Steamforged Games Making the Tales of the Valiant Starter Set

Steamforged Games announced a deal with Kobold Press to produce the Tales from the Valiant Starter Set. From the announcement:

Steamforged Games and Kobold Press Write a New Chapter in Tabletop Roleplaying with Tales of the Valiant Starter Set

Two major players in the tabletop games industry, Kobold Press and Steamforged Games, are thrilled to announce a partnership for the creation of an exciting new tabletop roleplaying Starter Set for Tales of the Valiant. While full details will be revealed in the near future, both companies are eager to share their commitment to crafting something extraordinary for the tabletop roleplaying community, designed to be a true gateway for new players and redefine the beginner's experience.

Kobold Press, a prominent name in roleplaying for over 17 years and the leading creator of third-party Dungeons & Dragons content—that recently extended its legacy with the Black Flag Roleplaying rules and Tales of the Valiant roleplaying game—has joined forces with Steamforged Games, renowned for its Epic Encounters range and celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The partnership is built on a shared goal to further the growth and accessibility of tabletop roleplaying.

"Our goal is to teach fundamental roleplaying skills in a way that feels intuitive and enjoyable for beginners," said Mat Hart, Co-founder and Creative Director at Steamforged Games. “We’re creating an incremental experience that will scaffold players through the levels until they’re competent, confident, and having an excellent time in the process. As long-time fans of Kobold, and particularly of the Black Flag system, we’re over the moon to be working with them on such an exciting release.”

“Kobold Press is extremely excited to team up with Steamforged Games on the upcoming Starter Set for Tales of the Valiant,” said Wolfgang Baur, founder and CEO of Kobold Press. “This set is the perfect opportunity for new players to take their first steps into the hobby in a way that is easily accessible and fun. The Kobold team have always been fans of the beautiful products Steamforged Games has released and can’t wait to see the Starter Set that will help players begin their roleplaying journey.”

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Steamforged Games is best known for their licensed board games based on the popular video games Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, Horizon Zero Dawn, Resident Evil 3, and others, the Epic Encounters series of bundled miniatures and adventures for 5e, and the 5e RPG adaptation of Dark Souls which had a disastrous launch.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

SFG isn't designing anything here. They are putting together the package, which is ostensibly their strength.

Also, I am unclear on what is wrong with the Dark Souls TTRPG. I own it and it seems like a rather faithful blending of the video game's aesthetics and world with the 5E ruleset. (EDIT I have not played it, however, so maybe there's something buried in the chassis I haven't seen?)

 

[kenmarable]

Also, I am unclear on what is wrong with the Dark Souls TTRPG. I own it and it seems like a rather faithful blending of the video game's aesthetics and world with the 5E ruleset. (EDIT I have not played it, however, so maybe there's something buried in the chassis I haven't seen?)

No need to go into detail since sometimes things happen and they have otherwise done very well (so I don't want to slam them for 1 bad product they had out of the many other solid ones in a promo thread for them!), but hopefully you got an updated version.

The initial release needed more much editing oversight - far more tpyos than typical for a book that size, rules that outright contradicted each other, references to non-existent mechanics, etc. It's the sort of stuff that can happen during development as things change, but is usually cleaned up long before print. For whatever reason, it wasn't in this case. But it was definitely an outlier in their usual level of quality. Even my lukewarm opinions on some of their design work is less a matter of quality than it is of design choices, although I should definitely add in that it was earlier work of theirs and I'm not up to date on all of their recent stuff. My issues are mostly things like 3.x/PF design philosophies clashing with 5e mechanics, game mechanics leaning a little more towards clunky than elegant, etc. Nothing terrible and certainly nothing like the many problems with the initial Dark Souls RPG release.

They definitely make decent to good products that look incredible. The initial release of the Dark Souls RPG was noteworthy for being such an outlier in their usual standards.

 

[Abstruse]

Also, I am unclear on what is wrong with the Dark Souls TTRPG. I own it and it seems like a rather faithful blending of the video game's aesthetics and world with the 5E ruleset. (EDIT I have not played it, however, so maybe there's something buried in the chassis I haven't seen?)

I linked to the story, but it's likely you got the updated version. The original release from the Kickstarter fulfillment went to Europe first and got terrible reviews for poor editing, layout issues, contradictions in rules text, etc. Steamforged ended up pulping the print run before they started shipping to North America and sent replacements to European customers and the new updated reprint was the one shipped to North America.

 

[Reynard]

I linked to the story, but it's likely you got the updated version. The original release from the Kickstarter fulfillment went to Europe first and got terrible reviews for poor editing, layout issues, contradictions in rules text, etc. Steamforged ended up pulping the print run before they started shipping to North America and sent replacements to European customers and the new updated reprint was the one shipped to North America.

It sounds like they made it right. That should increase confidence, not undermine it.

 

[Abstruse]

It sounds like they made it right. That should increase confidence, not undermine it.

They handled the mess as best as you could hope for a company to handle it...but they also created the mess in the first place. So YMMV on whether fixing the problem is worth as much as causing the problem or if you would hold concerns because there were problems that needed fixing.

 

[Morrus]

They handled the mess as best as you could hope for a company to handle it...but they also created the mess in the first place. So YMMV on whether fixing the problem is worth as much as causing the problem or if you would hold concerns because there were problems that needed fixing.

My thoughts are once and they fixed it I'm OK. If they did it like 3 times then it's obviously systemic. But we've made mistakes we've had to fix. I'm not worried in the slightest at this point. you get to screw up once, and if you fix it, that's OK. Everybody was made whole, as far as I know. Nobody lost out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder why they are outsourcing? I guess it is because they launch of both will happen at the same time and in-house designers are working on ToV and do not have the bandwidth to do both. SfG can work on the starter set and let Kobold focus on the main rules. Wizards did this as well with some of the early 5e stuff like the Tiamat adventure book if I am remembering right.

Dicebreaker speculated it's because Steamforged has really solid UK/Euro distribution.

 

[Marc Radle]

They do make awesome minis - I have the Animal Adventures set sitting on my desk and the minis are very high quality and very well detailed …

 

[sevenbastard]

The Pathfinder 2E starter set with its Pathfinder Pawns was pretty much the ultimate starter set, in terms of content.

Agreed, but not just the pawns. It had complete rules to play Pathfinder for levels 1 to 5. Charachter creation, Monsters, Adventure building advice, ect. It also had good graphic design and decent art. My only complaint is the included adventure is just so so.

It is for me the gold standard of modern starter sets.

That said Free League puts put some good stuff. And games like T2000 and Dragonbane are both complete game in a box, very old school. Also Zeilander (sp?) Starter set was pretty good*

Let's see what Kobolds bring to the table.

*The included adventure had a few parts that rubbed me the wrong way and punished the characters for not being paragon of heroic virtue. Seemed at odds with the vibe of the grim dark game setting.

 

[Weiley31]

One thing can be said about Steamforged Games: they sure do know how to put a box set together.