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.

 

[Aellic Mornbringer]

I just want them to make an official The Realm setting. There’s not enough 80s world building wackiness in official D&D stuff. It’s sorely needed IMO (not being facetious)

Somewhere buried in a stack of half-started adventure ideas, I have a notebook filled with "Realm" setting notes by episode. There is some great material in there, though it does take a fair application of "80's wackiness" glue to hold some of it together.

 

[niklinna]

Did WotC hire a buncha Brazilians or something because for the life of me I can't understand why they're pushing the cast of the mediocre 80s TV show so hard, and barely anyone who's not Brazilian has fond memories of it.

Eh. I saw the original cartoon series, or some of it, when I was a kid. But, in the 2000s, my DM ran a spectacular 4E campaign in which the party was finding artifacts, some of which turned out to be the magic items from the cartoon, and we got to meet a few of the (grown-up) kids from the show, too. And then at the end we ran into Venger & Tiamat battling for control of the universe, and the artifacts we had collected were key to the whole thing.

The DM and one player were clearly all misty about the cartoon & the kids, but I was the one who tried to romance one of 'em—remember, all grown up now—and the whole gang would not allow it. I'm still grumpy about that. (Granted, my character was a star pact warlock, and his idea of romance was just a little skewed, but STILL.)

 

[deganawida]

Somewhere buried in a stack of half-started adventure ideas, I have a notebook filled with "Realm" setting notes by episode. There is some great material in there, though it does take a fair application of "80's wackiness" glue to hold some of it together.

The world needs more 80s wackiness all around.

 

[Parmandur]

I was born in 1981, so I missed the D&D cartoon when it was on TV. I borrowed a friend's DVD set a few years back and started to watch it but couldn't get past the first few episodes. It was too cringey. Like, sure, if I had watched it as a kid, I'd probably like it better now, but watching it for the first time as an adult ... I just couldn't get into it.

To me, Venger just looks like a dork with his one horn. Having him on the cover does nothing for me. Skylla's kinda cool. I guess Warduke is OK. The dracolich is too hard to see. Blah. I like the current one with Acererak animating a corpse much better.

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about the colors being reversed on the spine.


So far WotC is 0 for 2 with the new core rulebook covers in my book. Will they strike out with the MM cover? I'll have to just wait and see ...

It way before my time, and I've only seen bits of the show. But having a cute callback with some flavor is better to me than just a generic baddie, even of the old painting was great.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Lot of people seemingly deciding not to buy this book based solely on the cover which, as we all know, is something you should always do.

[Edited for clarity!]

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Lot of people seemingly deciding whether to buy this book based solely on the cover which, as we all know, is something you should always do.

99% of the people in this thread were always going to buy the DMG.

 

[niklinna]

Lot of people seemingly deciding whether to buy this book based solely on the cover which, as we all know, is something you should always do.

On another hand, I know people who buy books for the cover alone, and don't care a bit about what's inside.

 

[Thommy H-H]

99% of the people in this thread were always going to buy the DMG.

I was referring to the people saying they wouldn't buy it tbh. That's usually the meaning of the idiom to which I was so subtly alluding: that one shouldn't dismiss the contents of a book based upon one's opinion of its cover. I don't think anyone really uses it to mean, like, "buyer beware".

 

[EthanSental]

I’ve bought many a comic books due to its cover….but only at the $4 to $10 (incentive cover) range…I wouldn’t make that purchase at $50 though.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was referring to the people saying they wouldn't buy it tbh.

99% of them are buying the 2024 DMG.