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The trickiest thing about D&D Project Sigil is describing it.Is this a video game?
What about a virtual tabletop like Roll20, then?
According to the developers, Project Sigil isn’t trying to steal its thunder.
So, this begs the question: what the hellisD&D Project Sigil?
Essentially, Project Sigil is a toybox.
“My response, now that I’m listening to it, sounds really general,” Cao admits.
Compliment, not substitute
Announced back in August 2022, Project Sigil has always been ambitious.
you’re able to apparently import them from elsewhere, too thebest D&D books, say.
“It’s a trap, right?”
“Where you go, like, oh, we’ll make the characters walk around.
We’ll do all these other things.
That stuff is actually killing the imagination.
Whereas if you might have just a little miniature, you might imagine it doing anything.
It’s cooler to have it be this blend of imagination plus realization.”
Foes will explode in dazzling light when using ‘fireball’ on them, for example.
“This is the next level of it, right?”
“It’s immersive.
We don’t want it to be like a spreadsheet where you have your combat.”
But we interpreted [them differently].
The hair was different, so that they felt more like toys."
In their minds, Project Sigil is almost a platform.
Stutzman points to HeroQuest, another Hasbro game, as a case in point.
“And we can use the [Project Sigil] hit points to track hit points.
And so you just use those tools to play this other game.
The D&D one will be the most streamlined, right?
And they’ll come in and they’ll have something that’s all sort of ready to go.
But if you’re already playing pen and paper, any RPG, you could play that.
All you need is dice and your character sheet for whatever RPG you’re playing.
This is where the ability to mod characters, maps, and more came from.
“We are the easy way for you to play with those toys,” Cao says.
Still, a modifiable system has its drawbacks something I suppose you could charmingly call ‘time to penis.’
When you give the community the tools to do what they will, oh boy,will they.
How is Project Sigil going to handle moderation and community safety?
“We think about it in a couple of different ways,” says Cao.
“So the first way is, you invite your friends with a room code.
And so we actually don’t want to make everybody sign up for another account.
If players want it, great, we’ll put it in.
You’re sharing who you are, you’re being daring.
It’s such a trust-based environment already.
We want to verify that our core experience is that.
And honestly, that’s actually one of the bigger challenges.
We don’t have that solved.
But we’re telling everybody sharing D&DisD&D.
So how do we do that?
We don’t have an answer yet.
But we know that’s what we’re building it to do.”
A lot of thought is going into what makes a ‘legitimate’ D&D experience as a result.
Are the rules going to be enforced?
But we’re doing it by what matters most.
What’s fun for most people?
The ‘legitimacy’ for us is, are you in control?”
“People think they’re playing Fifth Edition.
It’s very different.
So that’s a different worldview to Magic players.
Magic players are like, the card is the card.”
But what does Cao hope fans get from it?
Simple that this is “just D&D.
This is just D&D.
I know that sounds really simple.
But if people can take that away, then they’ll understand.
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