About 15 years ago, a small group of friends began reimagining what their weekly tabletop role-playing game could be. The goal: creative, nuanced characters and strategic, immersive gameplay. The rules had to be solid and simple enough to eliminate game interruptions, but rich enough to give players a near-infinite number of options. Valentia is the result.

Valentia tosses out traditional character classes. Instead, 145 skills are grouped into 40 different disciplines. How you combine them is entirely up to you. A character can master just a few or become a jack-of-all-trades. As your skills increase, you pick from over 500 perks that provide buffs and tricks. This makes for more novel characters – no two the same.

Combat in Valentia is dynamic, engaging and bloody. Like real battle, decisions are split-second and change with each new opening. You choose how much effort to put into each attack – do you spend it all now or hold some back for defense? Characters are built to pull off masterful combat tricks, but no one is invincible. A swarm of goblins can be just as scary to a highly skilled warrior as they are to a novice.

Valentia encourages non-combat solutions to problems. Skill- focused characters are not merely viable, but true assets to the party. The Face, for example, wields words as weapons. The Doctor can heal without spellcasting. Thieves will never find their skills outdone by an apprentice wizard. Creative options open the door for GMs to tell richer stories and reward players for thinking beyond the sword.