Coming alongside the new One D&D system, Wizards of the Coast is also releasing its own official virtual tabletop Dungeons & Dragons tool.
Coming in 2024, One D&D is going to be an eternal edition of sorts for Dungeons & Dragons, solidifying the core rulesets of D&D to make it more stable and approachable to newer players. To complement this change, Wizards of the Coast is now also developing its own official virtual tabletop tool that brings the magic of tabletop gaming to the digital space (as a side note: let's hope this doesn't end up involving NFTs and the Metaverse). Built using Unreal Engine 5, the main ideas are ease of use and aesthetics. Ease of use means giving the DM all of the tools they need to get an adventure ready, all within reach and with hand-holding – to take care of the “Lazy DM.”
While Wizards of the Coast will be preparing this virtual experience for everyone to use, any templates included in the digital experience will be fully-customizable, still giving full control to the players. However, Wizards of the Coast stresses that the digital tabletop isn't a video game, but rather, a digitization of the tabletop experience. This is epitomized with the “tilt-shift camera” angle employed in the tool, which gives an isometric view of the tabletop, giving the miniatures feel small – taking the player out of the world to remind them that they are playing a tabletop game, not a CRPG game. All of the story-telling and role-playing still happen in real life, and the digital tabletop is only there to serve as a medium. So, don't expect text boxes and dialog options to be built into the tool – all of these are still to be done manually – or, err, through Discord.
Playtesting for the One D&D system is now up, all you have to do is sign up at D&D Beyond. Meanwhile, the digital experience is still in its early development, with dice rolling and miniature movement all figured out, but the entire product is not yet available for the public.
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