A few days ago, Wizards of the Coast finally released Sigil, their own 3D tabletop game that could make your online gaming sessions even more impressive.
On February 27, after months of waiting, a first version of Sigil was finally released. The tool is a new project from the D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast, with which they want to compete with various VTT programs.
What is “VTT”?
VTT stands for Virtual Tabletop and usually describes programs or websites that not only make gaming over the internet possible, but often also provide some helpful features. Most of these programs allow you to roll dice, manage character sheets or display adventures via 2D maps or, in some cases, 3D environments.
Sigil is able to display your D&D adventures, or rather your certainly epic battles, in a complete 3D environment. So you can play your battles like in a video game, provided you take the time to prepare everything.
This is how Sigil works
If you are interested in Sigil, you can download the program for free now. However, it is only available on Windows so far. To get Sigil, you also need an account for D&D Beyond, an online service where you can create characters, manage campaigns and get digital books.
Here is a brief and step-by-step guide.
- If you haven’t already, create an account for D&D Beyond.
- Go to the official websiteand download the DnD launcher.
- Run the program and log in to your account.
- Now download everything in the launcher (this may take a while).
- Click on Play and Sigil will boot up. Now you can create a table and build a map, or select a pre-made level.
Currently, there still seem to be server problems; some players experienced the launcher taking an unusually long time to download the program. So don’t be surprised if you have to wait a while here.
If you use the free version, you can create a map and use some assets for the environments or tokens with official character values. In practice, you build a map as you would in a level editor on a PC. You choose from a list of assets and place them in the desired environment. Be prepared to do a little trial and error.
In addition, the program is only available in English so far.
If you want to use all of Sigil’s features and have even more assets, you’ll need a Master Tier subscription to D&D Beyond, which will cost you about $4 a month. And if you want access to additional spells, classes, or monster statistics, you’ll still need the corresponding rulebooks from D&D Beyond.
What makes Sigil stand out
Sigil is not the first program that allows you to build 3D maps for your fights and move mini-figures around in them. Predecessors such as Talespire, which is available on Steam, were there first and currently offer significantly more assets and features than Sigil.
The big advantage of Sigil is the seamless integration of D&D Beyond, which many fans now use for character generation anyway. You can simply transfer all the characters you’ve created and use it to manage all your skills, attacks, and spell slots.
Editor’s opinion
So far, I have only been able to try out the free version of Sigil, and I can definitely see the appeal of such a program. Integrating my D&D Beyond heroes with a single click went surprisingly well, and the fact that the program even visually highlights some spells is quite impressive.
However, Wizards of the Coast is still lagging behind the competition here. The D&D publisher can’t yet compensate for the numerous advantages (especially in exploration) of other VTTs like Foundry, even if everything here shines in quite chic 3D.
