Tales of the Valiant: Gamemaster’s Guide
At last, after months of waiting, I have received my Kickstarter copy of the Tales of the Valiant: Gamemaster’s Guide. This book is the final piece of Kobold Press‘ Tales of the Valiant core rulebook collection. If you’re comparing TotV to D&D, this book is the equivalent to the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The contents of this book are intended to inspire and provide guidance for Game Masters wishing to run a Tales of the Valiant game at their table. Of course, since TotV rules are fully compatible with 5E D&D, it’s perfectly fine to snag this book to help with your existing 5E campaign.
With the 2024 DMG on the horizon, I’m not going to make an in depth comparison between this book and the 2014 DMG. Plus, if I’m being honest, this book really doesn’t (nor is it intended to) replace the DMG for D&D players. Kobold Press has taken a slightly different approach when it comes to their Gamemaster’s Guide. Nine times out of ten, when people talk about the DMG, it’s in reference to the chapter about magic items. For this reason, even players often pick up a copy of the DMG. For TotV, Kobold Press included magic items in the Player’s Guide. This leaves the Gamemaster’s Guide as strictly a tool intended for GMs and GMs only. On top of that, this book does zero in a little bit more on the differences between TotV and D&D than any of the other TotV releases so far. I expect this is a trend that will continue to increase more and more as additional TotV releases roll out. I’ll explain exactly what I mean by that as we dig in further to this review.
As someone who backed the Kickstarter for this book, I’ve had access to the contents of this release for some time via PDF. But I wanted to wait until I got my hands on the physical book to give my full review. The book itself is very attractive. The page quality is good and colors are bright. The artwork is very well done and I found the majority of it to be inspiring. The binding for book is tight and seems it seem like it going to last for quite a long time assuming the book isn’t abused. However, I did notice something odd about the cover. This oddity is very difficult to describe. But it almost looks like there was some sort of issue with the color-printer that was responsible for creating the cover. It’s difficult to detect, but under certain light, you can almost see “scan lines” in the cover art. I’ve seen this type of defect in the past with various print-on-demand books. It almost feels like someone at Kobold Press elected to go with a B-Grade printing solution to cut costs a little bit. Again, I’m not saying this is the case and the issue is nearly undetectable. But those who have an eye for such things will surely notice what I’m referring to.
The book begins with an introduction to the concept of being a GM. It is written assuming the reader has zero experience with running a TTRPG. In this regard, the book does a wonderful job of defining the role and setting expectations for rookie GMs. Not only does it provide guidance when it comes to game rules and how to implement them, but it also discusses common player styles, game planning, and what to expect at the table. All of this is very well written and insightful.
The second chapter takes an in-depth look at various styles of campaigns and provides general advice on how to referee games in various styles and settings. Again, I found everything here to be extremely well written and quite relevant to today’s TTRPG scene.
The third chapter focuses on worldbuilding. For me personally, this was always my favorite part of the DMG. So I was very excited to see Kobold Press’s take on this section. I have to admit, they have done a fine job here. The advice provided in this section is expertly done and Kobold Press has even seen fit to provide various tables to help with things like generating tavern names. This chapter alone makes the book worth considering for any DM or GM, regardless of system.
Next up we have optional rules for advanced combat. While the rules included here are still compatible with 5E D&D, it quickly becomes obvious that these rules are more easily implemented in a true TotV gaming session. For example, the section on “expanded Doom” refers to an optional battle mechanic that was introduced in the TotV Monster Vault. And while a DM could easily introduce Doom to their 5E campaign, doing so would assume they also have a copy of the Monster Vault in their library. Overall, I found most of these rules to be interesting and well thought out. But I’m not certain I would use some of these outside of a pure TotV game.
Next, we have what I call the “hardcore chapters”. The next three chapter provide in-depth details on topics such as planar travel, air/water travel, dungeon design, NPCs, factions, poisons/diseases, potions and high tier magical items. When I say it provides details, I mean DETAILS. Included here are various tables that can be used to randomly generate dungeons, NPCs, treasures – you name it. In fact, there’s so many tables and random generators here that it felt like I was reading an old 1E book. I love it! The level of detail put in to these various topics is above and beyond what I’ve encountered in other core books. There’s a wealth of information in these three chapters. More than I can summarize here. But all of it is really great stuff.
Finally, the book ends with the Homebrewer’s Toolbox. This chapter provides advice to GMs that wish to create new content from scratch. This includes races, classes, magical items, etc. Again, all of the information is very well done and presented in a clear and concise fashion.
After reviewing this book as a whole, I have to admit that I’m very impressed with what Kobold Press was able to accomplish. The title of this book is Gamemaster’s Guide and that’s exactly what this book is. The scope of knowledge and inspiration that this book can provide a GM cannot be understated. All of the basics are covered here and so are many advanced concepts. Usually, a GM would have to buy a number of third party supplements to get material similar to what is included in this book alone. At the time of this writing, the TotV Gamemaster’s Guide is currently my favorite GM resource for 5E. I’m looking forward to seeing what WotC delivers with their upcoming DMG and measure how it compares to this release.
