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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It was in The Pointy Hat's Tiefling preview on YouTube.

Ah, haven't seen that one yet

 

[Micah Sweet]

Right right, no one is allowed to say anything bad at all, criticism isn't accepted. After all, this is all just completely legitimate criticism that doesn't attack anyone's preferences






Don't even know what this one is about, I haven't seen any official art with that.



And that's just the stuff at the start of the discussion. But yeah, we just can't accept honest criticism that the art is soft, gentle, lame disgusting, repulsive...

And what you have to say doesn't attack anyone's preferences? Most of what you've said to me today did that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The videos are one of the big sources, for sure, but D&D Twitter is flooded with the artists going "hey, I can share this now that it was in a giant video, my art is in the PHB!" And the influencer previews being shared about.

For your convenience, here are some less twee pieces from the new books, soirced by going to the journalist Christian Hoffer's Twitter because he reteerts the artists:

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Oh, I hadn't noticed the tiny little people fighting Tiamat. They gunna die.

Also, I really, really want to know what the heck is up with the beholder wizard fighting the behir wizard.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Ah, haven't seen that one yet

Oops - forgot to link the video in the post. It's there now.

 

[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.

Thank Pelor! I did actually get a glimpse of tiefling in a video earlier and they were pretty solid actually.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And what you have to say doesn't attack anyone's preferences? Most of what you've said to me today did that.

Most of what I said today was that not everyone wants massive encyclopedia books, and Wizards isn't going to publish something that very few people want. A discussion we have had repeatedly by this point.

I think the strongest thing I said negative about them is that they aren't useful at the table. Because you aren't going to reference an encyclopedia mid-game session.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Most of what I said today was that not everyone wants massive encyclopedia books, and Wizards isn't going to publish something that very few people want. A discussion we have had repeatedly by this point.

I think the strongest thing I said negative about them is that they aren't useful at the table. Because you aren't going to reference an encyclopedia mid-game session.

And again, so what? "At the table" is not all of the game, and for some GMs it's not even the biggest part.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Most are in this video, just scan it

Last time I tried scanning a video there was stuff I couldn't find, but I think I found most of it:

The Halfling and I presume Aasimar ones are really nice! Cute and emotive in a good way that like, is relatable and makes sense in the setting.

The dwarf one is dumb as a box of rocks for the reasons I stated above - it's not too cute but it is like, done by someone who didn't even think about the realities of the situation. You could totally tell the same story in a much better way in a single art piece.

The elf one is unexpectedly awful given elves are normally a slam-dunk. Like, it's not good art even, esp. compared to the others. And it also makes the elves look like twerps, just pompous berry-coloured humans with pointy ears, which seems mean when none of the other ones make the people involved look like twerps! And it doesn't have a story or much energy like the others.

The human one I really like because it's well-observed and it tells a story. At least I presume those are humans. The guy holding his head is great.

The Goliath one is good and actually even feels very Goliath-y with them all working together and lifting something real heavy.

The Orc one (I dunno if it's in here, I couldn't find it if so, but I've seen it elsewhere) is... just... it's not trying hard enough. But it's a classic D&D art failing "I overly literally translated real-life historical culture/dress X into D&D", so it's nothing new. And it's ten times better than the elf one! So there's that!

I didn't see any Tiefling or Dragonborn one. Or I think Gnome. Unless what I thought were Halflings were Gnomes.

 

[Scribe]

Don't even know what this one is about, I haven't seen any official art with that.

This is in reference to the DM Sheets.

D&D (2024) - The New DMG Gives DMs Campaign Log Sheets

www.enworld.org

But yeah, we just can't accept honest criticism that the art is soft, gentle,

Since these are the words I used...yes. I stand by that. I did the equivalent of flipping through a book on the PHB video, and yes, the tone absolutely is more gentle, softer (aka less edgy). I'm not making a value judgement. Not everyone has to like what I like, but I stand by what I said. The presentation is evoking a kinder, softer, tone, to me. Its like a lot of the art of Jesper Ejsing. Technical great, some of his pieces are my favourite MTG art, but a lot of it also has a softer, more gentle tone.

That is not a negative, its an observation.

They can't all be Wayne Reynolds, or Larry Elmore, and thats fine.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Not especially clean, but I grabbed this from the Pointy Hat video: