D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal #1: "Everything You Need To Know!"

Each day this week, Wizards of the Coast will be releasing a new live-streamed preview video based on the upcoming Player's Handbook. The first is entitled Everything You Need To Know and you can watch it live below (or, if you missed it, you should be able to watch it from the start afterwards). The video focuses on weapon mastery and character origins.

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There will be new videos on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week, focusing on the Fighter, the Paladin, and the Barbarian, with (presumably) more in the coming weeks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Right, if you don't care about convincing anyone that the product YOU want is something that other people will want... then no one is going to go "Oh yes, we should have a 400 page manual detailing the politics, personalities, goals, and desires of every CR 10 creature in the game" Because many of us, don't see a point in that.

You do. Fine. But don't expect anyone to give your idea the time of day if you are just going to say "But I want it, and that should be enough for it to be made."

I certainly don't care about convincing you of anything. And please stop trying to strengthen your point by harping on how more people agree with what you want than what I want. Popularity doesn't make yours, or anyone's opinions more right.

World and setting detail can be enormously useful in inspiring worldbuilding and expanding on ideas. It also helps enormously in grounding the narrative in a kind of "reality" (or verisimilitude if you prefer), because it makes the setting the characters inhabit feel more like a real place. For example, my favorite monster book of all time is the 2e Monstrous Manual, precisely because of the amazing worldbuilding details included in every monster entry.

You don't have to like that stuff. But you are not going to make me feel bad about what I like. I could care less how unpopular it might be.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I'm not saying everything has to be glowing praise, but there are some parts of this discussion that frustrate me.

For example, they told us that the Species art would depict groups of elves, goliaths, orcs, dwarves, ect in their homes and cultures. We knew this before the dwarf picture was posted.

We also know there are ten species in the book. So, there will be ten of these art pieces.

WE have also SEEN most of them. Off the top of my head, I can remember the artwork for the Dwarves, The Orcs, The Aasimar, The Humans, the Halflings, The Gnomes, and the Dragonborn. That is seven of the ten art pieces. And most of them are not "cutesy" or "twee" or "disney" or whatever else.

We have also seen somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 other pieces of art, just counting off my head. The majority of which is ALSO not any of those things.


Now, maybe you don't know all of this. Maybe you haven't seen the other videos. But if you haven't, if you don't... then you can just take my word for it that the art direction you are worried about isn't the main art direction. Because, from my perspective, knowing all of this, actually seeing the art that they've been showing in every single video... it isn't an argument that makes sense to be worried about this.

I don’t like the two depictions I have seen.

Reread what I have written in this thread about the art in general. Or don’t! But I have not said it’s all going to suck. I said I hope the tone will not lean too far in a particular direction.

I expect I will enjoy the new books but as it stand probably not a portion of the art direction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Reread what I wrote.

I made no definitive statement about how it “all” would be.

I did say I hope cutesy does not set the tone for baseline expectations for races…er…species. Boy these discussions make me feel left out.

If it’s not someone tearing the whole thing down and ruining my enthusiasm, it’s someone else taking exception with anything but uniformly glowing praise. Ones a downer, the other is cloying.

I have said I hope it’s balanced and so far I like some and not the other.

I do not like the depiction of the orcs at all. The art is good, the theme is not my taste. Same with dwarves giving eachother baked goods.

I understand you don’t understand how someone might think that is a bad sign. That’s ok. But it’s not in isolation.

I really like Tasha’s overall and its changes which will be in the phb. But some of its art seemed dopey to me so the pieces I don’t like a lot here are not in isolation.

Love the covers! as I said and some of the other art too.

I am not sure what the whole will be like.

But also read upthread. Several folks mentioned and discussed twee cute comfortable fantasy and others saying it’s becoming more popular. My hope is that this does not become a big player in the official D&D books.

Will it? I don’t know. Maybe?

It seems there are several folks here who object to folks stating concerns with which they don't agree. Perhaps we're all just supposed to get on board and only say good things.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You had apprentices and sidekicks or you raised monsters? You combined them. I've seen the second on plenty, and former pretty much never.

Apprentices, didn't count any of the monsters.

And if you're going to keep making up words to violently shove into my mouth, what's the point lol? I obviously didn't say anything about "death metal covers" so don't pretend I did! That's just really sad and flabby argumentation that show you don't actually have a point.

Sorry, looking back it was Scribe who posted the over-the-top pretty boy flinging his hair into the air while clutching the body of a dead demoness. You've probably just been insisting on things being edgy/gritty/dark...

Does it? It's literally the endgame for the couple describe, not "part of a campaign", unless you just mean the end/epilogue of a campaign, in which case, sure that sort of thing has been the end of campaigns since time immemoriam. Coffee bars are just update on taverns!

... Yes, it does. The players build a nice safe coffee bar, setting up a nice life for themselves after defeating [X] and... then another threat comes along and they have to leave their cozy life. Quite literally the second book in the series I was referencing involves them going on a pirate adventure and leaving the comfy cozy town they had been in behind, and disrupting the power structure of a neighboring country.

One adventure ends, downtime happens, then another adventure begins. That's basic DnD.

It's excessively, aggressively cutesy beyond a certain threshold, and you're being a bit of a hypocrite to complain about me using that term, give you throw around terms plenty for stuff you're complaining about. If you don't understand it, maybe ask for an explanation instead of making one up?

I know what it would mean if any of a dozen people I know IRL was using it. But I have found occasionally people on the internet have different cultures than me, or are referencing different fandoms.

But if a dwarf baking bread is excessively, aggressively cutesy to you... wow. That doesn't even register on the scale for me. There are levels of cutesy you are not prepared for.

And the "kid art" is on you. Twee doesn't have to be "kiddy" in sense of actually appealing to or genuinely intended for children (indeed, it very often isn't). Lots of children don't even like it - see the success of countless artists like Quentin Blake who draw for children but strongly eschew the twee - indeed most better children's artists do - there's nothing "twee" about the Gruffalo, for example. It's well-judged rather than aggressively cutesy.

So far I've seen a bit of cutesy but not excessive art for 5E, a lot of art that's neither cutesy nor edgy (which is fine), and a little bit of outright twee art, and a couple of pieces which are borderline. What I haven't seen yet is anything scary or menacing - the DMG could have been but instead went for using D&D cartoon characters.

I know this seems to be very difficult for you to understand, because you seem to be actively looking to be mad about what I'm saying, but my concern is more about future direction. I don't think it's sensible for D&D to triple-down on being cute. Has it done that? Not yet. But a relatively small change of tack could send it there.

No, it wouldn't be a small change of tack. That's the thing. This would require such a massive change in art direction to even begin to accomplish, it doesn't make sense and no one has said that is what DnD is doing, Your best evidence that this might happen are a few relatively cozy pieces of artwork showing people living their lives. It feels like suddenly being concerned that all magic in DnD is now going to be potion-based, because Tasha's Cauldron spell got revealed and it makes potions, and you aren't saying that is what is going to happen, but it would be a relatively small change for them to convert all DnD magic into types of potions that characters need to drink to activate spells.

I just don't understand the concern, because there is nothing to support your point other than "there is some cozy art"

 

[Chaosmancer]

Have they been linked anywhere?

Most are in this video, just scan it

 

[Scribe]

Sorry, looking back it was Scribe who posted the over-the-top pretty boy flinging his hair into the air while clutching the body of a dead demoness.

Uh...over the top?

I believe you mean righteously awesome.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've seen the Tiefling, Elf and Goliath pieces, so O think all 10 are floating about.

Ah, you are right about the Elf. I say it when double checking the video. I had also seen the goliath.

Tiefling I don't think I've seen. Might have just forgotten

 

[Micah Sweet]

Apprentices, didn't count any of the monsters.



Sorry, looking back it was Scribe who posted the over-the-top pretty boy flinging his hair into the air while clutching the body of a dead demoness. You've probably just been insisting on things being edgy/gritty/dark...



... Yes, it does. The players build a nice safe coffee bar, setting up a nice life for themselves after defeating [X] and... then another threat comes along and they have to leave their cozy life. Quite literally the second book in the series I was referencing involves them going on a pirate adventure and leaving the comfy cozy town they had been in behind, and disrupting the power structure of a neighboring country.

One adventure ends, downtime happens, then another adventure begins. That's basic DnD.



I know what it would mean if any of a dozen people I know IRL was using it. But I have found occasionally people on the internet have different cultures than me, or are referencing different fandoms.

But if a dwarf baking bread is excessively, aggressively cutesy to you... wow. That doesn't even register on the scale for me. There are levels of cutesy you are not prepared for.



No, it wouldn't be a small change of tack. That's the thing. This would require such a massive change in art direction to even begin to accomplish, it doesn't make sense and no one has said that is what DnD is doing, Your best evidence that this might happen are a few relatively cozy pieces of artwork showing people living their lives. It feels like suddenly being concerned that all magic in DnD is now going to be potion-based, because Tasha's Cauldron spell got revealed and it makes potions, and you aren't saying that is what is going to happen, but it would be a relatively small change for them to convert all DnD magic into types of potions that characters need to drink to activate spells.

I just don't understand the concern, because there is nothing to support your point other than "there is some cozy art"

Art and mechanics are...different things.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've seen the Tiefling, Elf and Goliath pieces, so O think all 10 are floating about.

Honest question, where are they man?

I think this is a key problem here. You guys have apparently seen tons of art that isn't in any threads, and no-one seems to have posted around in the D&D community generally. I don't doubt you have seen it, but where is it? Is it briefly seen in the incredibly long videos WotC puts out, which are largely middle-aged men with beards talking to each other lol? Has anyone got some timestamps? I ask mainly because I couldn't even find one of the art pieces people were talking about being in the Barbarian video, despite scanning back and forwards through it.

Might be one of those "two countries separated by a common language" things goijg on here, because I think "Twee" is mostly a British word, and insofar as Ameicans use it might be more pejorative over here.

Yeah I think there is an element of that. Twee is definitely negative in the UK too but I think it's more solidly understood over here. Cutesy and twee aren't the same thing - you have to get aggressively saccharine. The dragon with babies of every colour dragon is that - esp. as the baby dragons don't even look good or like young creatures, they just look like cartoon cute characters (and it defies lore because cats and dogs are living together as it were). Whereas the dwarf baked good session seems to be on the correct side of the line, but just feels a bit weak because it's clearly done by someone who has never even thought about what it's like to work in a forge, or like how much soot and sweat and poisonous materials would be around. It is not a place to eat on the job! The proto-cowboy Mexican-vibes orc image I kind of want to like, but I feel it's just not a great piece because weird to say but it's... not imaginative enough - it's too literally "orcs dressed up in very slightly fantasy-ized 1800s Mexican-inspired dress". But I feel compelled to defend it because every horrific chud on Twitter is trying to concern-troll about how it's "racist" to portray orcs like this so, which is obvious nonsense they don't even believe! So I will say, it is okay, just maybe try a little harder to fantasy-ize things next time! (I do have similar criticisms of a lot of older D&D pieces for likewise being too direct in their inspiration, let's be clear this is something that's been making me frown for well over 30 years, well before WotC!).

 

[Scribe]

Most are in this video, just scan it

OK, I've done so, and yeah my opinion is only being further reinforced.

Glad you enjoy it.