D&D 5E dnd alternate covers

[ilostmyrulebook]

hey everyone. I played dnd 5e quite a few years ago now and have been wanting to get back into it. Since that point, I've started collecting books which naturally makes me want the alternate covers. Setting aside the price some of them now fetch - do people play with their alternate covers or are the book case decorations? and are they only released to physical stores? would I need to ask a local store to buy them if I wanted them going forward?

 

[delericho]

I don't own any, so can't comment on whether people use them.

My understanding is that they only go to game stores, but that many such stores have an online presence and so you can buy them that way - just not through Amazon.

 

[Stoutstien]

I buy them to support the local brick n mortar. I use them for prep work but use the standard copies when I run games.

 

[jasper]

I use all my books, Alt cover or not.

 

[Echohawk]

I get mine online from my FLGS, but it should be noted that "local" in this instance means "on a different continent" of necessity. None of them cost me more than the normal version except for Volo's, which I wasn't paying attention for, and had to buy on eBay a few months later for a price which seemed unpleasantly high at the time, but would now be considered a real bargain. Mine are generally book case decorations, but that's true of most of my D&D books, because it's generally faster for me to open a PDF or D&D Beyond version of whatever I'm reading. Sometimes I take the alternate versions off the shelf just to look at the pretty covers (really). So there's that.

 

[Jahydin]

Setting aside the price some of them now fetch - do people play with their alternate covers or are the book case decorations? and are they only released to physical stores? would I need to ask a local store to buy them if I wanted them going forward?

I only buy the alternatives when I hate the original art (Eberron for example). They are plentiful and quality wise they can have the same issues as their non-alt counterparts: bad binding, smeared ink, missing or flipped pages, etc., so I wouldn't treat them as a rare collectible item.

Oh, and MiniatureMarket is a good place to snag them if you don't have a FLGS.

 

[not-so-newguy]

The only opportunity that I have had for a special cover (Volo's) was through my FLGS... And, yes, I use it at the table. The alternative cover edition was offered to me.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Speaking for the FLGSes out there:

The best thing for you to do is to preorder them from a game store. Either through their website, if they do that, or in person, if you have one you frequent. The "old fashioned" ones (like mine) will happily put them aside for you if you simply tell them "I want them all going forward" and leave them your contact information. Heavily "modern" ones will need you to to order them through whatever silly system they use. (I'm mostly teasing here). They should cost you no more than the regular covers. Most of them are awesome.

 

[Weiley31]

Since the Alt-Covers are the ONLY books, I have for my DND collection, I do play using them.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Oh yeah, and my opinion on the use of the books: IME 99% of people don't buy both covers, so they use the book that they buy, regardless of cover, unless they don't use their physical books at all (either because they don't actually play, or more often, because they play using D&DBeyond or Roll20.)

All my personal IRL players buy Alt Covers from me (for the books they buy), and they use them sometimes and use Beyond the rest of the time. So "both", I think, is the most reasonable answer.