Project Sigil All the Deets on Project Sigil the D&D 3D Virtual Tabletop

• Danger in Dunbarrow is the adventure designed to introduced the 3D tabletop.
• Bring in any character from D&D Beyond.
• 'Mini Maker' lets you design digital miniatures.
• Assets designed to feel like buying a high-end mini or figure somewhere between painted and realistic.
• Plug in locations like graveyard, mine, town each with a premade story you can use or ignore.
• "Modding games more than making them whole cloth."
• The Level Builder is like 'the best miniatures set that you could have'. Snap together different kit pieces.
• Secret doors, traps, lifts that go up and down.
• Also use 2D tokens with artwork you have.
• Also use 2D maps.
• You can play other games with it, not just D&D.
• Have Drizzt fight Optimus Prime.
• Share content with others.
• Starting on PC, other platforms later including mobile and console.
• Will be available to try out for free.
• Closed beta coming this fall for those with a DDB account.
• Pre-order 2024 physical and digital core rulebook bundle to get a free digital gold dragon mini to 'kickstarter your Project Sigil collection'.

 

[Oofta]

Folks are acting like there isn’t already huge monetization of D&D:

I spend about £30-£50 a month on patreon and platforms a month buying maps, tokens, adventure VTT modules/rules and subscriptions for Roll20 and Forge (host for Foundry). Which is fine because I spend about 30 hours a month playing and several more preparing. I can buy a set of virtual Devin Night tokens for $5 or a jpeg map pack from Heroic Maps for similar because it fits what I’m looking for.

WotC just want to get a share of that, because up to recently they were getting diddly squat. Though they are working on that with D&D beyond. That’s monetization. If you’re not currently spending money on these things then good for you, this won’t force you to pay. But don’t begrudge those who do and expect them to make you a great system for free.

The fact that they will have the option for 2D maps and tokens is actually encouraging to me. If I were to use it I could see getting some basic stuff and then just fill in with 2D things as needed. Which makes sense, if they get people like me using it, every once in a while I'll buy a cool new terrain set or my wife will get me some cool special effects monsters or minis.

It's just the constant comparison to video games and how they work along with the assumption that a VTT works at all like that which I find tiresome.

 

[Clint_L]

I already spend money of F2P games and have a weekly game of Destiny 2 with friends I've known for 25 years. I understand these models and I'm not worried about it at all. D&D Sigil may, or may not, be worth my investment.

However there's a number of people on this thread that clearly don't understand how these pricing structures work, haven't been able to read between the lines of the announcements, or the pros/cons of a F2P monetisation system.

I very much do understand how they work. I am looking for concrete examples of how most of those strategies will apply to D&D, which is not a video game. It's not like Fortnite, for example, which you can play by yourself, all the time, wherever you feel like it. So instead of telling us to read between the lines, give us some concrete examples. When I am told to "read between the lines," I just assume the person telling me to do so can't give me an actual example. If it's so obvious, it should be easy to explain, no?

It's not a game where you can purchase advantages, because...it's not a video game. It's still D&D, being run by an actual human dungeon master and played with other humans. The more apt analogy is physical miniatures and terrain, which have existed for ages. Some players do purchase special miniatures for their characters, and I think more might do so if it is easily available via a VTT. I'm sure there will be an option to make really cool looking digital miniatures, for a price. But I doubt there's a ton of money in that. Most of the VTT money will probably come off DMs (as usual, sigh) collecting digital miniatures and terrain. It sounds like that will be done through purchasing adventure modules.

Hasbro has spoken of trying to increase the monetization of the D&D brand, but they certainly don't expect to get there off the VTT alone. They are looking at the entertainment and video game industries as the primary revenue generators, not to mention many other forms of merchandizing.

 

[GarthS]

In the D&D Direct they havve already told you that it is F2P, and there will be:

• a subscription
• "modules" to purchase with a map and a mini-adventure
• cross-over purchases with things like Transformers

They mention Fortnight and Minecraft in their interviews.

"head of Project Sigil Chris Cao"... "It's a place to play with toys, to play with stories… the elevator pitch might be the Minecraft of D&D, or Roblox for tabletop gaming."

I don't know how much more transparent they could be on how much Hasbro execs think it is a video game.

 

[Oofta]

In the D&D Direct they havve already told you that it is F2P, and there will be:

• a subscription
• "modules" to purchase with a map and a mini-adventure
• cross-over purchases with things like Transformers

They mention Fortnight and Minecraft in their interviews.

"head of Project Sigil Chris Cao"... "It's a place to play with toys, to play with stories… the elevator pitch might be the Minecraft of D&D, or Roblox for tabletop gaming."

I don't know how much more transparent they could be on how much Hasbro execs think it is a video game.

Everything you mention is also true of other VTTs that I've used or looked into. Those are not video games either.

 

[Dire Bare]

In the D&D Direct they havve already told you that it is F2P, and there will be:

• a subscription
• "modules" to purchase with a map and a mini-adventure
• cross-over purchases with things like Transformers

They mention Fortnight and Minecraft in their interviews.

"head of Project Sigil Chris Cao"... "It's a place to play with toys, to play with stories… the elevator pitch might be the Minecraft of D&D, or Roblox for tabletop gaming."

I don't know how much more transparent they could be on how much Hasbro execs think it is a video game.

Sigh.

None of that says "video game with predatory pricing". None.

How does crossing over with other properties, Hasbro and otherwise, change this into a "video game"?

How does the ability to purchase a "module" (short adventure and set of terrain assets) turn this into a "video game"?

How does the current, existing, D&D Beyond subscriptions turn this into a "video game"?

Ah well, y'all doom-and-gloomers can continue howling at the moon over Project Sigil, I'll just calmly wait until the app is actually released, kick the tires, and decide if it's worth my time and money. So far, I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

[Hussar]

The absolute hilarious thing about the whole "Sigil is going to be XXX!!!" is the idea that the current batch of VTT's, none of which are charities, wouldn't already be doing these things if it would line their pockets.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Heck the main VTT's do require you pay for stuff.

Take roll20 were you have to sub for lots of the functions.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In my land we say "Greed breaks the bag". Our money is too hard to be earned to be spent carelessly. We aren't cows awaiting to be milked. If they want our money we have to be happy with the product. The TTRPG players aren't so easy to be tricked because they have to survive the machinations by DM/GMs.

They should offer something could be enjoyed offline, or online but without a central server. The consumer wants to pay for something that will be hers forever.

D&D is wanted to be a multimedia franchise, this means incomes by different sources, and the VTT is only one.

Here the key of the D&D brand is "freedom to create your own stories". Not all players are interested into premade adventures or following the official rules. They want to can do it in their own way.

My suspect is Hasbro would rather to "convert" a videogame created by others previously before starting from zero because several D&D videogames from the last years haven't be sold so good. BG3 or Newerwinter Nights are famous but a lot fell into the oblivion.

Other suggestion is allowing some space where fandom could writte and publish their own D&D fanfiction.

 

[TheSword]

In the D&D Direct they havve already told you that it is F2P, and there will be:

• a subscription
• "modules" to purchase with a map and a mini-adventure
• cross-over purchases with things like Transformers

They mention Fortnight and Minecraft in their interviews.

"head of Project Sigil Chris Cao"... "It's a place to play with toys, to play with stories… the elevator pitch might be the Minecraft of D&D, or Roblox for tabletop gaming."

I don't know how much more transparent they could be on how much Hasbro execs think it is a video game.

Honest question, have you ever used a VTT with official support like Foundry or Roll20?

Cuz all those things already apply. In the case of Foundry you also buy the program up front. I pay a subscription for Forge because I don’t want to run my laptop as a server.

Foundry modules and roll20 modules are not much less than the actual books but they save me days of prep time. So worth every penny.

 

[TheSword]

It seems to me the question is not whether you’re willing to pay for this stuff or not. People are paying.

It’s whether this system will compete satisfactorily with the token makers, and map makers, and other VTT that people are already paying for?

There will be lots of elements that go into that, but from the snap shot, I’m thinking right now it might. It just might.

The one thing that is likely to make me switch to it would be a subscription model that gives me access to all elements right away - their mini library, their map library, all the rules for books released so far. I’d pay $30 a month for that. If I have to buy everything individually like in Roll20 I’m less likely to do that.