About "Tales of the Valiant"

In the past year or so I've backed two Kickstarters for "Tales of the Valiant" - the first was for the development of the system itself (a 5e near-clone with some nice enhancements), and the second for the Gamemaster's Guide (which looked very nice). In backing the second I actually broke one of my cardinal rules with Kickstarter, which is to never back a second project from a team until the first has delivered - but I mitigate that by noting that Kobold Press have never let me down.

Anyway, both Kickstarters have now delivered everything I signed up for, which tragically comes just a bit too late - I'm unlikely ever to even read any of the books (PDFs) they have sent me as I just don't have use for them at this time. (Plus, I now have two 5e near-clones, the other being "Level Up", and there's a third available in the form of D&D 2024.)

But that's a "me" problem rather than any sort of a problem with the product, and the Kickstarter was pretty much impeccable in its delivery. And Kobold Press routinely do great work, so I have no hesitation in recommending them as a company. Just a shame that it's come a little too late.

"Isles of Dread" wrap up

A rather belated post - the "Isles of Dread" campaign actually ended in July. However, the end remains somewhat fresh, and so in the spirit of completeness, here are my thoughts:

• This was intended as a short six-month campaign to pass some time, and ended up running for almost two years. That's largely a scheduling issue - with so few players we really struggled to get to a quorum. And that, in turn, is why I've called time on this particular group.
• That said, near the end of the campaign I took that view that we were essentially going ahead no matter what, and that actually worked much better. I should have done this throughout. And, actually, I think that may be a lesson for even "regular" campaigns - better to fix a slot and go ahead come hell or high water, and if you find yourself regularly struggling for a quorum then that's a sign to call a halt.
• I was very proud of the way the campaign was structured, prepared, and presented - I've posted about this separately, but the work put in did pay off, mostly.
• The extended duration of the campaign did, however, mean that some key callbacks never paid off. I suspect that would have gone better had things been fresher in minds. Or perhaps not. Either way, nothing vital was missed, so that was okay.
• The campaign structure, which I cribbed from "Lost Mine of Phandelver", was great. I highly recommend this for any sort of "beginner" campaign.
• I never did get an "inventory" sheet put together. With the release of new books, and since I'm now not gaming, I'm not sure it's worthwhile any longer. But it's definitely something that I've been missing.
• The rerolls worked slightly better. One enhancement was that characters now received a number of rerolls per level equal to half their Proficiency Bonus, rounded up. That seemed to make them a bit less of a scarce resource, and so they seemed to get a bit more use.
• For the first time we saw a feat being used (Lucky), but alas it wasn't great, largely because that one served to duplicate the effect of those same reroll tokens.

And that's basically that. A decent campaign, although not a classic, and a reasonable way to close out gaming with that group. I'm a little sorry that this campaign seems to also be the one to close out my career as a gamer, but so be it - ultimately most things end badly, or they wouldn't end at all, to better to wrap things up on my terms (even if in a suboptimal manner) than otherwise.

D&D 5e 2024

I have decided against buying into the 2024 revision of D&D 5e. From what I've heard it is, on balance, an improvement in the game, and it certainly has the advantage of consolidating things back down to the core three books. And there's basically nothing I've heard about it that I don't like.

But, very simply, I'm not playing a game right now, I have no plans to play a game any time in the near future, and so I have no use for the books. And there comes a point where you have to start justifying getting "stuff" - it has to be something that you intend to actually use in the near future.

D&D 2024 doesn't make the cut, and so I'm opting out. At least for now.

Thoughts on Writing "Isles of Dread"

One of the unique features of the "Isles of Dread" campaign is that I wrote the whole thing out long-hand as a fully fledged D&D adventure - that is, I followed the same format and style guides (mostly) as in published adventures like "Lost Mine of Phandelver". In all, the adventure came to something like 45,000 words, almost exactly the same as "Lost Mine", with a further appendix of monsters and other adversaries and some new magical items.

Some thoughts:

• Firstly, and most obviously, writing all this up is hard! Perhaps more to the point, getting started is fairly easy, and making progress to a point was also quite good fun. But eventually, as happens almost every time I set out to do this, I got bogged down somewhere in the writing, and the thought of slogging through another 10,000 words and writing up a satisfying conclusion became really daunting.
• Finally getting to that end was not the achievement I thought it was going to be. Despite bringing the thing to an end, and indeed despite being happy with how it all ended, I nonetheless didn't feel that it was really worth the effort I put in. I certainly won't be doing this again, at least in this form.
• Related to the above, it's very obvious to me that writing something like this is very different when producing something for personal use versus for consumption by others - "Isles of Dread" was very much writen as though others would use it... but nobody ever will. Consequently, it represents a load of work that really didn't need to be done.
• That said, there is a lot to be said for advance preparation - the campaign had a number of things that were set up early and then paid off later. That wouldn't have been possible without putting in that work for the advance preparation. As indeed I found with "The Mists of Lamordia".

Ultimately... I'm happy I did it, but I wouldn't do it again. And, likewise, I think I might recommend people try it... exactly once, if only so they have a better appreciation of just how much effort really goes into writing an adventure.

Oh, yes, one last thing: I still really like the way "Lost Mine of Phandelver", and indeed a lot of the published adventures, are structured - a fairly constrained first section, then wider the choices out to a sandbox area, then widen it again to another, bigger sandbox, and then bring it back to a somewhat constrained climax. I definitely think that's something worth emulating.

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk

"Lost Mine of Phandelver" was the first official adventure published for 5e, was the first (and arguably only) classic adventure of that edition, and is perhaps the single best adventure that Wizards of the Coast (but specifically them - not TSR) have ever published for the game. So when they announced a new "Phandelver campaign" I was extremely interested and rather excited.

I then read the reviews, and that excitement withered. But a really good Amazon deal led to me buying the book, and so brings us here.

"Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk" is a standard 5e adventure book - a 192-page full colour hardcover with an RRP a fraction under $60. However, it is routinely available at a fraction of that price, which is fortunate as it is very much not worth that money.

Unlike other 5e adventures, this one is very much an adventure of two halves - the first half is a near-reprint of the classic "Lost Mine of Phandelver", with a handful of tweaks in the name of inclusion and a handful more to seed some hooks for the second part. The second part of the adventure then picks up with a new menace that is busy gathering the shards of a shattered obelisk and has to be stopped (because, of course they do).

And while the book is nowhere near the disaster that I had been led to believe, neither does it really work.

The fundamental problem is that while "Lost Mine of Phandelver" is a great adventure, it is a great adventure of beginning groups. Expanding that to a full campaign was a good idea, but it almost certainly should have been a beginner's campaign - something reasonably simple and classic to point new DMs towards.

Instead, the book awkwardly seques from a beginner's adventure into something considerably more advanced, complete with trigger warnings for material that really needs a deft hand to address. (Well... what constitutes tricky material these days. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay this is not.)

It also doesn't help that the second section is, frankly, another soulless railroad. It's fine, so far as these things go, but I wouldn't put it anywhere near any top-ten lists. Frankly, "Storm King's Thunder" is better, and that one is deeply flawed.

Basically, they've made the wrong product, and they've made it fairly badly. It's not an utter disaster (as I had been led to believe), but neither can I find any reason to recommend it. Except for one: "Lost Mine of Phandelver" remains great, and stocks of the original Starter Set are now running low, so this will soon be the only way to get your hands on that adventure.

But "Lost Mine of Phandelver" isn't worth $60, or anywhere close to that. So if you're a beginning DM looking for a first adventure, if you can't find the original Starter Set, and you can get this one at a huge discount, then maybe go for this one. Otherwise, save yourself the money.

Bringing the Curtain Down

Our game was cancelled again this week, and I must admit that it came as something of a relief. As a consequence, I've come to two fairly solid conclusions:

• This is indeed the final campaign with this group. I was almost certainly resolved on that point, but now I am certain - the reduction in group size means we've become too sporadic, and that combined with the very short sessions means that everything moves at a glacial pace. Since this adventure represents the minimum scope I'm willing to bother with (since there needs to be something to build), there's nowhere to go. A shame, but better to end definitively than linger in an unsatisfactory manner.
• I'm now planning to compress the last segment of the campaign as well - instead of the planned twenty or so encounters, I think my intent is to bring that down to half a dozen or so, coming to a quick close. I don't think anything truly important is likely to be missed there, but it should mean a handful of sessions rather than the rest of the year.

There are two lesser conclusions I've come to as well:

• I still intend to write up the remainder of the campaign, including the "full version" of the ending. Just to prove to myself that I actually can do that!
• I don't intend to seek out a new RPG group at this time. I'm not saying never, but my expectation is that this is, essentially, the end. I just don't have the time needed to invest properly, and don't want to commit to something if I can't.

Completed (close enough): Exploration of the Islands

The third, and by far the largest, part of the "Isles of Dread" campaign was part three, "Exploration of the Islands". This involved the characters travelling around all of the smaller islands in the chain, engaging in various mini-quests, and generally exploring. The party are now on their way to the final one of these islands, and currently engage in combat with a shoal of reef sharks intent on blood. But that's close enough to completion for this post.

The fourth and final part of the campaign, "Temple of Elemental Evil Fire" beckons. It shouldn't take so long. Unfortunately, it's also the section that I have yet to write...