What do I need to buy to get started?

[Ecnassianer]

Thanks everyone for your explanations, particularly Griogre!

I might pick up the ultimate subscription for a month and then buy Basic Rules Pack + Character Customization to get a sense if I want to spend the rest. It's also good to know that we only need one copy of each module (for me). I'll just make each player buy their own class pack.

@Callum, I'm interested in Fantasy Grounds for a couple of reasons.

1. I GM pretty fast and loose with the rules. I've never been one for looking up stuff in books, and honestly I think it hurts the experience. ("Why did that kobold have half the hitpoints as that other one?" "Don't worry about it, you ripped his ribs out, trust me, it was really cool"). This is my first time running a pre-made campaign, I usually just make them up myself. I've found burying my nose in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen book really disconnects me from my players. My hope is that by pushing some of the page flipping into software, I can focus more on telling a cool story in Forgotten Realms. And really, that campaign book is a mess. How does anyone ever find anything in such a linear format?

2. My players suck at keeping track of their character sheets, and the notes they write are atrocious. The druid meets exclusively over skype, and the rogue has started to skype about 50% of the time, so we're all in front of our computers and can't pass character sheets around anyway. Getting all that stuff on our computers would help keep things organized. And man, saving them time looking up how the spells they cast work would be great. They can never remember what everything does. *sigh*

3. I like keeping secrets between party members and pulling in source material (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApxnAr6pRt0) a lot. Seems like bundling that in Fantasy Grounds would be easier than holding my webcam up to whatever I'm sharing with my group.

I think my player mostly was interested in getting my nose out of the book.

[Ecnassianer]

Thanks everyone for your explanations, particularly Griogre!

I might pick up the ultimate subscription for a month and then buy Basic Rules Pack + Character Customization to get a sense if I want to spend the rest. It's also good to know that we only need one copy of each module (for me). I'll just make each player buy their own class pack.

@Callum, I'm interested in Fantasy Grounds for a couple of reasons.

1. I GM pretty fast and loose with the rules. I've never been one for looking up stuff in books, and honestly I think it hurts the experience. ("Why did that kobold have half the hitpoints as that other one?" "Don't worry about it, you ripped his ribs out, trust me, it was really cool"). This is my first time running a pre-made campaign, I usually just make them up myself. I've found burying my nose in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen book really disconnects me from my players. My hope is that by pushing some of the page flipping into software, I can focus more on telling a cool story in Forgotten Realms. And really, that campaign book is a mess. How does anyone ever find anything in such a linear format?

2. My players suck at keeping track of their character sheets, and the notes they write are atrocious. The druid meets exclusively over skype, and the rogue has started to skype about 50% of the time, so we're all in front of our computers and can't pass character sheets around anyway. Getting all that stuff on our computers would help keep things organized. And man, saving them time looking up how the spells they cast work would be great. They can never remember what everything does. *sigh*

3. I like keeping secrets between party members and pulling in source material (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApxnAr6pRt0) a lot. Seems like bundling that in Fantasy Grounds would be easier than holding my webcam up to whatever I'm sharing with my group.

I think my player mostly was interested in getting my nose out of the book.