Tales of the Variants

As I noted back in February, following the great “OGL Crisis” of Janurary 2023, a couple of companies that produce materials for 5^th edition Dungeons and Dragons decided to produce their own versions of the game in order to avoid being subject to any future deleterious decisions by the Wizards of the Coast (even after WotC backed down on scrapping the old OGL).

 

One of those companies, Kobold Press, recently announced a kickstarter for its 5e variant, Tales of the Valiant. If you’re curious about it, there is a free preview PDF that you can download from the kickstarter page (available even if you don’t want to be a backer).

 

The name is terrible in my opinion (I think I preferred its previous name, “Project Black Flag”), but the company is solid. I'm mixed on what I’ve seen of the system so far. (I mean, it’s 5e with tweaks, but I'd rather have something more stripped down.) Nonetheless, I’m more likely to use it as a resource in the future than the revised 2024 version ("5.5e") of D&D that WotC is currently working on. 

 

Cubicle 7 is also coming out with its version of 5e later this year. C7 did very good work on Adventures in Middle-earth – indeed, in terms of the rules, I liked running it a lot more than standard 5e. And I’m going through C7’s Uncharted Journeys book now (which adapts the AiME travel rules to standard 5e fantasy). It also is very good, and I’m thinking of using it in future games. So I’ll be interested in checking out “C7d20” whenever it’s released.

 

(Regarding AiME: as mentioned last year, the game is now the Lord of the Rings 5e. The system has been revised and is now published by the Free League, just as the Free League also has taken over publishing The One Ring 2^nd edition. I just got my "physical" version of the LotR 5e core book, and it looks excellent. AiME/LotR shows how 5e can be used to create something better than the original WotC 5e game. But I digress…) 

For 5e D&D, I remain very happy with my version of it: Into the Unknown with some houserules. However, I do sometimes wish that ItU had similar production values to TotV and the like. But, well, it's only an “indie” game. The kids these days sadly prefer fantasy super-heroes to gritty old-school dungeon delving.

C7d20 and Black Flag: the coming 5e Clone Wars?

 

During the recent “OGL Crisis” – caused by WotC’s recent, almost cartoonish, avarice and arrogance – a number of third-party publishers announced plans to create systems “fully compatible” with 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons – but not dependent on the OGL (instead, alternative licenses would be used, such as the forthcoming ORC).  

 

Kobold Press is pursuing what it calls “Project Black Flag.” The system will be compatible with 5e while refining elements of it: “Kobold plans to revise and sharpen familiar mechanics while offering new, streamlined options for a core tabletop game.”

 

While 5e is a vast improvement over 3e in terms of reducing its “fiddliness” (and overall gratuitous complexity), it definitely could use some further streamlining in my view. So I’ll be interested to see what the Kobolds come up with.

 

Cubicle Seven also is developing a 5e-compatible system: “C7d20” (not the most evocative of names, alas). Their announcement mentions the version of 5e that they designed for their excellent Adventures in Middle-earth game (now in the hands of the Free League, revised and renamed The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying 5e). As I’ve mentioned before here, I am a huge fan of AiME – I ran what I thought was a very successful campaign using AiME a few years ago – and think that it’s a better system overall than “core” 5e. I expect that C7 will incorporate elements of AiME into C7d20 (I read somewhere that C7 already has revised the excellent “journey” rules from AiME for their forthcoming “Broken Weave” setting).

 

Among the growing family of 5e compatible systems I should also mention ENWorld’s Level Up: Advanced 5^th Edition system. It’s been out for at least a year now, I think, so it was not created in reaction to WotC’s recent mischief. However, since it introduces additional complexity to 5e – hence the “Advanced” part of its name – it is not something in which I’ve been interested. Nonetheless, it’s a freestanding system, compatible with 5e, and seems to have its supporters.

 

Finally, at the other end of the spectrum from Level Up, is Into the Unknown. Inspired by the Basic and Expert rules for D&D from the very beginning of the 1980s, Into the Unknown simplifies and streamlines many elements of 5e while introducing a few mechanisms (especially concerning dungeon and wilderness exploration) that resemble those from earlier editions.  Like Level Up, Into the Unknown has been out for a while now (it was released in 2019). But it’s a freestanding 5e-compatible game that (hopefully) will continue to be available in the future. (I’m using a house-ruled version of ItU for my current Greyhawk campaign.)

 

Even though WotC has abandoned its attempt to “de-authorize” the OGL 1a (which is good news for ItU) and has “CC-ized” the 5e SRD, the projects by C7 and Kobold Press are set to continue. I’m genuinely curious to see how they turn out.