Tales of the Valiant Game Master's Guide impressions

Black Dougal

Footpad
That “inspiration list” of media was a blast to compile!
Everyone in the company contributed their favorites :)
I was happy to see you all have great taste, especially the individuals who added the Thing to the list ;)

You all did a great job, my table is full of KP fans and ToV is a big hit with us.
 

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Marc Radle

Legend
Oh, for those fortunate few that sprung for the Super Deluxe versions of the Monster Vault and Player's Guide, and also got the Super Deluxe version of the Game Master's Guide, here's how they will all look on your bookshelf!

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Distracted DM

Distracted DM
Supporter
Advanced Exploration

OK hey look, we start out with an acknowledge that "the PCs in your campaign are exceptional heroes, which means they need exceptional challenges to overcome." Not just heroes, exceptional heroes. 5e to a T: the greatest NPCs in the land quake at their passing. Blerg. At least they say it.

Planar Travel! Are you unfamiliar with planescape? Guess what, this'll help you out.
We're provided a few hazards here, things that PCs might encounter traveling the planes like
Shadow Corruption
or IMMOLATION! Ha. Good to have.

Water Travel! Oh, a chart for ship navigation, weather, and notes like calm wind = ship not moving without rowing, or strong winds = squall, storm, and what effects those have.

Underwater visibility.. it's tough to see underwater! Yup! You're gonna get run up on close up. Interesting.
1d20 seaborne encounters, from merchant ships to dragon turtles demanding tribute.

DUNGEONS! I hope this is big.
Advice on running dungeons, four questions to ask when creating dungeons.. oh hey, a key for markings on dungeon maps! Coolio.
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Oops. Misspelling on the word "altar." Page 85, @Marc Radle it's spelled "alter." Oh wow those limited covers of the books you posted look dope. Nice.

"What was the dungeon's original purpose?" Dungeons built to house the dead: how they'd be built. House the living? More advice on what they'd be like.

Oh 1d20 adjectives to use to describe your dungeon:
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So this is looking like a book I'd want with me at the table. Lots of useful little charts for various places. Too bad 6/7 games I run are now online :'D

OK so the DUNGEON section is big, as I'd hoped. Wow, more random charts. I run improv-heavy so charts are always great for inspiration.
I'm still scrolling through the dungeon section... this really is crazy good. I think A5E's dungeon delver guide does something similar but.. this is VERY good for DMG GMG material IMO. DUNGEONS.

Oh hey a chart for monster motivations like "recover from a battle." Why is the monster recovering, what battle were they in, what were they fighting? Great friggin' questions. Random obstacles to encounter like ANTILIFE AURA, ha. Adding environment difficulties to dungeons can really spice them up and make things more complex for the party... make them think. I need to use more stuff like this- it's easy to forget.

Haaa "Random tricks" table. Are you kidding me? These are great.
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Oh, this reminds me of Monte Cook's The Weird book. Check that one out, it's worth a read if you want a book full of tables to make any aspect of your game interesting.

I'm trying to skip through the dungeon section but it's easy to see cool stuff.

Oh, cool art:
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OK WE MADE IT OUT OF DUNGEONS!
Puzzle time! Why use puzzles? Elements of a puzzle. Sample puzzles and riddles! Suggestions on using hints- which suggests being generous with them. I agree if it's a necessary-to-solve-to-progress puzzle. Really that means you NEED a way through, with or without hints. Anyway...

Additional rules for:

Weather! Not much here.

Random encounters! I love those. It explains why you might want random encounters during travel and points us to an appendix for random encounter tables. Nice.

Next chapter...

Advanced Social
Guide on NPCs, more tables of cool stuff. So using the tables in this book, you can pretty much sit down with literally no idea of what you're going to run and end up with an adventure, encounters, an evening of entertaining ideas. Table of allies! Table of antagonists!
1d20 villainous schemes!

Cheers to you, big guy.
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OK so after the advice and section on running NPCs, we have

FACTIONS: Four or five pages of how to run factions. Useful.

Additional rules for social stuff.

So holy crud, we're about to hit the ADVENTURING OPTIONS chapter and we're... halfway through the book now.
 


Rabulias

the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever
I have enjoyed skimming through the GMG, jumping around to various topics; your review has brought me back to some parts for a more thorough read. Thanks!

One thing, though:
Theater of the Mind, adjudicating Areas of Effect: How many foes does a Fireball hit in Theater of the Mind combat? What about Wall of Fire? Well, they have suggested numbers here for each common AoE size! Nice.
I know no one reads the DMG (so you are excused ;) ), but this is in there (p.249).
 

Distracted DM

Distracted DM
Supporter
I have enjoyed skimming through the GMG, jumping around to various topics; your review has brought me back to some parts for a more thorough read. Thanks!

One thing, though:

I know no one reads the DMG (so you are excused ;) ), but this is in there (p.249).
I have read it (because of the Dragon Talk podcast saying "it's full of good stuff but no one reads it!), but it's been... probably 7 years. Thanks :D
 


zakael19

Adventurer
Can you tell me more about the minion mechanics? (The MCDM ref is meaningless to me.)

It's a trait you can tag monsters with that basically says "any damage, they're dead." Couple variant ideas on handling splash damage, and cleaving through multiple minions based on HP thresholds. Doesn't have the specific 4e style set of minion damage suggestions/unique abilities that Flee, Mortals does. There is a couple monsters that use a "let me take the hit boss" mechanic in the monster manual though that would make great minions to be annoying.
 

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