D&D (2024) New Dungeon Master's Guide Cover Features Venger (From the D&D Cartoons)

The cover of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide has been unveiled.... in the Mirror, a mainstream newspaper in the UK.

The cover art features villains (as opposed to the heroes on the Player's Handbook cover revealed last week), with skeletons in the foreground, the classic villains Skylla and Warduke in the mid ground, and then Venger from the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon looming in the background, and right at the back lurks a dracolich.

The DMG will be released November 12th, 2024.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

They're immediately recognizable to GenX, sure, but as characters they're still usable by anyone young or old. It's not like a DM needs a special GenX Identicard to put Venger into an adventure or something.

So wait I bought my Gen X Indenticard online for nothing?

 

[Argyle King]

Not sure that I care for this one.

The artwork is a cool piece of artwork; it just doesn't strike me as a cover piece nor does it strike me as something that embodies a DMG.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Honestly, I'm surprised to see the D&D Cartoon characters being used in all this marketing. It ran for like 2 years, was cancelled before it got an ending, and has been basically absent from pop culture for 40 years.
Does it have any relevance at all outside of Gen X nostalgia?

The whole covers things is first ed. And the cartoon came out during.... 1st ed. This is the 50th Anniversary of the game so they are making call backs to... (wait for it)..... 1st ed.

 

[Meech17]

I really hope there is an alt art cover that follows the PHB one.. But instead features cartoon Venger & co having a long rest instead of the adventuring party

 

[bedir than]

Honestly, I'm surprised to see the D&D Cartoon characters being used in all this marketing. It ran for like 2 years, was cancelled before it got an ending, and has been basically absent from pop culture for 40 years.
Does it have any relevance at all outside of Gen X nostalgia?

Additionally to what everyone above mentioned, Target had D&D cartoon character t-shirts for a while.

 

[KYRON45]

Sure. There's also Orlane, Threshold, and Fallcrest. That's four starter towns. What more do you need?

You're right. 4 towns dispersed through the multiverse....I went nuts and thought that maybe they should stop revising them over and over.

 

[Birmy]

Well, here you have the answer to the question of "What do we call this new-edition-not-new-edition?": This is red spine D&D. "What edition are you playing?" "Oh, I started with red spine D&D, so I just run that."

 

[Tonguez]

It's the Dungeon Master's Guide, not Venger's Guide!

this is the twist - Dungeon Master's Next Generation

It does look like they're pitching to get the cartoon back in circulation, maybe the old team will finally get out of the ride and we'll get a whole new batch in for Venger to guide

 

[Cadence]

My teen (who wasn't the biggest fan of the cartoons, but did watch them all), really likes this cover.

 

[Reef]

Well, here you have the answer to the question of "What do we call this new-edition-not-new-edition?": This is red spine D&D. "What edition are you playing?" "Oh, I started with red spine D&D, so I just run that."

I…wouldn’t mind that, actually.

Just like I say I started with Moldvay Basic, and others say Mentzer’s.