Sigil, Wizards of the Coast's VTT, Officially Launches

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Sigil, the 3D VTT developed by Wizards of the Coast and formerly known as Project Sigil, has officially launched on Window devices. Today, Wizards of the Coast announced that anyone with a D&D Beyond account (free or paid) can now access Sigil, provided they have a computer with Windows OS. Interestingly, the system's full functionality is based off of D&D Beyond's subscription tiers, with access to create multiplayer rooms and the ability to share and load maps tied to the Master Tier account. Master Tier subscribers also have access to builder kits, custom mini outfits, and unpainted minis. The Sigil client can be downloaded from D&D Beyond.

Sigil has been in development since at least 2023 alongside the launch of the One D&D initiative. One major concern about the new system, which uses Unreal Engine 5 to create 3D battle maps for D&D, was its pricing. At least for now, pricing seems to be tied directly to D&D Beyond subscriptions instead of pushing an additional monetization scheme onto players.

EN World saw a preview build of Sigil earlier this year, with a robust and relatively quick-to-implement map building system. One question that I kept asking while previewing Sigil involved exactly what Wizards wanted Sigil to be, as it functionally appeared to be a level or map builder with some basic D&D automation built into the game. The system doesn't include a full D&D revised 5E engine, but it does contain a significant amount of integration for the app to mimic some of D&D Beyond's dice rolling and resource management system has. It doesn't look like a bad VTT, although it's more appropriate for big set piece battles rather than standard "goblins attack the caravan" type encounters.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

I totally get this. And though I often make my own 2D maps, I'm very leery of 3D just because of available assets and styles. For instance, I use CC3+ for my custom maps and I have something like 50k different assets and can create maps in all types of styles. Plus I can draw from another 10k maps or such I've bought and collected over the years and then I can Google for a million more.

The other VTTs I know it's simple to throw in a blank map or just a background like grass or stone etc and then sketch out like you would on a dry-erase mat. I don't see that yet in Sigil and kind of doubt they will ever allow that. But maybe some quick 3D "brushes" like walls.
Why would they not allow you to draw eventually? (you can already import any 2d map you want)
 

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It’s only a basic function of every single vtt for over twenty years.
Is it? In Foundry I do this, but with a community mod. I like the functionality in that it not only changes the font but things are scrambled and you can't read the text if your character doesn't understand the language. But I don't recall similar functionality on Roll20 or Map Tool. I could have just missed it though. I never dug too deep in functionality beyond displaying maps, moving tokens, and fog of war until I got into Foundry and fell down the rabbit hole of customization.
 


I thought FG has that function where if I type it out and say it’s draconic, only characters that know draconic on their sheet can read it, everyone else is jumbled characters….but I could be mixing it up with another vtt.
No that’s true. That works.

But if you want to type in, say, Century Gothic 14 point in blue, you are SOL.

Chat that allows html tags has been part of vtts since Openrpg in 2002.
 

The most useful feature of any VTT is being able to host your game actually have it handle rules/dice/etc in the VTT. Free tier doesn't allow hosting your own campaign.

No, I don't think someone should be allowed an unlimited amount of freedom for free but one single campaign? Or creating/sharing/download completed maps? That would feed so well into their microtransaction heavy future they want. Free to Play pricing is what's necessary for something like this to get large adoption especially if they want it on consoles, which WotC has definitely spoken about being interested in the future.
WOTC has yet to advocate for microtransactions. If you disagree, show me a quote.
 




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