Whether you play online or in-person, virtual tabletops are indispensable tools to immerse your group in gameplay and streamline combat and exploration. D&D Beyond has two VTTs to help you prep less so you can play more: Maps, a 2D VTT that seamlessly syncs to your D&D Beyond library, and Sigil, an immersive 3D VTT with deep integration to D&D Beyond and world-building and mini-making tools.
In this article, we'll break down how both of these tools can supplement your games so you can focus on the adventure at hand!
Maps: The 2D Virtual Tabletop (VTT)
The Maps 2D VTT is designed to make it easy to bring you and your friends together for tactical adventures, whether you're playing in-person or online.
Play Today with a Master Tier Subscription
Master Tier subscribers get access to the Maps 2D VTT in addition to the other benefits of their subscription, including book content sharing with party members, unlimited character slots, perks, and early access to book releases.
Seamlessly Sync to Your D&D Beyond Library
You can seamlessly add maps and monster tokens from the books in your D&D Beyond library to your Maps digital playspace. The Token Browser lets you filter monsters by creature type, size, Challenge Rating, and source, making it easy to find the perfect foe for your encounter.
Your Maps session is linked to your campaign, so players can join effortlessly without a subscription. You can add player tokens with ease, and every roll from their D&D Beyond character sheet automatically appears in the Game Log, alongside rolls from monster stat blocks in Maps. This keeps everything in one place, so you can track every Dexterity (Stealth) check, saving throw, and Critical Hit together!
You can also make Maps work for you, no matter how you run your sessions! You can upload custom maps to bring each unique session to life, whether using maps from official sources, ones you've found online, or hand-drawn creations.
Streamline Your Games with Handy Tools
Maps is packed with features to make running encounters smoother than ever. With these tools at your fingertips, you can focus less on logistics and more on the adventure!
- Fog of War: This feature lets you control what your players can see, allowing you to reveal new areas as they explore and keep the unknown shrouded in mystery.
- Ruler and Pointer: These tools help you and your players measure distances, plan movement, and strategize your next move.
- Overlays: These add extra layers of detail to your maps, letting you track environmental effects, hazards, or area-of-effect spells at a glance.
Prep and Run Encounters with Ease
Maps gives you the tools to build and run your encounters, whether you're planning ahead or improvising on the fly. The Maps combat encounter tool uses the XP budget method from the new Dungeon Master's Guide to craft balanced battles that will challenge your party.
Then, you can easily start combat with all the tokens on the map with a single click, making sure your session doesn't lose steam when you dramatically declare, “Roll for Initiative!”
You can also track Hit Points and roll directly from monster stat blocks, keeping turns action-packed and running smoothly.
Sigil: The Immersive 3D Virtual Tabletop (VTT)
With the Sigil 3D VTT, you can experience D&D in an epic immersive environment. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Sigil provides intuitive tools to run your game, build your world, and create miniatures.
This VTT features deep integration with D&D Beyond and can allow you to connect to your whole party for a multiplayer experience!
Play Today with a Free D&D Beyond Account
You can dive into Sigil with a free D&D Beyond account* and experience its immersive VTT, world-building, and token-making tools. You can gain the ability to host multiplayer games and unlock additional bonus content, builder kits, and mini customization options with a Master Tier subscription.
* If your D&D Beyond account was created using Apple, Google, or Twitch, you will be prompted to create a Wizards account when launching Sigil.
Immerse Your Table in Epic Dungeons & Dragons Adventures
The Sigil 3D VTT allows you to craft breathtaking digital environments for your campaign. From deadly dungeons and creepy crypts to whimsical fey forests, build immersive locations using an extensive library of assets, textures, and lighting effects.
For those just starting or looking for a quick adventure, Sigil comes with the introductory adventure Danger at Dunbarrow. This premade adventure is perfect for groups new to the Sigil VTT to run an immersive session with minimal preparation.
When you start hosting a game with your Master Tier subscription, everyone in your group can join in the fun. Each player can connect through their free D&D Beyond account, making it easy to integrate characters and stats. Players can view and interact with the maps you create in real-time, so you can share in the fun together!
Bring Your Game to Life
Sigil's mini builder tool lets you create and customize 3D representations of your characters by adjusting your miniatures' poses, armor, weapons, and accessories to bring out their unique personality!
When it comes time to harness the forces of magic, Sigil brings spells to life with dynamic animations. Watch as your Sorcerer blankets the battlefield in fire or Cleric channels divine energy to bolster your allies' strength.
Sigil also includes digital dice that roll across the 3D environment, allowing your party to celebrate every successful hit and rally around every near miss.
Start Playing Today
Whether you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to run tactical encounters or an immersive 3D environment to bring your world to life, D&D Beyond has you covered.
Maps provides a fast and easy way to integrate battle maps, track Initiative, and manage encounters, making it perfect for both in-person and online sessions. Sigil, on the other hand, offers a full digital sandbox with world-building tools, animated spell effects, and customizable miniatures, bringing the magic of the tabletop to a shared virtual space.
Try them both and see how they can help you prep less so you can play more today!
Mike Bernier is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his partner, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
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Posted Mar 1, 2025Love to try it but no Mac support.
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Posted Mar 1, 2025Its still cool
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Posted Mar 2, 2025Can I turn off the auto rolls???? I want to roll my own dice!!!!
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Posted Mar 2, 2025Ok so tested last night!
issues found or maybe just preferences.
1: more detail of character sheet!
2: only allow proper number of actions. Characters and DM can attack and move out of turn. Even Tailspire block movement and control when not your turn.
3. Very buggy right now!
4. When starting combat I would rather allow players to actually roll for initiative.
5. I would rather roll for damage NO AUTO ROLLS. Give me a prompt to roll. If you take the rolls away it begins to just feel like a video game!!!!
6. Rogue sneak attack should be promoted if action is allowed.
7. In other words it looks good has a lot of player interaction that need to change.
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Posted Mar 2, 2025I was poking around in sigil, and I couldn't figure out anyway to import actual characters from the game beyond their limited selection of monsters and npcs...
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Posted Mar 3, 2025Both are amazing! Thanks for bringing these tools to us, heroes of D&D Beyond! 😇✨ But, of course, the journey has just begun—there’s still much to refine and expand. So please, don’t stop their development!
I'm absolutely loving Sigil—it has incredible potential! A few things would make it even more legendary:
🔹 Let the DM edit monster stats!
🔹 A spectator mode would be a game-changer—I really need it to share the screen with my players at our in-person table!
🔹 And, please, let the DM import content! That would be truly epic.
We greatly appreciate your efforts, adventurers of the digital realm! So let’s keep pushing forward and spreading the word of D&D across the world! ⚔️🔥
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Posted Mar 3, 2025And please, consider adding a "Control Z" option! The selection tool can be a bit unpredictable, and sometimes the DM rolls a natural 1 while setting things up. An undo feature would be a true blessing from the gods of game mastering! 🙌✨
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Posted Mar 4, 2025This...main reason I don't use dnd beyond much because I buy my books physically and they have no way of transferring my purchases and I am not gonna buy the books twice.
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Posted Mar 5, 2025Same.
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Posted Mar 5, 2025So, how do we use this in a person-to-person gaming setup, around a table with a TV for instance?
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Posted Mar 6, 2025Old dude here. I'm just getting back into it and, personally, just the convivence of not having to lug around books, dice, and the other stuff needed to play a f2f pnp dnd game makes the digital gaming experience better.
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Posted Mar 7, 2025Sigil is already shaping up to be an epic tool, and I can’t wait to see where this adventure leads! 🏰✨ But every hero's journey has its challenges, so here are a few things that would make it even more legendary:
🔹 First-person view for the DM – A simple button on the selected mini would help immensely instead of struggling with the photo mode camera.
🔹 Better camera controls – Right now, navigating multi-floor scenes (like mountains) is a boss battle in itself. The camera jumps up and down automatically, making it hard to control. Allowing height adjustments independent of the floor marker would be a game-changer!
🔹 An offline mode, please! For in-person tables, sometimes we just need a local setup without relying on an online connection.
🔹 True D&D Beyond integration – Imagine character sheets updating in real time while playing! That would be legendary.
🔹 Lockable build pieces – Accidentally moving the wrong piece while building can throw off everything. A way to lock objects in place would save many a frustrated DM.
🔹 More control over object placement – The scale is nice, but let us resize, rotate in all directions, and even tip over minis! Sometimes the battlefield demands a little more chaos!
🔹 Let the DM edit monster stats! – This would give more flexibility and control to tailor encounters perfectly.
🔹 A spectator mode – This would be a game-changer! I really need it to share the screen with my players at our in-person table.
🔹 Let the DM import content! – This would be truly epic and would make customization so much easier.
🔹 A 'Control Z' option! – The selection tool can be unpredictable, and sometimes the DM rolls a natural 1 while setting things up. An undo feature would be a true blessing from the gods of game mastering! 🙌✨
And speaking of updates—I've already run a session using Sigil this week, and the server went down twice (for less than a minute). Thought it was a bug at first, but it was just a quick restart. Not a big deal, but it did cause some mid-game anxiety. Also, I noticed the floor switching when clicking on minis—probably a new tweak.
That said, you're doing an incredible job with these updates. Keep going! Don’t stop! You’re on the path to rolling a natural 20 with Sigil! As both a DM and player, I can't wait to see where this adventure takes us!
Big thanks to the entire team—let’s keep the dice rolling and bring Sigil to legendary status! ⚔️🔥
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Posted Mar 7, 2025This is the problem when you have too many projects going at once and not enough staff. In reality, Sigil should not be a thing and the company should focus on maps. Why? Very simple, usability. Currently Maps has no integration with the encounter builder, meaning all encounters have to be built in maps to use maps, same thing with Sigil. Encounter builder is still in Beta, Maps still in Beta and now Sigil in a Beta state and there is no connection between the tools.
The focus should have been integrating encounter builder with Maps, this would make both tools WAY more valuable. Then giving the ability to import that into Sigil would be nice but you can't do everything at once. The issue is Hasbro is trying so hard to make money off this IP instead of making a good product. This is easy to see based on the simple fact nothing is out of Beta and not one of the tools is anywhere close to full release. I feel bad for the dev teams, it's not their fault but the products that we are getting are just not what they need to be.
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Posted Mar 7, 2025I'm still unsure which one I prefer. On one hand I agree with some of what you're saying, but in the other hand my current campaign probably has more flying creatures than non-flying creatures lol. Keeping track of where each flying creature is has definitely been proving itself an annoyance with 2D VTTs
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Posted Mar 8, 2025I've been trying to use MAPS for a Rime of the Frostmaiden game instead of Owlbear. Why use over roll20? Well, I don't have all my stuff at roll20, I have it on DDB, and it works alongside DDB's encounter builder. If I had my stuff on Roll20 then I wouldn't bother with MAPS. I purchased Foundry back at Covid time but I've never used it to run a game, too much prep work.. I like light and easy (Roll20/MAPS/Owlbear).
I did move my Rime game BACK to Owlbear last month though. MAPS is great for stuff that's in DDB, but cusom monsters? Gotta create a whole homebrew monster to get it in there, even if you just want to use your own tokens for goblins etc. Owlbear I just drag something in and it's there. I was frustrated also when my Duergar would grow or shrink and I couldn't change the size of their tokens.. DDB has a lot of generic images for creatures, if they are gonna be imported from their database, associate an image. Roll20 has a bunch of nobels/townnsfolk, generic elves dwarves etc.. DDB doesn't. and getting your stuff in there takes too many steps still.
I don't remember how difficult or easy it is to import maps and other assets to R20, but despite purchasing the digital content for Rime you realize there's a lot of images and maps you still need to create when you run the adventure. Taverns, homes, shops.. Owlbear lets me drop in last minute things on the fly (I'm sure I'm the only DM in existence who has a party that never goes where I expect of prepare for). I still think MAPS is a great tool and hope that it'll continue to improve.
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Posted Mar 8, 2025Can we get this on Mac?
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Posted Mar 11, 2025You pick or make a figure and then when you select them there is a option to import from Dnd Beyond. The character needs to be set to Public,
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Posted Mar 11, 2025I've done it that way. I had one Monitor TV for a table logged in as a player which controlled all the PCs and my laptop was the DM. It worked ok but people were more calling out what they wanted to do and one person moved people around etc. I thought maybe having a Controller or wireless keyboard and mouse would help to pass it around. The other I thought about was with people logged in (if they could get a Tablet APP running) people could control it that way as they looked at the bigger monitor.
I also tried it on my gaming table (touch screen) and it worked OK but it was too laggy (if it wasnt lagging then I could see that working great)
Right now its isnt really meant to be used at a TABLE but remote but you need another app to CHAT (text/voice). It's really a non-starter imo at the moment.
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Posted Mar 11, 2025Here is my current assessment on the VTTs options on D&D Beyond. I like how the Maps has been updated and holds more and more options for my groups. I Currently have three as a DM and am player in a fourth. We use the Maps as long as we have internet. There are still some issues that need addressed (Flying and Condition Rings for example) but over all is a good product. As far as Sigil I have been playing with it for the past few days and find it takes too much time for me as a DM hosting Multiple games to use. And i have yet to get any of my players to be able to connect when I host a test session. Most of the encounters that I want to use are not available in the mini or tokens currently available. Sigil would be good for a one off or a specific event for the players but as for a regular on-going game Maps is a far superior product.
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Posted Mar 12, 2025cool, thank you for the info!