New Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide Art and Details Revealed

The marketing cycle for the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is underway. Wizards of the Coast has released the first video and accompanying article previewing the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. Wizards has already told fans what's actually in the new 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, so there's not much in terms of actual new details. The video/article revealed that the Bastion system got another look from designers after its initial Unearthed Arcana playtest, that there will be a DM's Toolkit for everything from "alignment to traps," now arranged in alphabetical order, and that there will be 400 "new and improved" magic items.

The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide will also be the home of rules for crafting magic items and a new Greyhawk campaign setting guide, with a focus on showcasing how Greyhawk can be customized or be used as a model for homemade campaign settings. Finally, the Dungeon Master's Guide will contain a lore glossary and a full chapter about D&D cosmology, the latter of which helps to drive home the idea of the D&D multiverse.


While much of this information was already known, the video and article did show off a LOT of new art, some of which can be found below:

 

[Oofta]

The art is great, full stop. These new core books are the best D&D art has ever been, folks be trippin'.

I always kind of liked some of the older artwork

But others? Eh.

And I mean, who wants adventurers actually succeeding and potentially enjoying themselves when you can have fun things like this?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Especially with art.

 

[The Soloist]

And I mean, who wants adventurers actually succeeding and potentially enjoying themselves when you can have fun things like this?


View attachment 381450

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Especially with art.

Oh no! They killed Redgar again.

Look it up. Chris Pramas explains why Redgar keeps dying.

 

[Parmandur]

I always kind of liked some of the older artwork
View attachment 381448

But others? Eh.

View attachment 381449

And I mean, who wants adventurers actually succeeding and potentially enjoying themselves when you can have fun things like this?


View attachment 381450

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Especially with art.

I love a lot of the old artwork...butnI don't see good old art being at odds with new good art.

 

[Oofta]

I love a lot of the old artwork...butnI don't see good old art being at odds with new good art.

Fair. I still have fondness for the more humorous ones that didn't take the game too seriously.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I've always imagined he swung his shield up to block or something and the barbed devil grabbed it...?

Or he's so confident he's opening up his defenses to encourage them to come to be slaughtered?

If he is just swinging the shield up, it means he's strapped his arm in so the hand is held downwards normally, which isn't how arms are strapped into shields. Arms are strapped into shields horizontally or above horizontally so the weight to the shield is borne by the forearm. If you're holding it hand downward, at the bottom point of the shield, the whole of the weight is being held up by your grip, and if the grip loosens, the shield is just going to slide down your arm unless the straps are so tight as to basically cut off circulation.

 

[mamba]

The art is great, full stop. These new core books are the best D&D art has ever been, folks be trippin'.

in the aggregate they are, personally I like the art of Elmore / Parkinson / Brom / Lockwood better, but they never illustrated a whole set of core books, so…

 

[ezo]

in the aggregate they are, personally I like the art of Elmore / Parkinson / Brom / Lockwood better, but they never illustrated a whole set of core books, so…

Well, no, but there were a number of the art of D&D books featuring a lot of their collected works...

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Anyone who thinks any of this looks like AI art does not understand how AI art works or looks.

I keep telling everyone to look for signs of brush strokes, that's currently how you tell if it's done by a person or not.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

AI art is bad. AI art is the devil. AI art is the end of civilization as we know it.
Also....We hate all of this human generated art too.
I'm getting some mixed messages here.

Join the Butlerian Jihad when it happens...

 

[The Soloist]

But others? Eh.

View attachment 381449

That is by (edit, I got it wrong) Dave Sutherland.

Jim Holloway. I have a fondness for his style. He illustrated the B4 cover and Star Frontiers.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say he probably had a lot less time to draw this than Elmore had for the art you showed. Some guys are the go-to for a quick drawing to patch a hole on a page.

Sadly he passed a few years ago. RIP