Friday, September 17, 2010

Open Friday: Imagining D&D

Today's question is one that's tangentially related to a post I'll make tomorrow: when you think about Dungeons & Dragons, the cover of what product comes first to min? For me, it's the AD&D Players Handbook, even though I'm far less enamored of AD&D than I once was. That cover pretty much encapsulates my vision of "D&D" in a single image.

What cover image does the same for you?

121 comments:

  1. BECMI's Companion Green boxset cover, the cool knight with a two-handed sword fighting a doofie drawn green dragon. Basic Red boxset's barbarian fighting a red dragon for lots of treasure.

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  2. The picture from Mentzer's Basic Red Box : fighter from behind vs red dragon on his gold.

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  3. Mentzer's Red Box cover - I have difficulty articulating just how formative Larry Elmore's art was for my conception of D&D.

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  4. The cover of Grenadier's "Wilderness Explorers" miniatures boxed set.

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  5. AD&D 2nd edition Player's Handbook - the one with the horseman on the front cover. It was the first D&D book I ever owned and seeing that image still brings back strong feelings of nostalgia.

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  6. I still like the AD&D 2nd.5 edition Player's Handbook. There's something about a group of adventurer's busting through a door that hits me as awesome. And, this was the first book I bought as a kid.

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  7. Either the original 1E cover for the Player's Handbook, or them OD&D supplement cover of the woman on the altar.

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  8. The Otus drawing in Moldvay/Cook basic depicting a character with a horned mask holding a bag of gold in one hand and an axe in the other.

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  9. ...plus anyone of the mclean cartoons. Any one of them.

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  10. With the game itself, my first exposure in hand was the Rules Cyclopedia. However, my actual first exposure to D&D was the cartoon, so the roller coaster that gates them into the world where it takes place is actually what comes to mind for me.

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  11. Same as Mr. Gone, but the Dungeon Master Guide.

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  12. I am with you on 1st Ed AD&D Player's Handbook. Though I am more fond of the Erol Otus cover on the Moldvay Basic.

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  13. Cover of the Moldvay Basic. By the time I started playing, 2E had just come out, but I was poor. All my books were cast-offs from the swap meet. So the first one I owned was a very worn copy of Moldvay.

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  14. The first two books I bought were the orange spine PHB and DMG. As far as cover art goes, I'd have to pick the orange spine DMG's cover. That book was my Bible of Awesome through Jr High and High School.

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  15. 2nd Edition PHB and DMG since I was introduced to D&D when that edition was all the rage. I have put down 2nd edition for at least a decade, but when I saw the books again a few weeks ago, all those memories came back.

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  16. The cover of Keep on the Borderlands...it was the first true D&D product I ever read, back in good old 2008.

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  17. Erol Otus's cover for Moldvay basic. I know it's not for everybody but man do I love Otus's artwork. Growing up, my neighbor next-door had the Mentzer red box & that was the first one I actually "played" (we had no clue what we were doing); and the older kid across the street had the AD&D books - so I've got a soft spot for those too. But Moldvay takes the cake.

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  18. It's the Trampier PHB cover for me too.

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  19. "My D&D" is a fairly loose concept, but I'm going to go with two things: pretty much all of Tony DiTerlizzi's art for Planescape. It more or less got me into roleplaying and gave me a reference point and consistent feel for a really insane setting. It made the inconceivably huge Planescape into something recognizable and striking. I miss that style of art and I miss the feel of those products in a nearly physical way.

    More recently, I was moved by the cover art for the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide in 3.5E. Here's why: it was one of the finest pieces of art I'd seen on a product in ages and communicates an attitude about a world and a style of roleplaying in a way that little else has ever managed for even attempted. Like Planescape, it defines a wholly different way to play D&D from the baseline settings and reminded me that there was some really incredible stuff that you could do with an RPG.

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  20. It's a toss up between the D.A.T cover of the AD&D Players Handbook and the Erol Otis cover of the basic set. If I had to call it one way or the other it would be E.O. because that was the first D&D I owned and made dungeons on graph paper for. It also has that lurid fantastic hallucination quality that causes people to love/hate Otis' work. Obviously I'm fond of it.

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  21. That's a toughie: a draw between the Mentzer basic box and the AD&D DMG. If it was a module cover I'd say The Forest Oracle with the goblins and wolves jumping out of the frame at you.

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  22. Otus's cover for the Moldvay Basic Set.

    However, Trampier's cover the PHB cover is a very close second.

    Sutherland's cover for the Holmes Basic Set would be third.

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  23. Oddly enough, given how this blog typically goes, but the original 3.0 ed covers for the PHB, DMG, and MM. They LOOK like arcane tomes of esoteric knowledge that contain the secrets of all things beneath heaven and earth. Something not for everyone, something special for a chosen few.

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  24. For me, it's the Holmes box cover; I'm somewhat surprised that no one else has said that yet.

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  25. I'm right there with the PHB cover, but if we're allowed to use interior art the picture that sums up D&D for me is the full page drawing of the adventurers facing off against a grell in the Fiend Folio.

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  26. The Moldvay Basic Set (Erol Otus), partly because it was my introduction to D&D and partly for the way the background draws you into thinking about where else that cave goes and why someone carved stairs and put a human-sized archway in there.

    Infamous makes a good point though. I get good D&D vibes from the 3.0 dark brown PHB cover.

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  27. Another one I just thought of: the first color illustration in the 2E Player's Handbook, with the beat-up adventurers stringing a small dragon from a tree. It's not a cover, but it really seems to capture the spirit of the game. Elmore, I think, although I don't have it in front of me right now.

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  28. Holmes basic. This was my first introduction to D&D and that cover will always represent, to me, what the D&D is all about.

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  29. I started with the Mentzer books, and for me it's the Mentzer Expert, with the mounted warrior charging a flying dragon.

    Second would be the original PHB cover with the golden idol.

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  30. Which cover? The "Black Box" (http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/setscans/basic91box.html) from 1991 - my first boxed set ever. D&D Endless Quest books (especially "Pillars of Pentegarn") also do it for me, too. They were my first exposure to the world of D&D, many years before I got my hands on the "Black Box." I still have my full library of Endless Quest books, but sadly, the "Black Box" & all its contents are long gone.

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  32. For me, it's the Expert set from the BECMI: the pose had so much action, and life. I later saw some of the other art, but it paled in comparison to my eyes. Still does, matter of fact- the Red Box that WoTC is pillaging from the past just doesn't carry as much weight with me.

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  33. The dragon cover with the chess board.

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  34. My favorite cover is Trampier's DM Screen cover image. It captures all of that is best about D&D.

    http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/dnd3e/images/dmscreen.jpg

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  35. The Erol Otus basic set cover for me, too - it was my first D&D set, and is just burned in there. If we're going more "vision of D&D" instead of "instinctual reaction to the phrase D&D," maybe the Trampier PHB cover or Mullen S&W cover come closer, though.

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  36. I think maybe the second cover to the AD-n-D DM's Guide - the dude standing before the doors. Even when I was playing Castles and Crusades, I would often use my AD-n-D DM's Screen, just to present that art to the players.

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  37. The Holmes set was my first-ever exposure to D&D, so one would think that would be it. But I'd have to say that the PHB Demon Idol cover is it. That one did something to me.

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  38. Both the covers of Holmes Basic and Moldvay/Cook B/X are forever the symbols of D&D to me.

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  39. Believe it or not BOTH the Modvay and the Mentzer box sets. I received them at the same time.

    How's that for cognitive dissonance? ;)

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  40. PatrickWR said...

    "The cover of Keep on the Borderlands."


    Ditto.

    Otus's back cover especially. The play of light and shadow from the setting sun on the walls and towers as adventurers come up the trail. Perhaps they are new arrivals, filled with dreams of gold and glory? Or maybe they are weary from a foray into the Caves of Chaos and hurry towards the safety of the keep before darkness falls?

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  41. Without a doubt, the AD&D 2E PHB, with the horseman with that goofy helmet. I still think about the 2E artwork as, in general, the best the game as ever had. It's not full of the weird amateurish drawings of earlier editions (which were charming but often terrible) and it was rarely cartoonish or comic-bookish in the way that the 3E and 4E art often seem to me. I still look back at those 2E book covers are pretty universally classy. The 3E covers were boring and busy, and the 4E covers mostly strike me as fairly uninspired. The 2E books either had good illustrations or simple text-on-solid-color covers.

    I miss 2E, sometimes!

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  42. I2 Dwellers of the Forbidden City.

    I realize this is a bit off the reservation, but it is the cover that most comes to mind when I think "D&D." It is one of those Erol Otis pieces that "lives" inside my visual memory and evokes all that pulpy possibility that can be D&D.

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  43. For me, it has always been the Erol Otus covers on the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh Basic and Expert editions.

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  44. Any from the Forgotten Realms grey box. That was my first campaign setting, and all my "learning period" belongs to that box.

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  45. Likewise, Erol Otus's cover for the Moldvay iteration of Basic D&D.

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  47. B1 Search of the Unknown monochrome cover. Bunch of adventurers huddled together in a fungus garden.

    As a kid, I only owned Holmes and original cover 1e AD&D books.

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  48. AD&D PHB cover (the big statue), with the rider on the 2nd ed book a close second.

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  49. The Erol Otus from the cover of Moldvay Basic.

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  50. When I think of D&D the image that comes into my head is the cover to the AD&D 1st Ed Monster Manual. Specifically: Dave Sutherland's Red Dragon floating over a centaur and unicorn.

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  51. What a great question! Reading it sent a flood of fantastic imagery of my youth into my head! From the Mentzer Red Box to Iron Maidens Number of the Beast cover. But after clearing my mind I would positively say the module cover of T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil by Keith Parkinson.

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  52. Even though I never played it, I immediately picture the cover of the Original Collector's Edition white box. I saw it at a toy store in the mall -- it was the first time I'd seen this game that everyone was buzzing about back then.

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  53. Mentzer Basic, as far as covers go. But my first exposure to D&D was the cartoon. Shocking though it may be, that cartoon had a tremendous influence on me.

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  54. Red Box was my first exposure to D&D. When I was growing up I wanted to draw like Larry Elmore.

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  55. Like others, I think of some module covers.... D1-2: Descent into the Depths of the Earth and T1: The Village of Hommlet spring to mind for me the most as my "vision" of D&D.

    There are also about a dozen covers of Dragon that could fit the bill too.

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  56. Mentzer Red Box, although the image which comes to mind first is not a cover, it's that landscape character sheet from the basic sets.

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  57. It's a toss-up for me between the Trampier PHB cover and the Otus B/X covers. The way the Otus Expert cover re-contextualized his Basic cover always pleased me.

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  58. Either the 1E PHB or the Holmes blue-book cover. I had the latter taped to the door of my room throughout my teenage years.

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  59. I started out with the Holmes boxed set, but for some reason the cover image that first comes to mind is the Forgotten Realms supplement Dreams of the Red Wizards. (And I don't even like Caldwell very much!)

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  60. Although the first product I owned was the Moldvay Basic Set with the Erol Otus cover, the image that springs to mind when somebody says "D&D" is the 1st Edition Trampier AD&D Player's Handbook. I wanted that book so badly when I was a kid and wouldn't stop bugging my mom until she bought it for me.

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  61. Holmes Basic. The 1st Edition Player's Handbook too.

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  62. For me it's the Erol Otus cover on D&D basic. The art on the expert box set is a close second.

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  63. Agree with Thomas, and many others, 1E PHB or Homes boxed set cover.

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  64. Chris said: "My favorite cover is Trampier's DM Screen cover image. It captures all of that is best about D&D."

    Thanks for including the link! The DM Screen always unsettled me as a kid, because nobody looked like a good guy. Everyone's face, except the girl's, seemed to be leering or gaping. This still bothers me a little, since in my book the Game isn't worth playing without the concept of selfless sacrifice and heroism. Playing a bunch of greedy treasure-mongers seems to be a bit "scummy." But the screen still is an amazing piece of work, and will always lurk around in my imagination.

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  65. Elmore's Red Dragon on the Mentzer Basic Set. Without any doubt. Although the covers of the Masters and Immortal Rules really got my imagination going too... :)

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  66. The cover of the Moldvay box says D&D to me more than any other product.

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  67. Easley's cover for the AD&D DMG for the sheer number of potentialities it contains.

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  68. I will add to the list of folks who chose a tie between Tramp's 1e Player's Handbook and Otus' B/X covers.

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  69. 1e 1st print PHB cover yup - the only AD&D hardback I *don't* own!

    I think Mazes & Monsters may be a factor though.

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  70. Interesting. I think only two of us mentioned any of the OD&D covers. I guess that reflects the volume of people who came to the game after B/X and AD&D.

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  71. 1st Edition, AD&D Players Handbook

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  72. My "picturial introduction" to D&D happend by Clyde Cyldwell's "Curse of the Azure Bonds" picture by the SSI C64 game... And it was really that influential. That picture haunts me still, it is D&D to me, I generally like Clyde Caldwell, I don't care much for Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance, or Ravenloft, but there is a D&D world which had CC for designer, and I started to play in that world...

    It's strange, but I have another strong picture in my head about D&D, and it is the Holmes cover, which is strange, because I was one year old and at the other side of the globe when it was published...

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  73. 1st edition DMG cover (the City of Brass cover)

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  74. 1st ed Player's Handbook, yep. Giant idol rocks.

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  75. That's easy. This one, where a mysterious individual opens the doors of imagination. That's D&D for me. Always was.

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  76. Holmes Basic Box cover by Sutherland.

    http://xeveninti.blogspot.com/2010/08/holmes-basic-box-cover.html

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  77. THOMAS said: "Playing a bunch of greedy treasure-mongers seems to be a bit 'scummy.'"

    Welcome to old-school. :) I think whole essays could be written on this POV, glad you wrote it.

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  78. I'm going to cheat and say Palladium Fantasy RPG: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/PalladiumRPG-1990.jpg/220px-PalladiumRPG-1990.jpg

    I moved fairly quickly from AD&D to Palladium, which at the time I thought was "better" because it had skills. I still remember the world fondly, but I don't think I'll ever use those rules again. I came back to D&D with 3rd edition, skipping 2E entirely.

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  79. The cover of Players Option: Combat and Tactics ( http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VBWJ2SX3L._SL500_AA300_.jpg )Pure Jeff Easley

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  80. Toss up between The White Box and Moldvay Basic.

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  81. The cover of the 1st Ed. DMG. Perhaps the Otus pic on the Basic Rules, since those were the first I actually bought. Or even the original 1st MM, since that was given me by my parents for Christmas, thinking it was a book about mythological monsters. Any of those three, but the original DMG probably the top, and was used by the first group I ever played the game with.

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  82. BECMI Expert Set cover - that was where D&D (and RPGs) 'opened up' into something really exciting.

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  83. Easily the Otus cover for the 1981 Basic Set, which was the first one I ever owned. I saved up my allowance for weeks to buy it instead of spending it on video games, which I usually did. I wore those books out and the box cover really stuck with me.

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  84. The first cover that comes to mind is that done by Deborah Larson for Eldritch Wizardry. Never underestimate the potential of a nekkid woman when it comes to remembering a cover. <grin>

    However the cover that most correctly evokes the spirit of D&D (that being, in general, mass murder, grave robbing, and desecration of ancient temples for fun and profit), would have to be David Trampier's cover from the very first edition Player's Handbook.

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  85. The cover of the second edition of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. That one: http://www.trollandtoad.com/products/fullshot.php?fullshot=109802.jpg

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  86. Reverance Pavane:

    "The first cover that comes to mind is that done by Deborah Larson for Eldritch Wizardry."

    Finally, someone besides me! ;-)

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  87. Moldvay basic (dungeon) and Mentzer Expert (outdoors). The Otis pic shows all sorts of important game elements - light sources, fighter protecting the spellcaster, the dungeon setting, treasure, etc. - while that Elmore pic has great motion on the horse. Both feature somewhat smaller, fierce-but-still-mortal dragons. For some reason, I like that.

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  88. 1E DMG: that Efreet holding the woman, faced by the fighter and the wizard, over-looking the City of Brass.

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  89. For me two covers come to mind. First the Moldvay Basic Edition and the Keep on the Boarderlands that came packed in the Basic Set.

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  90. In order of exposure: 1st ed Players Handbook, Elmore Red Box (Mentzer), 1st DMG (1983).

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  91. David C. Sutherland's DMG.

    This The City Of Brass!

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  92. The module B4: The Lost City. I really loved that module and I really loved that cover. The adventurers are a mixture of heroic, ragtag, and terrified in a down to earth way. It and X1: The Isle of Dread are the few modules I ran people through multiple times and it was never the same. Up to that point I preferred the interior art over most covers. Except for the second cover of the DMG for AD&D which I really thought was cool and everything in Fiend Folio made me draw reproductions for days on end. I recently re-acquired the original cover DMG with the City of Brass and really still doesn't appeal to me. I think folks don't give James Holloway enough credit. I also loved his cover to the Endless Quest Books #1: Dungeon of Dread. But, I was always more into the interior art for the Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery! books. I guess I favored the European publications' art more.

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  93. The Holmes Edition, Boxed set......It was the first, and I mashed all up with AD&D, but that box set is ALWAYS the first image that comes to mind, when I think D&D.

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  94. Moldvay Basic first, then AD&D 1st Edition Monster Manual (Sutherland), Player's Handbook (Trampier), and Deities & Demigods (Otus)

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  95. Mentzer "red box" for me. Always loved that Elmore illustration. Even now it sparks my imagination.

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  96. Answered:

    http://garysentus.blogspot.com/2010/09/imagining-d-courtesy-of-grognardia.html

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  97. The AD&D 2e DMG cover as well as the PHB are the first images in my head when someone says D&D. I didn't start with those books, but that's the version that I played the most, until the release of 3e. Then there were tons of Dragon covers that I could add to that list.

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  98. Wow, I stand corrected ... Larry Elmore did the cover artwork for Dungeon of Dread book. It seemed a bit lively for him. But, then again his b/w art in the Mentzer set was pretty good.

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  99. Hmm. The question is more complex than you think.

    Which "D&D"? There are lots of versions of D&D, after all. Heck, even AD&D, one of the two main aspects of the D&D Engine, is in its fourth version-- and that's not counting the "lesser" editions.

    We have OD&D from 1974 plus supplements, which serves as the "larval" form, the very clay from which both D&D and AD&D arose; we have the Moldvey D&D; we got the Holmes D&D; the Mentzner BECMI D&D which includes the Rules Cyclopedia; AD&D 1E; AD&D 2e; D20/D&D 3E; and D&D 4E. The last two games (D20 & 4E) are based on AD&D rather than on D&D, by the way.

    So we have 8 games that all can claim to be D&D (after all, "AD&D" is both a different game from and the "Advanced" version of D&D). And that numbering doesn't even take into account the "sub-editions" such as 3,5 or RC.

    Okay. So we can divide "D&D" into two "camps": TSR D&D (which includes 3 different versions of the D&D Engine: OD&D, CLassic - or Basic - D&D and AD&D) and WOTC D&D (which includes D20 and 4E).

    Since I came in on the hobby in the middle of what James calls the "silver age" (1985-86), I am of course quite partial for Mentzer D&D.

    Sure, OD&D is... interesting from a historian's perspective; but it is an evolutionary dead-end. It lacks everything it needs to survive, it even some decent rules! Heck, even Gygax himself realized that OD&D was merely a supplement to chainmail, rather than a true RPG in its own right.

    BECMI, by comparison, is the one, true exemplar of what D&D can be and is all about: characters that start out at bottom and brave the malicious dungeons, characters who become ever more powerful with the time, heroes who tame the dangerous wildernesses of their world, who become, eventually, powerful enough to found new realms, go from there to even bigger things when they explore the planes and even fight the gods, and who finally, in D&D's "endgame", become deities themselves.

    It was, after all, BECMI that saved D&D from its former medium as "Nerd's hobby" and carried it into the future, away from its former niche/prison as a pastime for self-styled "intellectuals".

    To return to the open question: BECMI is, in truth, the most complete incarnation of the game, I picked the classic "Red Box" image.

    Of ALL D&D pictures in existence, no image comes closer to encapsulate what D&D is about: Players and their characters (the Fighter); Treasure (the dragon hoard); Monsters (the Red Dragon); Dungeons (the wall); and the unseen world yet to be explored (the mist that hints at things unseen).

    It's truly a brilliant piece of work, that red box image. it's the first image conjured up whenever I hear "D&D".

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  100. I think of the cover of the "Eye of the Beholder" computer game!

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  101. this: http://www.deigames.com/ph1st2ndc.jpg

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  102. This is my first image: http://www.tomeoftreasures.com/jpegs_dnd/rules/tsr1011_dndsutherland.jpg

    TFotH

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  103. Trampier's PHB cover or the Moldvay Basic D&D box cover.

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  104. http://towerofthearchmage.blogspot.com/2010/09/imagining-dungeons-and-dragons.html

    Jeff Easley's red dragon cover of the D&D Adventure game (intro boxed set) from 1990.

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  105. 1ed PHB - Tramp cover and Sutherland's Basic cover! Is there any question?! ;o)

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  106. Not exactly a cover, but the frontispiece from the Moldvay Basic Rules is the image that does it for me:

    http://perilanddarkplaces.blogspot.com/2010/09/nostalgia.html

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  107. The cover of the B1 module In Search of the Unknown that came with my first Holmes Basic set. For me, that garden of giant fungi still powerfully evokes what I love about D&D. So does the B1 module itself. Mystery, exploration of strange, dangerous environments, in search of the unknown...

    http://tinyurl.com/28ruapo

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  108. The cover of the Forgotten realms box with the rider on a horse!

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  109. The blue cover of the Holmes Basic rulebook

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  110. AD&D Players Handbook, Mentzer's Red Box (cover & inside art), AD&D DMG.

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  111. Me too AD&D PHB even though I never owned it, more in my blog:
    http://roleplay-geek.blogspot.com/2010/09/imagining-d.html

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  112. The dark brown cover of the 3rd Edition D&D Player's Handbook. I got it after an inspiring train ride from London to Ipswich and before playing in my first D&D campaign: Pools of Radiance.

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