D&D (2024) 2024 PHB/DMG/MM art/layout: like or dislike?

[ezo]

Diversity in the pictures doesn't bother me, I'm not white.

LOL...

White has nothing to do with it. It is about having a little homogeny in with all the diversity. After all, true diversity includes homogeny.

But enough of that--it isn't about the "art" or layout, and can be a touchy subject for some people.

 

[Kurotowa]

The Revised 5e PHB does very little to inform the tone and style of the world through the text. Instead, all of that is communicated via the art. What the people look like, what the people dress like, what the towns and cites are like, it's all in the art. And the world the art depicts has come a long way from when I started, 30 years ago.

That world isn't a pseudo-medieval Europe stand-in anymore. It's more modern; maybe not a full 21st Century equivalent, but magic is common enough to have a substantial impact. It's more cosmopolitan; adventurers of all genders and species rub shoulders in cities that are similarly diverse. And I have to think, "This is the world the kids today want to play in."

After all, that's what D&D has always offered. The chance to imagine yourself as a hero in a world of fantasy. But who those heroes are and what the world is like changes over the generations. When I started in the early 90's it was already different from the founding days 10-15 years earlier. With Revised 5e we're several iterations further down the line, now. D&D has always bowed to the prevailing sentiments and updated itself.

I'm middle aged enough that I'm not entirely conversant in the tropes and styles of the under-30 set, but what I know says that Revised 5e is the game they want to play. And the kids usually win out thanks to numbers and enthusiasm. I don't think I mind that much. It seems a friendly and happier world than the grimdark angst of the 90s. So I'm willing to go along with it and see how it feels.

 

[SteveC]

I haven't had too much time with the new book but I don't really prefer the new style. I'm a fan of 2E and even 3E's style and this isn't D&D to me. Too many non-human characters. I think back to the classic Elmore style art of the 2E era and say "that's D&D to me." But I also am smart enough to realize that I'm not the target for this edition.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

That world isn't a pseudo-medieval Europe stand-in anymore. It's more modern; maybe not a full 21st Century equivalent, but magic is common enough to have a substantial impact.

D&D is at least in the Renaissance when speaking of European historical periods, and pedantically the Renaissance is "Early Modern" according to some historians. Though it's beyond the Renaissance when it comes to "modernity", maybe a good comparison would be "like a Modern-day Ren Faire"

 

[Yaarel]

I love the 2024 artwork. You can tell the artists have much heart in these works.

Alot of thought went into the function of the artwork, their purposes in their locations.

The styles are eclectic, something for the various tastes, from photorealism to sketches, from classic art to new art.

The dragons feel mythic.

 

[Yaarel]

For sure. And ironically, Witchlight is the other big 5E campaign I want to run, possibly starting it in Obojima, which has a similar tone.

If I want something grittier, I have more bespoke tools for those jobs.

But I get that fracturing of the fantasy RPG audience might frustrate some folks.

You mention this in your other post, the Players Handbook is brighter but the Monster Manual will probably be darker.

The Players Handbook is like the "points of light", the homebases where most of the characters come from. There is a sense of community and safety, even fairness. The points of light can be urban civilizations or wilderness tribes, or various kinds of communities.

By contrast, the Monster Manual will be the swaths of darkness, where monsters dwell, including the monsters lurking unseen within the points of light.

It is the setting guides − Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, Darksun, Dragonlance, plus the ubiquitous homebrews − that will do the heavy lifting to establish the overall themes and tone of a particular D&D campaign.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D is at least in the Renaissance when speaking of European historical periods, and pedantically the Renaissance is "Early Modern" according to some historians. Though it's beyond the Renaissance when it comes to "modernity", maybe a good comparison would be "like a Modern-day Ren Faire"

That fact would actually be an excellent thing to talk about in either (or both) the PH and the DMG. The assumed tech level would be nice to see as far as what the game assumes as a baseline, and the DMG could include examples of altering it and what that would mean.

 

[bedir than]

That fact would actually be an excellent thing to talk about in either (or both) the PH and the DMG. The assumed tech level would be nice to see as far as what the game assumes as a baseline, and the DMG could include examples of altering it and what that would mean.

The PHB definitely presents the standard expected technologies in the world, both via the art and the text.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

That fact would actually be an excellent thing to talk about in either (or both) the PH and the DMG. The assumed tech level would be nice to see as far as what the game assumes as a baseline, and the DMG could include examples of altering it and what that would mean.

Guns exist in the PHB, and those are conceivably Matchlocks or Wheellocks, and aren't those tubes you just stuffed gunpowder in to shoot out a rock that they had for guns in the Medieval Age. Plate armor is from the Renaissance too, and it's in the PHB.

But nowhere have they mentioned in the PHB to my knowledge the Printing Press (I know of references to printing presses in previous editions in Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Planescape and Ravenloft), because that's something that's definitely at least Renaissance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The PHB definitely presents the standard expected technologies in the world, both via the art and the text.

By the text, do you just mean the equipment chapter? I'm talking about more than just a list of stuff (and the assumption that this is all standard).