D&D 5E Toward a new D&D aesthetics

[Laurefindel]

Maybe it's a rogue with the Entertainer background???

No, it got to be a bard.

See, this is a classic bait-and-switch manoeuvre. Bait the owlbear with a steak and at the last second, swooosh, feed it the bard instead! Only bards are known to provoke such loathsome reactions from other party members...

 

[Mythos Enthusiast]

YES!!!! That's the Beefcakey goodness I'm talking about!!!!

To heck with those who say not to ogle the Barbarian pecks of glory and that it's wrong!!

lmao I do not for see a return to 'sword and sorcery' anytime soon but it is a very interesting genre.

 

[Weiley31]

That is the cheesecake.

You call that a Cheesecake mate? Hahaha, No that's not a cheese cake.

That's a Cheesecake

 

[Undrave]

I'd definitely drop $50 on a Book of Gray Apathy, though.

Introducing:

The Barbarian Path of the Great Sloth
The Bard College of Ennui
The Cleric Domain of Depression
The Druid Circle of Hibernation
The Paladin Oath of Laissez-Faire
The Tax Collector Rogue
The Wizard School of Bureaucramancy

The adventurers resting by a mammoth skull vs. The Companions of the Lance

STOP STARING AT ME!!!

 

[Bluebell]

Three from recent WotC seems easy enough. I don't have any of these but quick image searches from the titles of recent ones that come to mind.

View attachment 154130View attachment 154131

Actually, these particular covers (and honestly the second one is just an alt cover, so totally optional) don't remind me of Disney at all, but they do remind me of a lot of recent fantasy cartoons that have both child and adult audiences such as The Dragon Prince, the She-Ra reboot, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, or Hilda.

Surely the point of cover art is to both grab attention and to convey the overall tone of the contents. And to me, this cover conveys both a sense of whimsy and a more lighthearted vibe than I would usually expect from a more traditional DnD adventure. This cover jumps out to me because it's so different from other DnD covers that I have seen. And I don't think it's an accident that a book specifically showcasing diverse authors is drawing on fantasy imagery that's currently popular with young audiences, because many of the cartoons I listed above are popular partially because of how diverse they are.

Would I expect to see something that bright and colorful for a general DnD rulebook? Probably not! Even though I, personally, love these colorful palettes and would love to see more of them, I know it's not everyone's thing.

 

[Scribe]

YES!!!! That's the Beefcakey goodness I'm talking about!!!!

To heck with those who say not to ogle the Barbarian pecks of glory and that it's wrong!!

If this is wrong, I dont want to be right.

 

[Weiley31]

Peak DND in Aesthetics.
*Granted it's DCC, but this is straight up like a moment outta a DND campaign. Complete with the chick about to do a sword uppercut to cut the Pterodactyl's head off while the fighter jump kicks the falling Wizard adversary.

 

[theCourier]

View attachment 154149
Peak DND in Aesthetics.
*Granted it's DCC, but this is straight up like a moment outta a DND campaign. Complete with the chick about to do a sword uppercut to cut the Pterodactyl's head off while the fighter jump kicks the falling Wizard adversary.

Oh hey, I own this hardcover! Honestly, the art in this book is just amazing!

 

[Weiley31]

If this is wrong, I dont want to be right.

Well don't worry, we're apparently not right according to ENw-I actually have to go cook dinner, it's 5:07 on my end, HOLY SMOKES!

 

[Bacon Bits]

I refer back to Morrus's thread regarding the D&D changes to highlight how, release after release it is increasingly evident that the aesthetics of D&D illustrations are changing.

What do you think of this trend?

I don't mind the change, if there is one. I don't think there's really been a significant change; it still reads as pretty generic western fantasy to me.

Sure, some of the more recent books have featured a greater number of fey creatures, but I don't think that's a trend. I think it's just a less explored aspect of D&D fantasy that got a couple books in a row on it. Feywild and Shadowfell are interesting because they're poorly explored. FR and the outer planes are pretty well bought and paid for at this point. Taken as a whole, Avernus was pretty far from cartoonish, and the art I recall of the cartoonish aspects really wasn't very cartoonish. I don't think Strixhaven, Saltmarsh, Candlekeep, or Frostmaiden were particularly cartoonish, either. I don't recall any cartoonish standouts from Tasha's or Fizban's.

However, I do think people are increasingly getting sick of grimdark, so they may be more welcoming to more fanciful aesthetics. For a long time now, pop culture has been dominated by postmodernism and deconstructionism, and it keeps resulting in the grimdarkiest grimdark that ever dared to darken a grim. Given the state of the world for the past several years, I think people are getting exhausted by grimdark.

Beyond that, I do think that as fantasy is increasingly taken seriously as a genre and D&D taken seriously as a game, it's increasingly likely for both to stop taking themselves so seriously all the time.