A little ways back, I took a look at Black Flag Roleplaying, Kobold Press’ evolution of 5e. And to be honest, it was alright. Its chief issues came from the fact that it was an SRD, and not a polished game. Well, now the team at Kobold Press is releasing their Tales of the Valiant game, so let’s dive in!

NOTICE: Kobold Press provided me an electronic review copy of the Tales of the Valiant Game Master’s Guide.

Background

In the fallout of the OGL 1.1 scandal last year, Kobold Press was one of the major third party content creating companies to declare that they would be creating their own game. As 2023 progressed into 2024, they took the now Creative Commons protected 5e SRD and crafted their own evolution of it. Black Flag Roleplaying launched as an available SRD, and promos and teasers for Tales of the Valiant started. Now the release process is happening, and I have the Game Master’s Guide!

The Good

The layout. THE ORGANIZATION. The book is well organized and laid out in an organic fashion. Each section flows naturally into the next, and walks a prospective GM through the whole process of running a game. This is good stuff, and it’s presented in a very approachable way. It’s also a linked PDF, so navigation is much easier in this format (looking at you Paizo).

Chapter 3: World Building is probably the most succinct and useful intro to world building I’ve read in a while. It doesn’t just do the usual mapping and broad strokes. It gets into some of the finer details that help make your homebrew world feel like more than just another fantasy location. And it does that at the micro and macro scales. It’s just an introductory to the processes, but it’s good and I think a lot of new GMs will be well served by it.

Combat variation. The combat section has something for everyone from the tactical tabletop gamers to those who prefer light and fast models. There’s also a subsection dealing with unique scenarios and conditions, which is good to see in a base level book.

Support for all games. This is the best way I can describe it. This book supports combat, exploration, and social interaction in equal parts. It even walks you through how to design and map out a dungeon. The design team has clearly been watching and listening to the 5e fanbase, because they’re taking all three pillars of the game equally seriously.

Consistent art styling. I’ve said it before, and I stand by it, art does a lot of work in terms of communicating the vibe of a game. And Kobold Press knocked it out of the part matching artists to the vibe they’re looking for. The art is diverse, dynamic, and lays out a steady and consistent feeling. I love seeing this.

The Bad

The only thing I have for this is that the Homebrew section. It’s not bad per se, but I think it could have used a few extra pages to really flesh it out. The main reason being that homebrewing monsters and the like can be one of the most challenging aspects of GMing and world building, so the extra space would have been well spent.

The Ugly

It’s not a fully linked PDF. The table of contents will zap you through the book, but after that? Nope. I think if the index had at least been linked up too, that would have been enough to avoid this entry.

Final Thoughts

I like where this is going. 5e, to me, always felt like a kludged together, D&D by committee, operation. Kobold Press has taken that 5e skeleton and made something good with it. Not just that, they made a conversion guide to get you from 5e into Tales of the Valiant with minimal fuss. I am very comfortable giving this book a Rank S rating, and I’m looking forward to seeing the further evolution of this game system under their guidance. So if you’re looking to get out of the Wizards ecosystem, but still want to play something familiar? Tales of the Valiant is a good choice to check out.