Tales of the Valiant

Tales of the Valiant is best for groups that want to stay close to D&D 5E's familiar fantasy grammar while moving into a Kobold Press-supported rules line with its own books, monsters, open Black Flag foundation, and ongoing product ecosystem. It is not the best answer if your table is tired of 5E-shaped fantasy entirely; the appeal is a cleaner adjacent path, not a total reinvention.

Choose it when your group likes classes, levels, spell lists, heroic adventuring parties, tactical-ish encounters, and published monster support, but wants to compare D&D 2024, Kobold Press material, and other post-5E fantasy options with clearer table-fit guidance. Skip it if your real goal is OSR danger, narrative-first fantasy, grid-first tactical design, or a system that makes players unlearn D&D habits.

What the game is

Tales of the Valiant is a fantasy TTRPG from Kobold Press and Open Design. The official site describes it as a Black Flag Roleplaying Game, and the public Black Flag language positions that rules base as an open, 5E-compatible fantasy system that powers Tales of the Valiant. The default mode is heroic fantasy across a Labyrinth of Worlds: adventuring parties, dangerous monsters, magic, downtime, exploration, social encounters, and campaign advancement.

The practical pitch is direct: Tales of the Valiant keeps the part of 5E that many tables already know, then gives Kobold Press room to revise character building, monsters, encounter tools, and GM-facing support under its own line. It is a standalone game, not just a supplement, but it is deliberately easy to explain to an existing D&D 5E table.

Publication history and current line

The line began publicly as Tales of the Valiant RPG: Launching Black Flag Roleplaying, a 2023 crowdfunding project that raised more than $1.15 million from 10,057 backers. Kobold Press later announced that the core PDFs reached backers and the Kobold store in May 2024, making the Player's Guide and Monster Vault the released foundation of the game.

The official product line has grown beyond the first two books. The Kobold store lists a free Quickstart Guide, the Player's Guide, Monster Vault, Game Master's Guide, Player's Guide 2, Monster Vault 2, Labyrinth material, adventures, and multiple VTT formats. That active support matters because a 5E-compatible game lives or dies partly on whether players can keep finding monsters, character options, adventures, and digital support after the first session.

What you need to play

The official site says the two-book baseline is the Tales of the Valiant Player's Guide and the Monster Vault. The Player's Guide includes the player-facing rules, 13 base classes, lineages, heritages, talents, backgrounds, spellcasting, martial options, and rules for downtime, exploration, and social encounters. The Monster Vault supplies more than 400 monsters, monster roles and tactics, encounter guidance, optional Doom points, and monster-harvesting support.

New groups should start with the free 16-page Quickstart Guide before buying the whole line. The Quickstart covers roleplaying basics, dice, collaborative storytelling, and running the game as GM. If that test lands well, the Player's Guide and Monster Vault are the real core purchase; the Game Master's Guide is useful support, not the minimum required starting point.

Rules and play structure

Tales of the Valiant keeps the recognizable 5E spine: d20 checks, classes, levels, heroic parties, spellcasting, monsters, armor, hit points, conditions, exploration, social scenes, and combat encounters. The important differences are not a new resolution engine but revisions around character identity, table economy, and GM pressure.

Character creation emphasizes lineage and heritage rather than inherited 5E race packages, and talents/backgrounds give players more visible build hooks. The Luck system gives players a table-facing resource that can soften bad-roll spirals and reward memorable play. On the GM side, the Monster Vault's Doom mechanic and monster-role guidance give encounters a little more procedural texture than a plain bag-of-hit-points bestiary.

Characters and advancement

The Player's Guide offers 13 base classes, classic fantasy lineages and heritages, talents, backgrounds, spells, weapons, and martial options. In practice, that makes Tales of the Valiant immediately legible to players who know D&D-style roles: martial heroes, spellcasters, divine support, skilled specialists, and adventuring parties built for repeated challenges.

The better question is not whether ToV has enough character options. It does. The question is whether your group wants those options to stay inside a familiar fifth-edition frame. If players want an accessible alternate route through heroic fantasy builds, ToV has a strong pitch. If they want classes and levels to work in a fundamentally different way, compare Daggerheart, Draw Steel, or Shadow of the Weird Wizard instead.

Product ecosystem and digital support

Kobold Press is one of the strongest reasons to take Tales of the Valiant seriously. The store already groups dozens of products under the Tales of the Valiant system filter, including core books, adventures, sourcebooks, player options, and VTT products. The official site also points readers toward free resources, character sheets, ready-made Valiant Six characters, the Labyrinth World Archive, adventures, and platform support.

Digital play support is unusually visible. The Kobold Press Foundry VTT creator page lists a Black Flag Roleplaying game system plus Tales of the Valiant Player's Guide, Monster Vault, Game Master's Guide, and later support modules. The public Black Flag Roleplaying documentation also documents the Foundry implementation and states that Black Flag powers the Tales of the Valiant roleplaying game.

What play feels like

At the table, Tales of the Valiant feels like a careful alternate 5E branch rather than a new genre. A session still centers on a GM presenting danger, players choosing character-driven responses, d20 rolls deciding uncertain actions, and tactical resource choices mattering most when monsters appear. The difference is that Kobold Press has put more attention on the pieces it is known for: fantasy monsters, encounter material, character options, and practical GM-facing tools.

That makes it useful for groups that have a specific 5E problem: they like the basic play loop but want a different steward, a different monster line, clearer open-system footing, or an ecosystem less tied to Wizards of the Coast. It is much less useful for groups that say they want a 5E alternative when they really mean they want to stop playing 5E-shaped games.

Running the game

GM load is medium. Familiarity helps a lot: a GM who can already run fifth-edition fantasy will understand the broad job quickly. They still need to prep adventures, choose monsters, adjudicate conditions and class features, pace exploration and social scenes, and understand the Luck/Doom economy well enough that it adds drama rather than bookkeeping.

The Monster Vault is the most important GM-facing strength. More than 400 monsters, explicit monster roles, tactics, challenge guidance, Doom points, and optional monster-harvesting rules give the GM more than a raw stat-block shelf. The Game Master's Guide then adds deeper tools for worldbuilding, narrative, combat, social play, exploration, custom monsters, and character options.

Campaign fit

Tales of the Valiant is campaign-first, but it can handle a one-shot or short sampler because the table language is so familiar. The free Quickstart is the obvious test path. For a full campaign, the real question is whether your group wants to anchor itself in Kobold Press's Labyrinth of Worlds and product ecosystem, bring in existing 5E-compatible material, or use ToV as a steadier fantasy baseline for homebrew.

Its strongest use case is the long-running fantasy group that does not want to rebuild play culture from scratch. You can keep the shared assumptions of levels, classes, monsters, gear, and d20 action while making a deliberate shift toward the Black Flag/Tales line.

Reception

Reception is positive but clearly divided by expectations. Kobold store reviewers praise the Player's Guide and Monster Vault as strong 5E-compatible revisions with good organization, character support, and monster utility. The original crowdfunding demand was also substantial, with more than 10,000 backers and a seven-figure campaign.

The strongest caveat comes from independent reviews: Tales of the Valiant can feel too close to D&D 5E if a table expected a bolder break. The Gaming Gang's Player's Guide review recommended the book while arguing that it remained too similar to 5E to occupy a sharply separate design space. Wargamer's starter-set review was harsher on that boxed product, criticizing its price, adventure design, and components while still noting that the core rules were consistently fun and that the monsters were a highlight.

Where it is strongest

• Groups that want a 5E-compatible fantasy campaign line with Kobold Press monsters and support.
• D&D tables comparing 2024 D&D, Black Flag Roleplaying, and other familiar fantasy alternatives.
• Players who like class-based heroic fantasy but want lineage, heritage, talents, and Luck to change the texture.
• GMs who value large bestiaries, monster roles, encounter support, and ready VTT modules.
• Tables that want an open-system 5E-adjacent path without abandoning their existing fifth-edition habits.

Where it can frustrate groups

• It is too conservative if your group wants a clean break from 5E assumptions.
• It still carries medium fantasy rules weight, especially around classes, spells, monsters, and encounter details.
• The best experience expects the Player's Guide plus Monster Vault, so it is not a one-book minimalist game.
• Starter-set impressions may undersell the core game; evaluate the Quickstart and core books before judging the whole line by the boxed set.
• Groups that want old-school lethality, rules-light narration, or deep grid tactics should compare other fantasy branches first.

Content and safety notes

The baseline content is classic heroic fantasy: combat, monsters, dungeons, magic, peril, and occasional darker threats such as Void-corrupted creatures. Intensity will depend heavily on the adventure or world you choose. Treat it like a flexible fantasy engine and set campaign tone before play, especially if the group mixes bright heroics, horror-leaning monsters, political conflict, or harsh survival scenes.

Best starting path

Start with the free Quickstart Guide and the official Tales of the Valiant overview. If the group likes the feel, buy the Player's Guide and Monster Vault together. Add the Game Master's Guide once someone is ready to run a campaign rather than only test the rules. For online play, check the Black Flag/Tales modules on Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, Shard, Alchemy, or Demiplane before committing to a platform.

Research notes

Last checked August 2, 2026. Sources used for this entry include the official Tales of the Valiant site, Kobold Press store pages for the Player's Guide, Monster Vault, Quickstart Guide, and current ToV catalog, the BackerKit campaign tracker, Kobold Press's May 2024 release roundup, Black Flag Roleplaying documentation, the Kobold Press Foundry VTT creator page, Forbes coverage, Wargamer's starter-set review, and The Gaming Gang's Player's Guide and Game Master's Guide reviews.