D&D 5E (2024) Sigil Review Thread (+)

[Kurotowa]

It has limited fog as of two releases ago

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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Unlike @Ruin Explorer I have zero concerns about the way WotC has chosen to release the product. It's meant for early adopters and super fans at the moment. Once they have it in the final form will be when they start a massive marketing push for it, and what they system is then will determine it's success or failure.

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 could really see the potential, especially in the map builder, which had a feeling of somewhere between Minecraft and Fallout 4.

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.

One of my players is also a DM and our assertion was that at the moment, we felt like the best use case for us would be to fire up Sigil for big set piece encounters, boss fights, ambushes, etc. For dungeon crawling and everything else, we'd stick with Owlbear or maybe use Maps if running an official module.

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).

It has limited fog as of two releases ago

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.

 

[hojulation]

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.

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]

Additionally, we were able to place minis ON TOP of the fog as if it was a solid surface.

Wow, I hadn't tried but damn, this really does need a lot of development.

 

[pukunui]

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.

Yep. This is pretty much the only thing that would make me want to use this tool.

 

[mellored]

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.

Or they are secretly implementing the old Solid Fog spell..

 

[Xeviat]

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.

 

[ECMO3]

One of my DMs hosted a low level one-shot on it using the default scenario they released with it. There were a lot more negatives than positives, some of them though probably due to being an early release.

Positives:

The install and launch went well and I really like the basic maps and graphics. It is super easy to load characters from DNDB. In these areas it is an improvement over other VVTs I have used (maps, Foundary, Roll 20)

Negatives:
A lot of the spells and mechanics didn't work and the token/mini options were limited (no Tieflings!).

It very much has a video game feel to me. I am a BG3 junkie and I love video games, but that is not what I want out of a VTT for playing D&D with a group.

It does automatically calculate and apply hits and damage, but it doesn't do it correctly, which is worse than not doing it.

The biggest issue though is the inability to modify any of the items or abilities. I had no proficiency in my light crossbow, which is a bug I guess, but the bigger issue is I could not add proficiency. No way to change the ability used with my Hand Axe when I was using it as a Pact Weapon, I could manually add a +1 to the attack roll to account for the difference (15 strength, 17 Charisma), but no way at all to change damage.

If you compare this to other VTTs - roll 20 is extremely easy to modify stuff, no time at all, foundry takes a few seconds or minutes, maps/DNDB is more difficult but you can still do it and maps is not using automation for things like damage and hit points, meaning it is less of a big deal if something is not accurate.

 

[Clint_L]

- The GM needs the ability to lock down miniature movement and other game interaction on the map. You can assign the control of minis to specific players, but once that's done, that player can move their mini, change their size and appearance, activate their spells (and associated visual effects) with reckless abandon. That was even after an hour of "get this out of your system before we start playing".

This one is weird to me. I use physical terrain and miniatures, and there is nothing stopping players from doing the same, except etiquette.

 

[Distracted DM]

This one is weird to me. I use physical terrain and miniatures, and there is nothing stopping players from doing the same, except etiquette.

At a table, the player can't click "fireball fireball fireball fireball" over and over again.

I agree though, that I don't have that problem with my tables in other VTTs... so it's either a group etiquette problem, or maybe it's because the VTT is shiny and new that people want to make things flash and see numbers pop up.

That being said, the fact that you can't PAUSE the game, preventing folk from moving their minis? That's a big hole that would hopefully be easy to fix. I pause my VTT games all the time, because the players enter a room and I need to add stuff, or describe things, and I don't want them zipping forward and revealing more than they should be able to see.

At an in-person table, the GM controls the exploration because they either have to describe things, or draw/reveal the map as they go. If you have a cool VTT dungeon set up with lights and walls etc, there's nothing outside of the PAUSE or locked doors etc. to stop players from zipping around and exploring things... other than etiquette, of course, which isn't too hard to set (in my experience, anyway).