Kurotowa
Legend
Yeah, too many folks have been through "Beta" phases that were disguised Early Access. This is a "the software is buggy and not feature-complete" actual Beta.
D&D (2024) Sigil Review Thread (+)
- Thread starter Clint_L
- Start date
Ruin Explorer
Legend
We'll see I guess. History is on my side here but being fair to your position, it's definitely not certain either way! I'll be interested to see if/when they actually do a "massive marketing push", and who they target with that. Historically the issue has been that products stealth-dropped in inadequate/limited (delete as applicable!) 1.0 forms like this very often just don't even get a real marketing push, instead they're quietly backburnered, then quietly support is dropped (if you're very lucky they remain possible to download and use, but even that isn't always the case). With this one, the person who could most take credit for it has already departed WotC, and we've not seen anyone else in senior management come out very bullish about Sigil AFAIK (correct me if I'm wrong - I think Chris Cocks might have mentioned it in passing, but has primarily talked about wanting to integrate generative AI into D&D). As such, it's very much vulnerable to corporate winds, and it's easy to see people might thing the probably $25m (if Cynthia Williams' figures still hold) per year WotC is spending on developing this might better be spent elsewhere.
I mean, the basic object selection interface is similar to both, but so are most object selection interfaces today. It is however, pretty clunky and time-consuming, and objects don't behave as well as one might like them to.
A couple of other issues I noticed when trying it again (briefly) earlier:
1) There's absolutely no way to put in water - i.e. streams/rivers/ponds/the sea - given like, a pretty significant percentage (10? 20? 30?) of D&D encounters include that or other liquids, that's a weird omission.
2) There's no way to put in elevation that isn't objects. This is a classic issue with attempts to simplify 3D, but it means they're basically no way to do a "narrow defile" or a cliff-edge or path up-a-mountain or a pit trap, or any one of about a zillion other situations that routinely comes up in D&D.
3) The "custom mini" stuff is much more limited than I expected, and with weird and unnecessary limitations too. You can only have human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling and orc characters - no Tieflings, Goliaths, Dragonborn, etc. - I'd expect that in a beta, not an actual release for current-edition D&D. And what's even weirder is, you can't have "non-Earth-normal" hair or skin colours - for all the races except Orc. Orcs have more fantastical options but lack some of the more basic colours. What's very odd about this to me is that it's harder and more of an effort to limit this than to just allow a large palette (particularly weird with orcs to delete the "normal" colours!), and I have no idea why they'd think that'd make any sense. It also means you can't use models as "stand ins" - i.e. the "human" model could normally easily stand in for Genasi, Aasimar, some Tieflings, and many others. But because of the colour limits for skin/hair/eyes, it can't even stand in for all fantasy humans! It's worse with Elves etc. - Elves and Gnomes can't have hair and skin colours that they absolutely canonically have even in the Forgotten Realms!
Now you may say "Well that's an easy thing to fix!" and 100% it is! But it's so weird to start there with these limits, for a D&D product, and indicates some fairly strange development priorities.
Indeed. I'm sure with experience I'd speed up in using it, but it's hard to imagine the sheer amount of extra effort/prep this involves would pay off for most groups or most encounters. And it's basically totally unsuitable for any encounter that isn't in a fixed location and happening in a fixed way, which means DMs who run more scenario-based or sandbox-based adventures, rather than linear ones will see a lot less use for it. For me 5E is already one of the most prep-heavy RPGs I'd even consider running, and setting up encounters in this would add hours, potentially days (i.e. 8-hour days) of prep even for a linear adventure!
WotC could absolutely add huge value and get people to want to use this by pre-building all the popular official WotC adventures out on this (they could start with the biggest ones, whichever those are - presuming Strahd is one), and just giving the maps in this to people who have those adventures. Maybe that's planned for future, but it's not the case right now (also, they'd have to make an awful lot of new parts I'd guess - the extra sets you get for a full subscription - mine is still running for a while - are surprisingly limited).
Maybe I'm just dumb but I can't work out how to let the DM see through that. Hide and Reveal do not function on it. To get rid of it, you have to delete it. So, unless I'm missing something, You'd basically have to finish everything, then slather your maps in it and hope you remembered where everything was. It's weird because it really seems like it should be transparent to the DM to me.
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hojulation
Explorer
We were having the same problem with that fog tool lol. We noticed it had weird interactions with other game objects too.
If the fog was placed around objects that already existed in the scene (like minis) we couldn't select them after the fog was placed unless the fog was deleted, as noted.
Additionally, we were able to place minis ON TOP of the fog as if it was a solid surface. Probably an issue with how the engine sees the fog object versus how a person interprets it, but it still impacted its usability for us.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Wow, I hadn't tried but damn, this really does need a lot of development.
pukunui
Legend
Yep. This is pretty much the only thing that would make me want to use this tool.
mellored
Legend
Or they are secretly implementing the old Solid Fog spell..
Xeviat
Dungeon Mistress, she/her
Ive been playing with Sigil for a few weeks. I find the interface a little clunky and I don't like how building blocks and props are organized. The lack of item names in the menus is tough, and needing to switch between multiple playsets to find things slows down building. We really need item search bars and item names.
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