huge.

Also, since the "D&D product identity" of the game is stripped out, my worlds are more my worlds than they are "my worlds but incorporating Wizard's licensed IP." Mind flayers, beholders, and displacer beasts were cool back in the 1980s when they were new, but they have become overused tropes these days. I am tired of them and want new monsters I have never seen before. The only reason they were cool back in the 80s is that they were new things we had never seen before! 

Now? Overplayed and overused for decades, it has been employed as a nostalgic tool of control by Wall Street to shape our imaginations. They need to be retired into the Monster Hall of Fame, and new ideas need to replace them. ToV and their monster books are so full of new ideas that it feels like the 1980s again, and I'm rediscovering things.

This is the best version of 5E, in terms of design, support, the number of core books being released, and ethics. I am not ashamed to play it or use it to play with my ten-year-old 5E third-party books that I still want to use. It is still compatible with 2014 and 2024. It is future-forward for third parties.

This is a game I love and support.

Tales of the Valiant is hands down better than D&D.

Hello!

 First post!