D&D 5E New Monster Manual Cover

From IGN, the cover of the 2025 Monster Manual!

@Morrus

 

[Oofta]

So people are all up in arms about judging a book by it's cover?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Those threads convinced me that all 3 books of any editions should only have blank, color-coded covers with the DnD name on it an the edition and year!

 

[Oofta]

Those threads convinced me that all 3 books of any editions should only have blank, color-coded covers with the DnD name on it an the edition and year!

Then we'd just have people arguing that the colors they chose were terrible and worst color ever!

 

[Riley]

Then we'd just have people arguing that the colors they chose were terrible and worst color ever!

Like LEGO message boards when LEGO changed the color ‘gray.’

 

[Horwath]

Those threads convinced me that all 3 books of any editions should only have blank, color-coded covers with the DnD name on it an the edition and year!

no colors.

just plain white paper and black print.

only pictures of gear in strict B&W shades.

 

[Riley]

no colors.

just plain white paper and black print.

only pictures of gear in strict B&W shades.

No “shades”. Only white with black ink.

 

[Clint_L]

I just wonder a bit at all the people for whom the cover art is apparently enough to sell or unsell them on the book. Seriously, you don't see the cover while it's on the shelf, you don't see it while you're reading the book, and it does nothing to change the contents of the game rules for better or worse. It is literally the least important part of the book, in my view.

Also, the easiest part to change. If you want to use the rules but hate the cover art, just buy a dust jacket for it with art you prefer. You don't even need DM permission, like you would if you wanted to change the rules content.

I think the cover art will have little effect on the purchasing choice of anyone who posts on this forum. All of us already have strong opinions about the product, and I find it hard to believe that anyone will be particularly swayed by cover art, other than maybe which version to buy.

I think it matters far more for selling DnD to new customers, and particularly to, say, a parent who might be considering buying it for their kid. That’s the target audience for the regular covers.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

No “shades”. Only white with black ink.

Id go with black n white art, BUT....

Id use dry erasable paperstock with large margins to allows players and DM to write, draw and scrible all over their books.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Then we'd just have people arguing that the colors they chose were terrible and worst color ever!

Something like:

PHB: dark green (greenhorn adventurers)
DMG: royal blue (noble duty of game mastering)
MM: blood red (the blood of my enemies)

Campaigns are pitch black with an appropriate symbol engraved.

Splat books are gold, settings are white?

 

[Kurotowa]

Rule Book Dust jackets should totally be a thing though.

They absolutely are a thing. Heck, I had one for my AD&D 2e PHB, probably ordered it out of Dragon Magazine. But if I do a quick google search... here's officially licensed leatherette covers. And if I go over to Etsy there's quite a few results there, though they start getting expensive quickly.