Wizards of the Coast offered up a first look at D&D Virtual Tabletop, a new digital platform for Dungeons & Dragons RPG play, which is currently in its pre-alpha stages of development.
The new platform is being developed on the Unreal Engine 5 and offers quite a few animated bells and whistles for both DMs and players to toggle during game play. The goal of this platform, according to a blog post by Game Director of the D&D Virtual Tabletop Kale Stutzman, is threefold: to be fun, convenient to use, and authentic to the rules. From what has been shown in the trailer thus far, it seems to be on its way to accomplishing these goals.
The platform offers a 3D digitally-connected experience for RPG players, similar to MMORPGs except with a Dungeon Master in control of the adventure being played. The DM sets the action and pace by spawning digital miniatures on the board, assigning monster stats, and showing or hiding elements of the game as they come up in the adventure. Dice rolls and results are automated, with an option to do them manually, and the platform will be able to support the 3D maps as well as imported 2D maps. The development team is also working on integrations with D&D Beyond (see “‘Dungeons & Dragons’“),and on different VFX and animations for various actions in the game, like monsters surprising the adventurers and spellcasting.
D&D Virtual Tabletop will slowly open up its playtesting to more players as the year goes on. When satisfied with the toolset available on the platform, they will open it up to the D&D community for a public beta.
Source: ICv2
