DMG II - tidbits from Andy Collins!

[ivocaliban]

Actually there is already four Player's Handbook II: Complete Warrior / Divine / Arcane / Adventurer. As there is 3 Monster Manuals, it is only logical they create a second DMG (just a few months before the release of D&D 4ed of course ).

Points well taken (and probably true!), but it really is the name DMG II that gives me pause. It reminds me of all those White Wolf Storyteller books that basically gave the same advice over and over again in five different ways and through several different editions. I'm not saying that there couldn't be great material in the DMG II, even for DMs who've been around for more than a decade, but I fear the amount of recycled common knowledge that could very well fill out much of this volume.

 

[DaveMage]

The color of the book will not keep me from buying it, I am looking forward to this one actually. But with that said, why not keep with the color themes? It is easy to do and offers an easy way to look at a shelf full of books to draw your attention to the right area. It just shows a level of consistency to follow a theme sort of established with earlier books.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Klaus]

Hate to split hairs with you Claus, but take a look at it in some really bright light. Its a very dark Green. Better yet take somthing black and put it next to the UA. You will then see the green. The same thing happens with deep navy blue. It can get so dark so as to be mistaken for black.

Aaron.

You're right, Jester. It is a very very dark green.

Just for the record, when printing something in full black, the black can only get so dark, more often it gets "dark grey" and goes no further. To sidestep this, it is common practice to add some cyan to the black (we're talking CMYK here), to make the black seem "deeper".

 

[Raloc]

No offense to said person or people, but whoever it is that decides the colors of the books and what covers they should have should just be fired. They apprently don't understand anything at all about branding. They're screwing new players up and decreasing sales by going every which way with the covers.

If you saw the PHB and the DMGII next to eachother, and didn't know anything about D&D (i.e. didn't know the terms player and dungeon master), would you think those two books were aimed at two completely separate audiences? No. You'd think they were for the same people of course.

If you were new to D&D and wanted to buy all the Eberron books, and went and saw the S: CoT and the ECS with their nice covers, you'd pick them up. But you wouldn't even notice the Races of Eberron book, since you didn't go to buy the non-Eberron books. If you went to buy all the FR books, because you were a hardcore FR fan, you'd pick up all the books with like covers. You'd miss Monsters of Faerun, because it's a core book, with a cover similar to the MM's cover. Likewise, if you went to buy all the core books, you'd end up picking up the Monsters of Faerun books, even though you only wanted core books.


It's not that big a deal in the long run, but it's a huge marketing mistake, and someone should be held accountable for the awful negligence that's been put into the product classification of the D&D books. It's hard to build a good collection, because the books are completely all over the place.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Don't judge a book by its [mockup] cover

The brown cover you've seen was an early mockup. The actual cover is, in fact, the same dark blue (at least, it's blue to my eyes) as Unearthed Arcana.

Raloc has a point that the D&D book cover designs did begin to drift into incoherence when we moved to the all-hardcover strategy a few years back. Looking at the books that have come out over the past year or so, hopefully you'll see that that's changing somewhat. Unfortunately, when you have an active backlist of 60 to 80 titles, and a product development cycle of well over a year, it takes a while before the preponderance of titles reflects current strategy. But here's some good news: I went into a Borders a few weeks back and saw the entire D&D line shelved according to book type and series--and this in a store without a single D&D expert on the staff (I asked). So our efforts to bring coherency back to the line seem to be paying off.

 

[John Morrow]

Just for the record, when printing something in full black, the black can only get so dark, more often it gets "dark grey" and goes no further. To sidestep this, it is common practice to add some cyan to the black (we're talking CMYK here), to make the black seem "deeper".

It's called "underprinting". You put a solid layer of cyan under the black which creates a darker "blue-black". You could probably also underprint in magenta to get a darker "brown-black". With a five or six-color press, you could probably double-print in black, too, if you want to spend the money on it.

 

[Mercule]

The brown cover you've seen was an early mockup. The actual cover is, in fact, the same dark blue (at least, it's blue to my eyes) as Unearthed Arcana.

Good call. I would have preferred the same blue as the DMG, as that seems a perfect association if ever one existed, but throwing it in with UA isn't horrid. I guess I'd been thinking along these lines: brown = player book, blue = DM book, busy/full art = monsters, and blackish (UA) = variants/uncategorized/misc.

Regardless of the color scheme, though, I'm looking forward to the DMG II. Probably moreso than any other 2005 release. Of course, that means I've got some high expectations for it, too.

 

[Gez]

And Unearthed Arcana has a black cover, not green.

Me? I'm all for brown = player expansion, blue = DM expansion and red = monster expansion (which should've been the color of Savage Species).

Actually, it was:
Brown cover: for players.
Blue cover: for DMs.
Crazy cover with faux critter bits: monster books. (The MM2, MM3, and Fiend Folio did not have a red cover like the MM1.)

Frankly, I wonder why the brown cover for the DMG2. They've already explained that Races of Eberron didn't have an Eberron cover for better sales, is it also a sale reason? Does that mean that, from now on, every WotC book will have ugly brown covers "for sales reasons" ?

 

[JoeBlank]

The brown cover you've seen was an early mockup. The actual cover is, in fact, the same dark blue (at least, it's blue to my eyes) as Unearthed Arcana.

Raloc has a point that the D&D book cover designs did begin to drift into incoherence when we moved to the all-hardcover strategy a few years back. Looking at the books that have come out over the past year or so, hopefully you'll see that that's changing somewhat. Unfortunately, when you have an active backlist of 60 to 80 titles, and a product development cycle of well over a year, it takes a while before the preponderance of titles reflects current strategy. But here's some good news: I went into a Borders a few weeks back and saw the entire D&D line shelved according to book type and series--and this in a store without a single D&D expert on the staff (I asked). So our efforts to bring coherency back to the line seem to be paying off.

Good to hear. Thanks for stopping by to give the official answer.

 

[MerricB]

Frankly, I wonder why the brown cover for the DMG2.

*Points above to Charles Ryan's reply*