My group mostly use FG to run our 5E games.  Great VTT which we've been using for years.  6E play test is really starting to be a thing now - it feels like there is enough material to really play a proper campaign using it now, especially with the latest drop of rules on Mages and Warriors.

So, given my group is geographically distributed and so has to use a VTT, which of the many options out there right now allows us to test out the 6E rules the best - using existing 5E campaigns?

Cheers!
Blakey

In terms of flexibility to customise attributes, feats, weapon stats and anything else that might crop up inside the playtest materials, I would say the most open platforms would be either MapTool or Foundry VTT. Both of those are nearly limitless on what you can change and adapt on the fly... though both do have a bit of a learning curve associated with them to accomplish those changes.

If you do decide to use one of them, note that it is very easy to become overwhelmed with all of the things you can modify within them... instead of installing 100's of modules on Foundry or adding lots of custom macros in MapTool just because they sound cool, it's best to take it slow and just change one thing at a time as and when you feel the need.

Thanks.   Do you (or does anyone) know if there is a community effort to generate a bunch of 6E play test material for the platform?

And would such a thing be legal and supported by Wizards?

I’d be surprised if there were people putting energy into digital tools for the playtest material. There’s already been changes from one test packet to another, who’s want to code something only to have to re-do it after a month. Things are moving too fast. Dndbeyond stopped doing UAs well before the merger for just that reason. 
And if there were, it certainly would not be supported by Wizards. 

Since WotC is developing its own in house VTT for whatever One D&D officially becomes, I'm actually curious how the major players in VTT, traditionally supported licensed by WotC as well as small to large DIY endeavors will be supported, but I don't know of any official/unofficial support for One D&D.  Folks who are more into VTT, I imagine folks can use the 5e resources developed on Foundry and tweak those to be more reflective of the changes in One D&D.  

Any VTT that lets you create character free-form and input arbitrary text for abilities, powers, and spells will let you playtest 6e.  Don't bet on any VTT having automation support (a character creation wizard, auto population of powers, drag spells from a repository, etc) before 6e actually comes out.

I'm not aware of any current community modules for Foundry VTT that implement any of the playtest materials, best place to ask would be on their Discord.

Neither of those platforms have any official licensing with WotC, so they wouldn't be officially supported. However there shouldn't be any legal issues to adding custom stuff to a private game at present.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Any VTT that lets you create character free-form and input arbitrary text for abilities, powers, and spells will let you playtest 6e.  Don't bet on any VTT having automation support (a character creation wizard, auto population of powers, drag spells from a repository, etc) before 6e actually comes out.

You can build custom classes with progression for the new playtest materials in Foundry, they'd take a little work but can be setup to have automated level progression. The process can be made a little easier with something like the Hero Creation Tool module, which functions a little like Roll20's Charactermancer. 

Implementing the new weapon mastery system might take a little bit more work, that particular element might need a little bit macro writing knowledge.

Thanks for your responses, everyone.

I guess there is limited value in trying to put together a set of coded rules for a system that is constantly morphing, yes.  That said, I am sure some geeks out there who love coding for the sake of it and are hardcore D&D fans would be doing it.  :)

I asked on the FG boards and their devs are doing work in the background on this.  Unknown yet if they plan to release anything for the community before 6E is finalized.

I'm assuming that the Wizards VTT will be aiming straight for 6E ruleset and will release as close to the release date of 6E as they can get.  I wonder if it will support 5E?

Anyway, mostly this is all conjecture and guess work.  The simple answer now, appears to be, no.  No one has released a formalize (or homebrew) way to play with the new rules on any VTT out there currently.

Quote from Blakey >>

 

I'm assuming that the Wizards VTT will be aiming straight for 6E ruleset and will release as close to the release date of 6E as they can get.  I wonder if it will support 5E?

 

Sort of, but on a practical level. No. WotC might have a pre-release to the public as early as end of this year, but I don't believe it's planned to be released in final form until 2025, after the core of One D&D's final product has been released.