New cover art for the Revised PHB and DMG?

[Ashrem Bayle]

IMHO, Mark Sasso's Epic Blackguard is one of the finest pieces of art in a WotC book, so I would like to see more of his stuff.

Starman

YES!!

 

[haiiro]

Re: AAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

[Illuminae's wonderful image snipped.]

Granted, she's an elf and he's a human anatomy drawing -- but that was still very, very funny.

 

[haiiro]

What annoys me about the interior art of the current core books is not so much the art, but the captions. Who thought that was necessary?

I like the captions, and I've always enjoyed them in other games (Call of Cthulhu comes to mind). They could stand to be a bit more entertaining, yes, but I think they generally enhance the artwork. It was also a good way to introduce the iconics.

 

[jester47]

Sure, real medieval knights waddled along taking huge gaping swings at each other in big soup cans, but that was the Dark Ages.

Actually this is very far from the truth. Medieval armor was closer fitting and allowed for more movement than is commonly believed. All armor was designed for movement cause it was movement that saved your ass. The swings were very fast and very controled. The men could weild 8lbs swords as you or I would weild a stick of wood. If they did not emphasise speed and finesse over power they ussually died. They knew quite well the physics of the swing and understood that it did not take a hard swing to cleave armor. Medieval knights were athletes of the first order, and compared to many normal men at arms were very very deadly. The Dark Ages never really existed. People maintained thier know how even if they did not maintain thier records. Mainly because records are expensive and there was really no money to make them. In fact the middle ages are what our wholewestern society is based on. Most of the traditions, thought, technology and the way we do things can find thier root in the middle ages.

Sorry I know this thread is not about that, but I try to correct misconceptions of the middle ages whenever possible.

 

[Nifft]

The captions are helpful at best and IMHO inoffensive at worst. Keep them please, and if there's ever a choice between "potential bad taste" and "potentially boring", please take the latter choice.

-- Nifft

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I prefer to have captions also. Little touches like that are nice to have.

 

[Tewligan]

[B
2. I HATE the way they made Halflings look like some scrap-H.R.Giger´s-ALIEN-animatronic-leftover, just to blahblah you know the rest...
[/B]

Alien? Giger? I don't know what pictures of halflings you're looking at, but they sound pretty freakin' scary.

 

[Eridanis]

I enjoy the tome look to the Core books, but I imagine they want to change them for the exact reason that many other publishers have copied the look (remember what Ryan Dancey said after the 2001 GenCon about cracking down on publishers who copy the book cover style for their own books). Maybe they'll push the envelope in a direction we haven't yet thought of.

 

[beta-ray]

Although Elves are humanoid, I also thought it was funny comparing the anatomical human head to the elven archer. Not saying the artist was inaccurate (hey I always gaffe like that), just thought it was a funny comparison.

I do like the armor from LotR, and it works, I don't want D&D to be LotR... That's for the Decipher folks anyway The WETA guys may know what they are doing, but they also made versions of the armor using rubber or other materials, so it is not ALL authentic.

I am... underwhelmed by the tome covers... They are not bad, just don't inspire me much (though I thought the MMII was interesting). For me the first edition ad&d stuff is not really great art (no offense to the artists). I like it because of nostalgia and recognizablity. The 2nd ed core book covers were pretty forgettable but not bad.

I DO like the interior art of the new books though. *shrug*

 

[Left-handed Hummingbird]

OT

The Dark Ages never really existed. People maintained thier know how even if they did not maintain thier records.

I agree that the Dark Ages is better than it's name implies. It shares fate with the Medieval (Middle) Age and the Gothic style of the medieval age in that it was named thus in the renaissance where the litterature, architechture, law and science of ancient Rome was rediscovered and reinvented. The middle (medieval) age is thus the 1000-years between the end of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance.

However, the Dark Ages - colourful as they were - DID happen. The finer arts were largely forgotten and the dogmas of the church repressed academical science and litterature. Also a lot of know-how was lost. In Beowulf the huge stone constructions erected by the Romans is believed to have been created by Giants. The tools and skill were no longer available. Roadbuilding, masonry, concrete was forgotten, and had to be reinvented.

But the medieval age was by no means an age of ignorance and idleness: Through the medieval age most of the things lost when the Western Roman Empire fell had been replaced, construction and masonry surpassed in many ways the roman skills(though it was unsurpassed in many others). European military technology was the best in the world (which allowed them to dominate the globe for centuries thereafter), and also economywise the knowledge had leaped forward.

But it was really IMO an almost independent development that provided new solutions to old problems.