As part of Dungeons & Dragons As Wizards of the Coast celebrates its 50th anniversary, it has been making big changes to its biggest brands, including new branding deals, new rulebooks, and more. But no Dungeons & Dragons buzz has been as heated or mysterious as Project Sigil, the company’s big entry into the crowded VTT field. At Gen Con, we got an early look at the Unreal Engine 5-based tools, as well as how the combat and level design in the game will work. We also met with Chris Cao, VP of Digital Game Development, and Kale Stutzman, Digital Director for Dungeons & Dragons, to learn more about the game’s(?) development process and the company’s expectations for this ambitious project.
It’s been 10 years since 5E began, and part of the evolution of 5E has been the proliferation of digital options. There are so many existing Virtual Tabletops (VTTs) out there, I’m curious what the process was like for you thinking about what stands out, what it does, and what makes it an essential part of your placement.
Chris Kao: How do we fit in and what do we do? First of all, I want to thank all of our fans for basically building something that we didn’t have yet: Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, Owlbear Rodeo. I wanted to start there because D&D Beyond works with all of these sites. They’re from there. For us, all they were doing was saying, “Hey, I want to play D&D remotely with my friends, or I want to play D&D more easily.” Now that we’re part of this ecosystem, the books, the web, and Project Sigil, D&D Beyond maps are like classic VTTs in that they’re 2D and on the web, so they can be used by anyone, anywhere. That’s what it’s about. It’s a very strong tribute to the books. The text is there, and everything else is there.
When we were originally talking about Sigil, I kept asking Kale through the PowerPoint, “How close is this?” and “What is this?” We thought about it and we finally came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to be a transliteration of the book because it would take too long to build a castle. Perkins can say “The Dark Castle” in one sentence. It takes six months to build a Dark Castle. We said why not revisit the idea of ​​a modular place where we’d give you an hour or two, a session or two, and then we’d give you a toy and you could take it apart and remix it and do whatever you wanted with it.
For us, it’s not a simulation space or a transliteration space, it’s an immersive space. So not everyone is playing with it all the time. They play it specifically for combat and revealing areas and stuff. Then they use all the other tools. We don’t stand alone. We are part of this through Sigil and through the books.
Cale Stutzman: I think I could use it that way too, and I think a lot of hardcore D&D fans are going to be like, “This is a boss fight, let’s take our time and make it really cool,” but I think newer players are going to be like, “Okay, I could use this.”
People who come here Baldur’s Gate 3They may want constant immersion, but for them, shorter modular sessions where they can play for an hour or two at a time and get the full D&D experience are important, and they don’t need anything else. That’s interesting, because I think this is a bridge between the two.
Cao: It’s a little Key Role It’s theater. They play in person. They have a digital character sheet and Matt brings out the miniatures. And that’s it.
Stutzman: Dimension 20 works similarly.
Cao: Dimension 20. Yes.
Stutzman: We talk for a while, have fun at the table, and then we bring something up.
I’m curious how you’ve thought about translating “I just played” Baldur’s Gate“I’m coming in as a gamer.” You guys have experience with other genres of video games and you’ve been getting people coming from that space specifically. How was that intentional for you?
Cao: Certainly, we think about it deeply.
Stutzman: They really need it becauseDungeons & Dragons Wizards players, especially across the company, we’re inviting them in, sitting them down, saying, “Come on, let’s play together,” and seeing how that transitions for them. Sometimes they’re playing computer games, sometimes they’re not using computers. or You play D&D and you say, “There’s a button at the bottom of the screen, and that does something.”
Cao: Actually, the hardest part is that as D&D players, we often think, “I have to teach you the rules.” The rules aren’t the problem. The problem is how do you remember to use your imagination to play. Figure out all the actions, figure out what to say. What’s funny is that in video games, they skip that part. They go straight to the part where you run around and kill monsters. We take our best game engineers and take a step back to where you’re just playing with a toy. For video gamers, this is actually new, because it looks like a video game. It has the video game controls, but you’re actually actively telling the story, not as a conversation tree.
Stutzman: And it’s really fun to introduce that to new people because someone like Cynthia [Williams] She’s a former president. I think the first time she played she played a wizard, which is the kind of role you don’t give to a beginner. A wizard is a very complicated role, but she said, “I want to try being a wizard,” and she clicked the fireball button and blew up all the kobolds with fireballs. She said, “I love being a wizard. Why didn’t you let me be a wizard last time?” [laughs]
Cao: She used to play tabletop campaigns, and now she says, “I love blowing things up.” She was having a blast.
Stutzman: That’s exactly right. I think the first time she played a tabletop game they said, “Oh, be a warrior,” because that was the easiest of the rules.
Cao: That makes sense.
Stutzman: That makes sense, but she
Cao: Having characters to move around helps a lot. And D&D players often forget that they have really powerful imaginations because they spend hundreds of hours imagining scenes. Go ahead and do it if you want. Other people don’t have that level of precision. We still have a lot of room for imagination. We just give you something to look at to help you along the way.
When you think about accessibility, it’s used in two different ways in these scenarios. The first one, which you mentioned, is the player, but I’m curious how you’ve worked to ensure that people who are visually impaired or color blind can test Project SIGIL. Do you have any tools for that or do you have plans to make it even more accessible?
Cao: Yes. We started consulting with people early on, both physically disabled and neuro-atypical. I’m not an expert, so I don’t know, but we consulted with both. To be honest, we’re just done with the key remapping, so we’re not there yet. We’re just getting started, but we want to do things like controller support, because that will allow us to incorporate a lot of alternative peripherals. Contrast controls is one such feature. In fact, we’re introducing this as a closed beta, where we can get the best feedback. We talked to visually impaired gamers and asked them, “What do you think about this?” To be honest, there are some parts that don’t suit you, but if you try it, how does it feel? Let’s see.
I think Wizards has done a really good job in terms of showcasing more features, even just through the art, like, “Yes, we have some options for people who use wheelchairs or for people whose player characters are visually impaired.”
Cao: We all know you’re expressing yourself or trying out a new version of yourself, and there’s a reason we were all so into this during our teenage years – because it’s like, “Who am I? What am I doing?” Being able to role-play is a great way to explore.
My final question, and this is going to be a controversial one, is about monetizing new assets. How will people get their hands on new stuff? Will there be new creation options? Or will you be continually adding new stuff and putting it on the marketplace?
Stutzman: Before I answer your business question, let me answer your creative question first. There’s that one person in every group, including my group that we play together every week, who never spends money on D&D, but we love that person. We want that person to always have a seat at the table. “That person has to be able to play.” That person has to be able to play, but not just play tokenistically. They have to be able to play in a way that allows them to keep leveling up with everyone else.
Cao: I’m going to do creative work through my business. The key is to sell it as a business, to let players create their own things and do their own thing. We’re not a photo shop for those types of games, but we’re more like a game support system. Minecraft or Roblox It’s a place where you can express yourself. First of all, the game has a 2D map and tokens like flat tokens. You can just play. If you just want to play, play the starter set and it’s 3D so you get an overview. You can play with your friends for free.
We want to keep people connected. The subclasses and choices are there so you can play with your friends for free and keep going. We are also client-server, so we want to really create high fidelity assets and we want to create a sustainable business out of that. We are starting with subscriptions because we know D&D players love subscriptions and we know we can add value to them. And the idea that if you sign up you get more access makes sense and is an expectation we have already set. Like I said, when you go to a game store, you see it’s different from any other store. It’s a place with miniatures, maps on the walls, swords hanging. So it’s a place where you can have an experience. People like to spend money on all of that. If you want to spend money on it, we just want to find the best way to pay for it. It’s sustainable, it’s scalable, and most importantly, it’s what you want.
Because if you buy a product and you pay up front, you get what you want, and sometimes people will sell you slot machines disguised as microtransaction machines, right? Really, we just… Dungeons & Dragons Players already like to buy. How you want to buy is up to you, but the point is, we don’t want to assume that, so we want you to play before we charge you. Because we actually need feedback, we need more of this and less of that. We’re not going to get all the feedback from the community, because players want different things than DMs, and honestly, there’s a whole other group, like dollhouse types, people who just like to build and play stuff.
Stutzman: I hope you guys understand something. We’re just saying general things about some things, because if we said we’re going to do all this stuff and you’re not playing, that means we don’t actually know what you care about. We know what you care about conceptually, we know what to charge conceptually. It seems confusing. [laughter]
Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast
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