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'.

 

[Dire Bare]

Sigil is a platform. WotC controls it 100%. They own the marketplace within the Sigil platform, meaning that they decide who sells there and they get a cut from every sale. This is a monopoly because they control the entire market within the platform. And this platform is destined to be HUGE—it will threaten Roll20 and FG and Foundry and the others just by virtue of its brand and investment.

I’m honestly confused by this argument. I don’t feel like you’re reading what I’m saying. Clearly I’m a bit more cynical and youre a bit more optimistic about Sigil, but I’m not even clear what we’re quibbling about anymore. Other than definitions and speculation.

That's not what a monopoly is. Not even close.

Does DriveThruRPG hold a monopoly over digital sales of TTRPG products? No, they have several competitors. Are they huge in the space? Yes. Do they control their own platform, who sells and who doesn't on DTRPG? Yes. Still not a monopoly.

Project Sigil is not a monopoly in any sense of the word. That's absolutely a ridiculous thing to claim.

 

[Zaukrie]

Despite the fact one of my players will need to borrow or find a Windows PC......I'm really looking forward to testing this. Like, really.

 

[Dire Bare]

I think the term your grappling for here is "walled garden". WotC won't be a monopoly with Sigil because there will be other VTT platforms that will continue to have a significant presence in the market as a whole. It's going to be closer to a walled garden in the sense that, with control of their platform, they have the final say on what gets in and can set terms of use in how it's deployed. They say that they're going to allow various 3pp materials and, of course, home brewed stuff including 2d tokens, so that wall will have a number of points of entry for content that isn't their own. But there will be a substantial amount they will control since it is their platform and they'll decide how much of their time is worth investing in any initiative that primarily helps other companies rather than themselves.

Project Sigil as "walled garden"? Maybe. Probably not.

Will Project Sigil allow you to upload your own assets like 2D tokens, maps, or 3D miniatures? Well, 2D assets are a definite "yes", and it's possible you'll be able to upload 3D assets also. We'll see.

Can you play games other than what will be available in the Project Sigil marketplace? Yes, we already know that. They won't integrate with D&D Beyond, but you can use Sigil to play whatever you want.

So, not a monopoly and not a walled garden.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I'm just speculating: every PC on Sigil gets the basic equipment and maybe you can unlock Masterwork items by completing objectives. BUT, the good MAGICAL stuff will require you PAY for it. It's almost exactly how Fortnite, Warzone and certain other video games work. So, the players who pay the most for elite gear WIN more. I read an article yesterday about the possibility of D&D losing its longtime "cooperative gameplay" foundation due to how competitive pay-to-win games are. I can't stop thinking of the impact Hight could have with all this, going forward.

I think they might, depending on how well Sigil does. Professor DM at Dungeon Craft just posted a video about DDB and WotC that has some bearing here:

Nothing Professor DM says is worth listening to in these videos.

Also that's not how D&D works. Having PC's pay real money for their own magic gear does not make the least bit of sense.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Despite the fact one of my players will need to borrow or find a Windows PC......I'm really looking forward to testing this. Like, really.

It should work on Mac too, you won't require Windows I am pretty sure.

 

[MoonSong]

People talk about all of the issues with AI (and there are many) but I would actually like some AI help with making maps. I do a lot of TotM for exploration because I find detailed map making boring. While I'm sure others love it, and people will be able to share their creations which is awesome, I found it to be time consuming and tedious when I had to do it during COVID even if I was able to get results we enjoyed.

So for me? Have an AI give me a basic town layout based on basic options and criteria. Let me use the tools provided to then tweak the look and feel of that town to match what I had envisioned. Extending it even further, learn from previous maps I generated and modified. Ideally, if they go into a house I never imagined they'd want to go into because the PCs are always going directions I don't expect, have a real interior.

I'm sure that kind of functionality is down the road, if ever, but that would be incredible. There's other things the AI could help with of course like help filling out campaign details, but that's a separate topic.

You don't need AI for this. Well fine-tuned procedural generation mostly gets you there. Maybe augmented through basic machine learning, but this has been a thing for a long time.

 

[Oofta]

Project Sigil as "walled garden"? Maybe. Probably not.

Will Project Sigil allow you to upload your own assets like 2D tokens, maps, or 3D miniatures? Well, 2D assets are a definite "yes", and it's possible you'll be able to upload 3D assets also. We'll see.

Can you play games other than what will be available in the Project Sigil marketplace? Yes, we already know that. They won't integrate with D&D Beyond, but you can use Sigil to play whatever you want.

So, not a monopoly and not a walled garden.

Some people have a very broad definition of walled garden. I think Apple is a good example of a walled garden, you can only get compatible software and peripheral devices (except power cords because the EU made them) from Apple. On the other hand I don't think of Walmart as a walled garden because while they buy products from all sorts of other producers they don't let anyone sell whatever they wish in their store.

Sigil will be compatible with DDB and you can get 3PP on DDB. Since you can use monsters and whatnot that WotC didn't create I think it's as much a walled garden as Walmart.

 

[Oofta]

It should work on Mac too, you won't require Windows I am pretty sure.

Several of my players use tablets which it will probably not work on at first.

 

[Oofta]

You don't need AI for this. Well fine-tuned procedural generation mostly gets you there. Maybe augmented through basic machine learning, but this has been a thing for a long time.

There are generators but they're pretty generic. At least I haven't found any that do a very good job. Maybe I just haven't found one that works well.

 

[Theory of Games]

Nothing Professor DM says is worth listening to in these videos.

Also that's not how D&D works. Having PC's pay real money for their own magic gear does not make the least bit of sense.

It does make perfect BUSINESS sense, though. Activision and other video game companies have proven "pay-to-win" works, in a big way. And it makes perfect sense when I look at it from Hasbro's perspective. All shareholders care about is that stock value and Hasbro has already said they are going ahead with digital 100% because that will drive their value up.