I forgot to mention that my link to the book is an affiliate link from Kobold Press: koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/tales-of-the-valiant-game-masters-guide-2/affiliate/mistertarrasque/
I recently bought the DM guides for both DND and Tales of the Valiant. Both of them seem very cool. I am really excited about them. Tales of the Valiant is the less famous one. It is cool to see this channel upload another video on it. That is cool. This even covered some stuff that caught my attention. One is that there is extensive instruction on how to homebrew monsters. As someone that loves homebrew, I am all for it. It seems like this section reveals the game secrets on monster building. Another cool thing is that the book has a chapter on each of the three pillars. There is combat, exploration and socializing. This is something that isn't in the new DND DM Guide. Since exploration and socializing are sparse on rules, it is nice to flesh them out. This video got into the socializing part. Part of this is a name table. I do get amused that one of the names is Sebastian. One new feature in DND DM Guide is bastions. Bastion is a fancy word for player stronghold or housing. The word just sounds a lot like the boy's name Sebastian. The name also reminds me of the red crab from the Little Mermaid, but maybe that is just me.
I hate random encounters. However I have found a solution. Pokemon has a tradition of random encounters. The randomness is made more annoying when I am trying to collect the creatures. Zubat is especially notorious in this regard. Wild Pokemon are essential, and collecting Pokemon is the main selling point. That stuff is awesome. Bad luck is the number one fun spoiler for me. Encounters creatures at random can be very irritating. Fortunately recent Pokemon games have improved wild encounters by making them less random. I recently tried out Pokemon Violet. That is a big step in the right direction. All wild Pokemon are visible from the over world. Their species can be identified. All of them are not very aggressive. A battle only starts if I attack or bump into one. It is nice. I can pick my battles. There is also more serenity in the wilderness. I like that feeling. If anything random encounters is an outdated mechanic. It made sense back when technology was limited and consoles couldn't depict multiple characters on screen. I recall what random encounters look like on the ancient Pokemon games on the Gameboy series consoles. This was gens 1-3. Modern consoles, like the Nintendo Switch, can show multiple 3D character models at once. So that allows for more transparent wild encounters. This is so much better. TTRPGs have random encounters too. There is rolling dice on random tables. I am not a fan of this practice. However this could be done well. I found a better approach to wild encounters in video games. So this idea could apply to tabletop games. The DM can list several kinds of creatures in an environment. Then the players can pick which one to fight. That would be so cool. Random encounter tables would still be useful. The DM can list some or all of the table. Then the players can have their pick. It is cool that Tales of the Valiant include not just creatures in their tables but also scenarios. That makes the game more lively and interesting. In the real world, wild animals roam a lot. However they do other things. They eat, sleep, clean themselves, drink water, fight, raise babies, have courtship etc. Having that in a game would be so cool. That is better than having monsters wander around aimlessly in the wild. Maybe there can be one Table for the species of monster and another table for the activity the monster does. That leads to even more variety. That would be awesome.
Great video! I am really enjoying this book and am actually reading it completely through. Not in order - I am picking a section at a time. To me, this is an extremely valuable toolkit!!
I love this GM Guide. Doom point options, Chases, more combat options, social encounters, fleshing out NPCs. Even more details for crafting and harvesting monsters parts. I'm still going thru it but most if it is useful for me as an experienced GM.
1. The Maps are great! I've been collecting these maps since the Scarlet Citadel and their OVERLAYS (I want more maps with overlays!!! - they are unique- awesome- can't be matched or beat!!!) 2. There is a printing error on map 3 - City Gate. There is a weird red/magenta block near the upper left hand corner behind the trees. This is abnormal but should be corrected in later printings of the maps. It shouldn't mess up your game. This is the first Quality error I've seen on a Kobold Press product (except spelling errors and CR's that kill tier two player characters). 3. In Campaign Builders: Cities and Towns - there was an appendix in the back where the maps were detailed in the book. What you could use them for... What features were unique to the maps... I didn't see this section in the GMG in relation to the maps but I could have missed it. 4. The Creature Stat by CR is an essential tool and should be in EVERY StoryTeller guide. I wish there as a number of special features - so an improv creature at CR-2 can have one special feature from this list of features, or cast a once-an-encounter spell and a CR-5 monster can get a feature from list 1 A and one from list B... If you go 10 more pages in- you find all those traits organized by creature type. So the info is there. Wow, there really is so much good stuff in this book. Yeah, Kobold Press is for DMs and GMs, where WotC is for the Players. Until WotC messed up Backgrounds in the 2024 PHB-that was just plain bad. I'm so confused about why they moved Custom Backgrounds to the DMG.
I'd love to have you go through more of the GM's Guide! I am a GM with limited experience and I want to pivot from D&D2024 to Tales of the Valiant. It is good to hear what an experienced GM finds valuable in the book. I have the book and really like it so far but guides like this help in calling out how things are good but I might not even realize it just reading it myself. It was very handy to go through the improvised encounter using the tables. Thanks! Keep the TOV stuff coming!
Finally a publisher that makes encounters the way they are supposed to be made. About Tiers do they go like levels 1-5 is Tier 1, 6-10 is Tier 2 and so on.
Another way to run your Lizard folk with an egg and black dragon encounter could be "The dragon rises up and berates the lizard folk for being careless and to be careful with the egg. Maybe the black dragon stole it from a rival wyrm. I think these descriptions can help you think differently about random encounters and you should, if you rolled the same thing in the future.
Tales of the valiant is a 5e adjacent system created by kobold press. You could in theory use this product in tandem with base 5e but it is its own game. Think how the 24 rules are backwards compatible this system is sideways compatible. I’m pretty sure since I don’t actually own a copy nor a pdf or played in it. Hope that answers your question
As a result of their 'Black Flag' project, Kobold Press have effectively utilised the D&D Open License material to produce their own 'version' of D&D in a way that they (& I!) prefer to play. Think of it as: 'Tales of The Valiant' has the bones of D&D5e, but with better flesh built onto it. It is very easy to use/convert ToV & D&D5e material with each other :)
It is a good book and it has a lot of great information and advice that is good for DMing in general and not to a specific system. I would like more tables for random adventure and campaign creation. Like dungeon creation and random adventure hooks and rumors.
I forgot to mention that my link to the book is an affiliate link from Kobold Press:
koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/tales-of-the-valiant-game-masters-guide-2/affiliate/mistertarrasque/
I recently bought the DM guides for both DND and Tales of the Valiant. Both of them seem very cool. I am really excited about them. Tales of the Valiant is the less famous one. It is cool to see this channel upload another video on it. That is cool. This even covered some stuff that caught my attention. One is that there is extensive instruction on how to homebrew monsters. As someone that loves homebrew, I am all for it. It seems like this section reveals the game secrets on monster building. Another cool thing is that the book has a chapter on each of the three pillars. There is combat, exploration and socializing. This is something that isn't in the new DND DM Guide. Since exploration and socializing are sparse on rules, it is nice to flesh them out. This video got into the socializing part. Part of this is a name table. I do get amused that one of the names is Sebastian. One new feature in DND DM Guide is bastions. Bastion is a fancy word for player stronghold or housing. The word just sounds a lot like the boy's name Sebastian. The name also reminds me of the red crab from the Little Mermaid, but maybe that is just me.
I hate random encounters. However I have found a solution. Pokemon has a tradition of random encounters. The randomness is made more annoying when I am trying to collect the creatures. Zubat is especially notorious in this regard. Wild Pokemon are essential, and collecting Pokemon is the main selling point. That stuff is awesome. Bad luck is the number one fun spoiler for me. Encounters creatures at random can be very irritating. Fortunately recent Pokemon games have improved wild encounters by making them less random. I recently tried out Pokemon Violet. That is a big step in the right direction. All wild Pokemon are visible from the over world. Their species can be identified. All of them are not very aggressive. A battle only starts if I attack or bump into one. It is nice. I can pick my battles. There is also more serenity in the wilderness. I like that feeling. If anything random encounters is an outdated mechanic. It made sense back when technology was limited and consoles couldn't depict multiple characters on screen. I recall what random encounters look like on the ancient Pokemon games on the Gameboy series consoles. This was gens 1-3. Modern consoles, like the Nintendo Switch, can show multiple 3D character models at once. So that allows for more transparent wild encounters. This is so much better.
TTRPGs have random encounters too. There is rolling dice on random tables. I am not a fan of this practice. However this could be done well. I found a better approach to wild encounters in video games. So this idea could apply to tabletop games. The DM can list several kinds of creatures in an environment. Then the players can pick which one to fight. That would be so cool. Random encounter tables would still be useful. The DM can list some or all of the table. Then the players can have their pick. It is cool that Tales of the Valiant include not just creatures in their tables but also scenarios. That makes the game more lively and interesting. In the real world, wild animals roam a lot. However they do other things. They eat, sleep, clean themselves, drink water, fight, raise babies, have courtship etc. Having that in a game would be so cool. That is better than having monsters wander around aimlessly in the wild. Maybe there can be one Table for the species of monster and another table for the activity the monster does. That leads to even more variety. That would be awesome.
Do you have an opinion about both DM Guides, which do you find more useful? :D
Great video!
I am really enjoying this book and am actually reading it completely through. Not in order - I am picking a section at a time. To me, this is an extremely valuable toolkit!!
I love this GM Guide. Doom point options, Chases, more combat options, social encounters, fleshing out NPCs. Even more details for crafting and harvesting monsters parts. I'm still going thru it but most if it is useful for me as an experienced GM.
Am curious to see more!
1. The Maps are great! I've been collecting these maps since the Scarlet Citadel and their OVERLAYS (I want more maps with overlays!!! - they are unique- awesome- can't be matched or beat!!!)
2. There is a printing error on map 3 - City Gate. There is a weird red/magenta block near the upper left hand corner behind the trees. This is abnormal but should be corrected in later printings of the maps. It shouldn't mess up your game. This is the first Quality error I've seen on a Kobold Press product (except spelling errors and CR's that kill tier two player characters).
3. In Campaign Builders: Cities and Towns - there was an appendix in the back where the maps were detailed in the book. What you could use them for... What features were unique to the maps... I didn't see this section in the GMG in relation to the maps but I could have missed it.
4. The Creature Stat by CR is an essential tool and should be in EVERY StoryTeller guide. I wish there as a number of special features - so an improv creature at CR-2 can have one special feature from this list of features, or cast a once-an-encounter spell and a CR-5 monster can get a feature from list 1 A and one from list B... If you go 10 more pages in- you find all those traits organized by creature type. So the info is there.
Wow, there really is so much good stuff in this book. Yeah, Kobold Press is for DMs and GMs, where WotC is for the Players. Until WotC messed up Backgrounds in the 2024 PHB-that was just plain bad. I'm so confused about why they moved Custom Backgrounds to the DMG.
I'd love to have you go through more of the GM's Guide! I am a GM with limited experience and I want to pivot from D&D2024 to Tales of the Valiant. It is good to hear what an experienced GM finds valuable in the book. I have the book and really like it so far but guides like this help in calling out how things are good but I might not even realize it just reading it myself. It was very handy to go through the improvised encounter using the tables. Thanks! Keep the TOV stuff coming!
Glad to have you here! Pivoting is not hard at all, just hand the players guide to your players and start playing. It’s basically 5th edition
Good to hear they nailed this one. A good GM guide is very hard to find.
Please more content on this book
Talk about how to start as a beginner. Creating dungeons and adventures. How do you tie all the things together without it being a railroad?
Finally a publisher that makes encounters the way they are supposed to be made. About Tiers do they go like levels 1-5 is Tier 1, 6-10 is Tier 2 and so on.
Yeps! There are basically four tiers in the 20 levels of play.
Wow I was going to skip it too. But now I’m curious. Please do more content on this book!
Another way to run your Lizard folk with an egg and black dragon encounter could be "The dragon rises up and berates the lizard folk for being careless and to be careful with the egg. Maybe the black dragon stole it from a rival wyrm.
I think these descriptions can help you think differently about random encounters and you should, if you rolled the same thing in the future.
Good one!
pardon my ignorance but is this book good for D&D or is this for another game engine (Valiant)?
Tales of the valiant is a 5e adjacent system created by kobold press. You could in theory use this product in tandem with base 5e but it is its own game. Think how the 24 rules are backwards compatible this system is sideways compatible. I’m pretty sure since I don’t actually own a copy nor a pdf or played in it. Hope that answers your question
This can be perfectly used for 5th edition. I don’t know (or care) about DnD ‘24.
As a result of their 'Black Flag' project, Kobold Press have effectively utilised the D&D Open License material to produce their own 'version' of D&D in a way that they (& I!) prefer to play. Think of it as: 'Tales of The Valiant' has the bones of D&D5e, but with better flesh built onto it. It is very easy to use/convert ToV & D&D5e material with each other :)
It is a good book and it has a lot of great information and advice that is good for DMing in general and not to a specific system. I would like more tables for random adventure and campaign creation. Like dungeon creation and random adventure hooks and rumors.
There is an entire section on dungeon rooms and ect, for me it's more than enough to get the ball rolling.
Its such a good book! I just keep reading it.
I just wish they’d release their content for a system other than 5e
It's their own system, why would they.
@@simmonslucas It not really. It's a 5e hack. You might like some of the changes but at its core it's another company's system.
@@jasonr.6123You mean just like Pathfinder was for 3.5e?
Bet you they will continue to add more over time and run rings around WotC.
@@paulw41 Yes. Pathfinder was a 3.5 clone.