Tales of the Valiant, formerly known as Project Black Flag, is Kobold Press’ name for what will eventually be their Core Fantasy Roleplay books - two books, one for players and one for dungeon masters - with the intention to “update, streamline, and publish a core fantasy RPG based on Dungeons & Dragon’s SRD 5.1.” Their goals are stated on the project’s website, but the best way to get a look might be to dive right into the initial round of playtest material, which deals with creating characters. What is Tales of the Valiant? What is it like?

Until now, we hadn’t seen anything major published under the newly-minted SRD, but now we’re seeing our first creative efforts as longtime D&D supplement publisher Kobold Press begins playtesting their own full game derived from the SRD, called Tales of the Valiant. The SRD (and the OGL) differs from other D&D initiatives like the DM’s Guild in that it is largely meant to allow publishers to create things that lie outside of Wizards of the Coast’s published settings and that they intend to publish on their own. While the SRD lacks some of the content that the actual systems contain, it is still a full reference to the 5th edition of D&D with a single purpose - to help publishers create their own original content, be it game supplements or full games, that is compatible with the world’s most well-known tabletop roleplaying game. Back in January when Wizards of the Coast backed off of Open Gaming License (OGL) updates to go with their new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, they also made a second decision that - while popular - hadn’t seen as much fanfare as of yet: they released the current D&D rules as a System Reference Document, or SRD under a Creative Commons license.

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