Oh, Iām super super super interested, Iāve been DMing for the whole pandemic, would love to just be a player for a bit! 
LMK if you can get a few more people interested, because I would LOVE to do this.
Just be forewarned - Iāve been roleplaying in different gaming capacities for over 25 years, so Iām a stickler about creating a character and roleplaying what theyād do. Even if it means blowing up the plot or whathaveyou.
Iām thinking it would be 3E D&D because thatās my favorite system, but as I said up above itās not important if people arenāt very familiar with those rules or donāt have the books. We could deal with those as we go on. Thatās one of the advantages of play by postā¦ no need to burn game time explaining rules or looking stuff up, because game time is āwhenever.ā
Exactly. Plus I can type things out without any āuhm, uhsā in there. Excited to play, fingers crossed a few more folks want to have fun!
Iām a HUGE Marvel FASERIP fan. Been running a campaign of this for over a decade. Still my all time favorite Marvel system.
Ha. Funny that you mention it. My regular group is taking a break from The One Ring, so I introduced them to Faserip. They rolled up random characters for a planned one shot. But they fell in love with the game so now I am having a hard time getting them back to Middle Earth.
Maybe I could make Frodo a mutant and tie the Ring to Mephisto. 
A bit off main topic, but my friends and I were huge fans of the miniature game heroclix which had LoTR content. We had tons of fun imagining Marvel characters dealing with Sauron.
āGiving the One Ring to the Juggernaut might have been the best decision weāve ever made. Nothing slows him down from reaching Mount Doom and heās immune to the temptations!ā
āHey boss, thereās this green flying lizard claiming to be you here. What do we do?ā
āBy the power of the Vishanti, youāre a crappy wizard, Gandalf! Learn a fireball spell or something!ā
I went ahead and pre-ordered Valdaās Spire Of Secrets and was looking over the included PDF, and my gosh itās fun. Gorgeous art, new races, classes, and subclasses. Now, some of the stuff from Mage Hand Pressās Complete class books is included, but not all (most notably the Complete Binder is not there at all), and thereās some stuff exclusive to this book. But thereās a lot for everybody. If you want to play a luchador who can suplex Strahd (and who doesnāt?!?) this is the book for YOU!
You had me at suplex.
Itās really the perfect companion to the Tales of Arcana book.
So, Chapter 1 features new races. We have living toys, plant folks, mousefolk, and ghost-like people. We also get a bunch of feats to use with the Variant Human option, to simulate things like half-dwarves and half-minotaurs.
Chapter 2 has new classes (some, but not all, of which are available individually on DriveThruRPG, though in some cases, those individual entries have things not featured here, like how the Complete Gunslinger has options for lasers and other sci-fi options, which are not featured in this book). Each class also features several subclasses. The new classes are Alchemist, Captain, Craftsman, Gunslinger, Investigator, Martyr, Necromancer, Warden, Warmage, and Witch. It seems very Pathfinder-esque, to me, as some of these seem like stuff you can do with the existing classes.
Chapter 3 looks at the base classes from 5e (barring the Artificer, as the Alchemist and Craftsman classes more or less supplant those). Each class gets six new subclasses. Some of the standouts include the Way Of The Mask (the aforementioned luchador subclass for monks), Circle Of The City (if you want to play Jack Hawskmoor from the Authority), the Toon Sorcerous background for Sorcerers, the GM Patron Warlock (to break the 4th Wall), the Way Of Streetfighting (HADOUKEN), and College Of Graffiti.
Chapter 4 has new options for customization, including how multiclassing works with the new classes presented here in.
Chapter 5 and 6 have new equipment and spells, respectively. We close things out with a few appendices, including variant rules, stats for new familiars (do you want your wizard to have a friendly flying book floating around? Now you can!), and rules for a in-universe game called Siegeball.
Scattered throughout the book are comments from Valda the Lich, many of which are quite humorous.
Overall, this is a fun book. Much like the Tales Of Arcana Race Guide, this book looks at trying to recreate a lot of popular culture for 5e, and that makes sense. Many players, especially newer and/ or younger players, are going to want to try and recreate their favorite characters from movies or TV for a game. So, if someone says āCan I play Winnie The Pooh if he were a wizardā, you can say āYESā.
Essentially, Valdaās Spire Of Secrets is a ton of fun and adds a lot of variety to 5e.
Fantastic review, tysm!! 
Your mention of variant human options got me thinking of a half-elf character I once played. As he was raised by the Elven side of his family, he refused to be called a half-elf, and rather insisted that he was a half-human. I always found it interesting that in a fantasy setting where elves have existed for far longer than humans, that elf-human hybrids are defined by their human side.
Iām really liking the new season of The Witcher, but theyāve got Elves who tick literally every single stereotype box for Fantasy Elves 
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Would anyone be interested in me making up characters using Tales Of Arcana or Valdaās Spire Of Secrets and posting them, to see if thatās a book they might want to get?
Hey, this is a thread for d&d nonsense - I think this fits! 
Always down to get some inspiration.
How about a cool gunslinger type (if requests are accepted)?
I stick with 3.0/3.5 rules for DND. The newer editions donāt appeal to me.
Iāve tried making my own campaign with my own party thanks to dice rolling programs, character creation tools online and access to the d20 webpages.
To each their own! Iām limited by what I and my players have regular access to. One can craft a fun story with almost anything when putting the olā imagination to work!
My source for 3.5 DND material:
The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) :: d20srd.org
This site has a character generator for not only 3.5 but also for 4E, 5E and Pathfinder:
