March 3: Simply Sigil

A Visit to Sigil: First Impressions on Wizards’ Entry into VTTs

I have many thoughts on virtual tabletops, so I was fascinated by WOTC’s announcement that it was making a 3D VTT. These tools are essential for players who want to play TTRPGs online and navigate maps outside of a “Theatre of the Mind” campaign like Vampire the Masquerade or Monster of the Week.

 Most players will think of VTTs like Roll20, Shard Tabletop, or Foundry, which offer 2D interfaces for running campaigns and managing dice, maps, magical effects, and other such items. However, some 3D-based VTTs have been available, including systems like Talespire, although they’re not used as much as the 2D platforms.

Project Sigil was previewed a few years ago during a OneD&D presentation, and went into alpha and beta testing last fall. The system officially released last week and has been scrutinized for a while. Will players want to use Sigil, or will they find it unappealing?

The system is still in its early stages with limited built-in options, so my two cents probably won’t age well over time. But I’ve spent more than a few hours playing with the new system and have some initial thoughts. It’s hard to rate a VTT until you run an entire session within it, so consider these my first impressions.

Pricing: So far, Sigil is free to players. If you want to use or play with the VTT, you just need a free DnDbeyond account—plain and simple. However, this only comes with limited options. If players want all the monsters, customizations, and player tools, they will need to pay for Master Tier, a $4.99 a month subscription. There have been suspicions that WOTC will incorporate microtransactions into this system, but this has not been confirmed yet. 

Players will have to the single prewritten adventure as well as a free-build mode where they can build their own campaigns in the system.

You will need to download the system to your PC at the moment.

Visuals: In a single word, I’d describe it as “detailed.” The walls and floors feel like legitimate video game terrain while the tokens feel energetic and reflective of WOTC’s designs. Everything is framed like a table TTRPG, where your character is a figurine moving around the map in response to events. Any dice the players roll appear on the map but don’t knock things over. The magical spells each have special effects that are visible, unique and enjoyable to watch.It’s a semi-top down experience, where you’re able to move the camera around with WASD controls.

I could easily imagine this being a well-designed dungeon created by a player who can afford to have thousands of dollars in terrain. It isn’t as clear when it comes to movement and doesn’t appear to rely on a grid-style map. Rather, players will need to keep track of feet and distances to ensure everything is in range.

Mechanics: The system lacks a tutorial, which makes learning the play take a moment to figure out. For example, the game requires you to grip onto a dice on your screen and throw it onto the map if you want to roll it. It’s not necessarily an intuitive function and was not always responsive upon first click. But it worked appropriately. Players can target other tokens and cast spells or use weapons appropriately. They can also roll skill checks from a pull-down tab on the bar placed on the bottom.

Thankfully, all monsters and player abilities are accessible in a simple table on the bottom left part of the screen.

The system seems designed for players to customize their character sheet through D&D Beyond and then attach it to the character token or miniature. The prepared spells are available through the hot bar and can be cast appropriately. For example, a Fire Bolt might require the player to target a token before casting. A Fireball requires it to be aimed with a display showing the space. Any status effects are presented on a character through small visible interfaces displayable beneath the token.

Customization: One of the most essential parts of D&D is translating your character into the game. That’s where your token comes into play.

 Players and monsters come in two forms; miniatures and tokens. There’s a limited amount of monster tokens available right now. Some low-level minions are fully colored in preparation for the pre-built adventure. These minis are great, as they have kobolds and goblins in various poses; something that I think brings aesthetic flavor and life to a campaign.

Some unpainted minis are available to those paying for the Master Tier. However, I could not figure out how to paint them or if this is a system to be incorporated later. These were also quite limited. For example, the collection had an aboleth but not a lich. Why is that? The monster mini choices appeared somewhat random and lacked a lot of options that I as a GM might use.

As for player miniatures, the options are limited. Player miniature creation options are limited to six basic races, from humans to elves to orcs. There are also several outfits which help capture the ‘fantasy’ of a player’ class (From the plate-bearing fighter to the robe-covered wizard.) You can adjust the color of all of these outfits with some ease.

Players can make tokens that are 2D platforms bearing art of a character. Basically, you could make a token with your character art on it. This is currently an option for any monster that a DM might have the statblock on D&D Beyond but not 

DMing Experience: Sadly, I have not had a chance to run the prewritten campaign, although I hope to play it with some fellow DMs to try and give it a real runthrough by the end of March, so I won’t speak on the content too much. It’s a standard level 1-3 campaign where premade adventurers fight off kobolds and goblins who are out to do bad things. Not the most creative storyline from a cursory scan, but it is good for showing off what the technology can do.

I don’t know if that makes it a good campaign or not, but at the least it appears pretty darn easy to run and may be good for embracing the short-term campaigns that WOTC has pushed in the past. That includes adventure collections like Candlekeep Mysteries or the upcoming Starter Set. I don’t know if it will be as helpful for more sandbox-themed campaigns like Curse of Strahd. Perhaps one could create a mashup of the 2D maps already used on D&D Beyond and maps here?

The one thing that did stand out to me was how the game seemed to rely on 2014 rules over 2024. Many of the spells and items still operated like the older system, a decision that I’ll admit I don’t fully understand yet considering the companies’ push toward 2024 rules.

I also noticed the immovability of tokens. I’d really appreciate it if they let me knock a token over, since it would be a perfect way to display whether the character is unconscious or dead. Right now, the only indicator of such is a health bar.

Map Creation: Maps are divided into five different content categories; dungeons, caves, glades, basic buildings, and graveyards. Each one has tiles for walls, floors and ceiling as well as accessories, design functions and more. The tiles can be moved around and customized with quite a few options for adding flavor. Again, this mode requires more hands-on training and will take time to use appropriately. I’ll certainly admit that it’s not a tool that I enjoy as much compared to more generative tools like Dungeon Alchemist or Talespire. I almost think it deserves a separate interface akin to Dungeondraft to work well.

Questions: After playing with Sigil for a few hours, I have many questions about its future. For example, what parts will players and DMs have to pay for? How often will it add new races or monsters? What will future map updates look like? What are the prices that it will require? What sort of support will D&D Beyond users have for their already purchased content?

WOTC hasn’t spoken much about Project Sigil's future, making such predictions extremely difficult.

For now, I’d conclude they have a good start for the VTT and that I would consider using it at some point. Still, that consideration will be contingent on ease of use and how ‘importable’ my already purchased content on the platform is. I already spend enough hours setting things up in Foundry. I don’t want to do the same over and over in Project Sigil as well.

Have you gotten to play with Project Sigil yet? Any thoughts? Let us know!