Publisher and Kobold-in-Chief, Wolfgang Baur, is here to give you some insight on the state of the industry and the place of the Tales of the Valiant (ToV) RPG in it!
Gen Con is here, and literally every RPG company worth a darn is trying to show off its latest and greatest releases, from the mighty corporate behemoths to the small garage designer with a dream. And that makes for an exciting time for the Kobolds, who sit in between those two. Here’s how things look going into the show.
Tales of the Valiant and 5E From Kobold Press
The ToV core rules have been out for a couple of months now, and the stack of adventures keeps getting bigger, so it’s time to talk about one major release and two smaller ones.
First up, Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns is a huge collection of subclasses, magic, and monsters for ToV and 5E gamers who want to either rule a small realm or take one down. While there’s been a lot of talk about it as a GM tool, it’s also indispensable for anyone who wants to play a minor noble, claim a throne, or just plunder the aristocracy.
Backers got the PDF edition this week, and their hardcovers are shipping right now. A few copies will be available at booth 121 at Gen Con for the lucky folks who show up Thursday or Friday (there’s not NEARLY enough for 4 days!).
The second big announcement is that Book of Ebon Tides and fourteen adventures for it under one cover, Tales from the Shadows, are two more releases on D&D Beyond. As the follow-up to Tome of Beasts 1 on D&D Beyond, I’m thrilled to see the Plane of Shadow get this much attention from our friends at Wizards of the Coast. It’s a world of shadow fey and witchlight, of oak and drifting roads and anchor stones that keep the shadows fixed, for a time. And both my co-designer, Celeste Conowitch, and I will be signing some of the hardcover editions at the Kobold Press booth 121.
Smaller Matters, Did You Say?
What are the smaller things that might be overlooked? Well one is the Deep Magic Volume 1 and Volume 2 Pocket Editions. They’ll be available at Gen Con, and on the Kobold Press Store. They’re incredibly helpful and portable. We expect them to fly out of the booth just like their bigger hardcover cousins did last fall.
What’s the other small thing? Well, it’s huge! Maps! The Castles & Crowns Map Folio is a beautiful set of cartography for palaces, vineyards, castles, jousting yards, manor houses, and much more—great sites for intrigue, assassination, or all-out civil war (your call). Give them a look in print or in JPG Map Pack form. We’ve also been previewing and providing scads of adventure ideas for them here on the blog!
The Competition
Games like the new-and-shiny Dragonbane and Daggerheart and even the venerable Dungeons & Dragons are trotting out new releases. So are the folks at Chaosium and Monte Cook Games and Paizo and . . . OK, there are about 600 companies representing card games, board games, and RPGs coming to Indianapolis. I can’t pretend I know them all.
I can say though, that it is a GREAT honor to have the chance to play all these games, and the Kobold Press approach is to just RUN MORE GAMES THAN ANYONE! That’s right folks, we’re running 5E-compatible ToV, we’re doing VIP games, and the Kobolds are even sponsoring the Diana Jones Award this year, because the whole team is being released from the warrens long enough to drink in sunlight and roll some bones with anyone and everyone. Some come play anything you like (if you can get a ticket!), and have a drink on us at Diana Jones on Wednesday night. Speaking of awards . . .
The ENnies OH YES
My resolution this year is to brag about cool stuff more, and there’s not much cooler than being nominated for an ENnie Award. The editors and designers of the Kobold Guide to Roleplaying richly deserve the nomination for their stupendous collection of pithy, funny, and incisive essays about how to do the one thing that defines all these games we love: better roleplaying.
We’ll find out Friday night whether we win or lose, but it’s almost beside the point. The writers of those essays have made the roleplaying world a better place, and have delivered an easy gift for anyone who wants their friend Steve the Barbarian to get just a tiny bit more into character. It’s a great tool, and I encourage you to check it out.
That’s all there’s time for this time, but maybe, just maybe, there’s a POST-Gen Con roundup of all the cool new games and crazy convention stories. If you want that roundup to happen, tell my editor to make it happen, and feel free to encourage me by following Kobold Press on Threads or Instagram or YouTube or anywhere you like.
I’ve got a plane to catch—and a great big set of new releases to share with anyone who visits Booth 121 in Indianapolis this year!
