New D&D Covers


4th Edition

Silver Crusade

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What you think?

New Look of D&D.

Sovereign Court

Not bad. I hope they decided to ditch the pixar fatlings tho.


Now that's a look a like! A lot less goofy than a lot of the 3rd and 4th edition art (in my opinion.) I still cringe thinking about the early 4th ed art... The current DDN art feels like the comic book-ish action of the newer editions meets the more realistic style of older editions. I can dig it!


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I like it.
It looks dark and gritty, and all the women are wearing normal people clothes!


Also, are they really just not bothering with the edition number anymore? Or will it be on the spine somewhere? I don't see any indication of which version it is on these covers. I imagine that could cause a lot of confusion for noobs. I expected at least a "D&D NEXT" logo, or something. DDN, maybe?


I think they ditched Edition numbers because... I dunno, I heard from a PR that they thought it would cut down on alienation or something.

As for the art, I'm glad we're getting more practical armor and clothing for female characters. I was never a fan of having 'chainmail bikini girl' drawn for anything outside of fan service... But, that's a debate for another day. Plus, I'd be glad to see a core book without qausi-Liefeldian anatomy (4E PHB II Barbarian, I'm looking at you!) But, since these are just covers, I will reserve final judgement. And I dunno if I see gritty too much, maybe a pulpy action feel to it (as an evolution of all of the previous styles, in a way)


Surely removing edition numbers increases alienation, rather than cuts down on it. There's nothing that bounces a new customer away like staring at a bookshelf full of incompatible books that all say "Dungeons and Dragons" with no visible indication which ones will be a waste of their $50.

That sounds like another victory of marketing over logic.


Yeah, that will be fun for them.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Fourth editon books didn't have version indicators on them either, and neither die the original third edition books.


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I like the cover layouts and the new logo with the full name in the red banner. I find it grabs your eye. The pictures I've seen of the spines of the books are nice too. I think they'll look great on the shelf.


The MM wants me to both play....or have my pc runaway!!


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Zaister wrote:
Fourth editon books didn't have version indicators on them either, and neither die the original third edition books.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Keep your highfalutin facts and logic outta the way of some good, old-fashioned, edition-warring nerdrage.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Best comment:

Facebook wrote:
I'm not dropping another 200 bucks on a set of books for a short-lived edition. Pass.


The new art is quite stunning. In particular, the cover for "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" gives me an AD&D vibe. Looking forward to trying the new system out.


Horrified by the art, the layout, the squished typography and the spines. I hope the visual content inside is better. And obviously the crunch. Not holding much hope there I'm afraid.

I liked much of 4e's layout and art/graphics. This looks like the life has been squeezed out of it...


Generally, I like it. However, as I have said elsewhere, I don't really care for the PHB cover. They should have used the image from the Starter Set instead (which oddly doesn't appear on the Facebook page).


Quote:
There's nothing that bounces a new customer away like staring at a bookshelf full of incompatible books that all say "Dungeons and Dragons" with no visible indication which ones will be a waste of their $50.

The recent books are edition-agnostic and (theoretically) can be used with 5E, so that shouldn't be a problem. WotC will also likely have big standee things at first for just the 5E stuff. They'll likely encourage retailers with back-stock of older editions to put them in a different area as well. I know they did with my local game store when both 3E and 4E came out. Everything else went back to WotC or onto the bargain shelves.

Liberty's Edge

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The new "d&d" logo is horrible, but the artwork is neat.


Silly question, but does anyone know who the artist is on these books?


On topic, those covers are amazing. The detail, especially in the white dragon scene, is remarkable.


I like the artwork, but I think the branding could be much better.


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Looks good though I would like more player centric art for the Player's Handbook. I get they were going with a theme awesome monster...little bity PC which works for the DMG and the MM...but when looking at a PHB the cover should show awesome PCs...

But much better than the 4th ed art.


I agree the starter set cover would be a great PHB cover although something showing a whole party like the 1E idol cover would be best I think. It seems the trend is to have the PHB have the weakest art. I found with 4E the DMG cover with the Dragon and the Orcus cover on the MM were much stronger than the PHB for example. The 5E MM beholder cover is excellent.


Oceanshieldwolf wrote:
I liked much of 4e's layout and art/graphics. This looks like the life has been squeezed out of it...

While I do like this art currently, I actually agree with this. Though I certainly didn't like everything, often the art was pretty good... though my wife often complained that they didn't really know how to get a woman's face or body correct (it often felt to her: "face or body: choose one or none to have correct in this picture").

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

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I loved the 3e style book-books, but I suspect I am in the minority on that. That said, I wish that WotC had done more in the 3e days to be consistent with the color scheme/layout and experimented more with the bookishness of them (like the locks on the core rules and the weird eye on the MM).

These covers are fine - I have no strong opinions on them one way or the other.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

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I don't really care all that much, but I'd kind of like to see at least one of the core books that focuses on exploration rather than combat (ie, 1st edition AD&D Player's Handbook).


Sebastian wrote:

I loved the 3e style book-books, but I suspect I am in the minority on that. That said, I wish that WotC had done more in the 3e days to be consistent with the color scheme/layout and experimented more with the bookishness of them (like the locks on the core rules and the weird eye on the MM).

These covers are fine - I have no strong opinions on them one way or the other.

I actually did prefer the Book-like Book covers as well, as a general rule. That didn't prevent me from appreciating the art of other books, but I do agree the appearance of them as books was... lovely.


Better than Pathfinder covers and 4E covers anyway. Looks a bit CGI but minor nitpick.

Liberty's Edge

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houstonderek wrote:
The new "d&d" logo is horrible, but the artwork is neat.

He tells it like it was gospel!

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