Shard Tabletop & ToV Thoughts

I play Tales of the Valiant over on Shard Tabletop, and they have a good selection of ToV books and character options, along with the ability to create your own custom content.

If I want a Drow, I can pull one in from a source, create a custom lineage, and have it. Until Player's Guide 2 drops, and then, Shard support, I will need to use my custom one for a while. If I get the PG2 PDF, I can update my creation to match, and then flip from custom to official when I get the Shard version.

Custom content support is critical, especially for a game like ToV, which does not port in 5E races but expects them to be in the lineage format to work with the character designer. I wish the Book of Blades were on Shard. I like keeping up to date. There is a wait for VTT support, and that is not fun.

So, why am I playing ToV again? I own the books (PDF for now), I paid for them, and this version of 5E is not too bad. While the Second Edition (using For Gold & Glory) is my all-time favorite, the character builds in ToV work well and have an ARPG vibe. If you are going to play a pen-and-paper game that plays like a video game, ToV is a good choice. The core attraction of the 5E system is the gamification of the rules, action combat, and reduced lethality.

If Level Up: Advanced 5E was on Shard, I would be playing that, too. Esper Genesis is on there, and I would like to see other 5E games on there, too, even Shadowdark.

In contrast, old-school games are less gamified and more logic puzzles, as you figure out how to crack a room or encounter with as few resources as possible. Combat is often expensive and very lethal in older editions of the game, and death is not always recoverable. I wish the Kobold Press had hardcore play options laid out in the GM's Guide; then again, I am free to use anything that works with 5E.

I am not playing D&D 2024. I don't see the need for the new edition, and I have a game from a company I like better that lets me own my PDFs. I don't feel great about Wizards after the OGL, and that comes down to a choice about who I want to give my money to.

The fight between playing 5E and a game like World of Warcraft is always a hard choice for me, since I play solo, and World of Warcraft does a lot of the work for me, and gets me in touch with other live people playing the same game. The WoW storytelling sends me right back to 5E, and all MMOs become a grind after a while.

Still, Shard plus ToV is a fun experience, and I enjoy making maps and playing through smaller scenarios, like a Shadowdark, one-page-dungeon vibe. Something simple I created with my subscription to the Dungeon Scrawl online map tool. 5E plays solo well, and I can run 3-4 characters in a party without feeling overwhelmed.

I would like to have room for my books, but I don't, so I stick to my PDFs and online tools, and that is enough fun for me.