D&D 5E (2024) Here's The Covers of BOTH of November's Forgotten Realms Books

We've known for some time that in November, WotC will be releasing not one but two Forgotten Realms books--one aimed at players, the other at Dungeon Masters. Thanks to Game Informer, we now have a look at the covers of Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun and Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun. The article showcases more art, and is well worth checking out--and for those who want more, the print magazine has a full feature previewing the books.

 

[Distracted DM]

Any talk of a boxed set? I love those!

Are you referring to an adventure boxed set, like Night Below and the rerelease of Curse of Strahd? Or the 3-book sets they did for Spelljammer and Planescape?
I think you’ll want to look to Heroes of the Borderlands for the former… or Beadle & Grimms. But these aren’t adventure books afaik.

 

[mamba]

I’m not sure what picture you are looking at, but I can’t see any blurring at all in the figures. Is your device showing a low res version?

The first picture, the one for the Player's Guide, the whole thing is blurry / not crisp. The only thing that is, is the text, so to me the picture is just a bad, low detail, blurry mess. That has nothing to do with my device and everything with the picture. I circled the most egregious parts

Compare that to

and tell me you do not notice a difference

 

[Remathilis]

and tell me you do not notice a difference

All I see is a portrait filter and oversaturated colors.

Honestly, D&D covers have been crap for 40 years. 1e was rank amateur. 2e was painfully generic. 3e boring. 4e was bad comic book art and 5e looks like Magic cards. It's a good thing I buy the books for their content and not their covers.

 

[mamba]

Honestly, D&D covers have been crap for 40 years. 1e was rank amateur. 2e was painfully generic. 3e boring. 4e was bad comic book art and 5e looks like Magic cards.

your generalization is accurate, I like 2e and 3e though, at least some of it (Elmore, Parkinson, Lockwood the most). I like the ‘oil painting style’ over the ‘digital brush’ one (Stawicki), they always end up blurry / lacking detail, and these days they all go digital… still the FR Players Guide is particularly bad, even for 5e (imo)

 

[Azzy]

Well art is subjective but I find it amusing that that your pic is pretty bad 1e art. Warduke rocks!

Basic D&D art, actually, but yes, Warduke rocks!

And absolutely, art is subjective—don't get me started on my dislike of Jeff Easley's or Erol Otus' work.

 

[Scars Unseen]

It's a good thing I buy the books for their content and not their covers.

On the one hand, sure, there's that. On the other hand, production values can be the thing that pushes a product one way or another if I'm on the fence. I recently commented about getting the World Without Number printed copy over this. I already have the digital version. It wasn't a high priority purchase. But the cover, the sewed binding, and just the overall quality of the product (judging from my recently received Ashes Without Number copy) made me want a copy even though I didn't really need it.

Maybe these books will prove to be worth purchasing on their own due to a big shift from their more recent settings books. But they are essentially competing with 2E and 3E settings book in terms of non-mechanical content, so having other reasons to want the book wouldn't have hurt.

 

[GrumpyDungeonMasters]

These books reek of "designed by committee"

 

[Azzy]

These books reek of "designed by committee"

Sure, Grumpy.

 

[Dire Bare]

I love how these threads bring us all together to share in our negativity and complaining . . . . fandom is fun sometimes . . .

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The first picture, the one for the Player's Guide, the whole thing is blurry / not crisp. The only thing that is, is the text, so to me the picture is just a bad, low detail, blurry mess. That has nothing to do with my device and everything with the picture. I circled the most egregious parts

View attachment 412374

Compare that to

View attachment 412375
and tell me you do not notice a difference

Sure they are different. But the second picture has a greater range blur than the first. The first figure is crisp, but the caster at the back is blurred. There are also three levels of blur in the background. The new book has only two levels - crisp for the characters (and the rocks they are standing on) and blurred for the background. This is why the image in the new book looks flat.

Plenty to criticise in the SCAG cover as well: The characters featured are boringly generic, and have no connection to the setting, and the colours use a muted palette, which means it won't stand out on bookshop shelves.

Modern D&D books use black and pillar-box red banners to help them stand out in shops. This pretty much locks them in to using strong primary colours in cover art, since the red would clash horribly with pastel colours like the SCAG cover.

On the whole, I would say the SCAG cover is better art (I like the foreshortening on the foreground dagger, shame they didn't do that for Minsc's sword), but the new cover is a better book cover.