New player looking for some advice

[patoarch12]

Hi all,

I used to play D&D almost every day after school in Jr. High with a group of friends back in the early 90's but had to move freshman year in high school and have not played since. Twenty four years later I am looking to play again after a couple of co-workers invited me to try playing with them (offline game). I wanted to find a way to play online to practice and possibly play regularly from home and found out about Fantasy Grounds. After watching a few videos of people playing on FG I was sold on it! I bought the 5E player handbook (I prefer to have the physical books whenever possible) and the ultimate license and am excited to get into it again.

It's been so long I feel like a total newbie again and so I wanted to ask for some advice before attempting to post on LFG:

Are there specific types of games I should look for or try to avoid as I am starting out trying to become familiar again with D&D and the Fantasy Grounds platform?

Is there an unwritten rule of etiquette that new players are expected to know all of the rules before trying to join groups? (Or at least had read the entire player handbook?) I am about a quarter of the way through the handbook currently and wondering if it would be bad form to try to get into a game before I even finish reading the manual.

Thanks!

[JohnD]

Welcome back home after all those years.

People are usually pretty "newbie" friendly and helpful here; either helping someone learn a new set of rules, or helping them learn how to use FG. Or both.

[dulux-oz]

Hi patoarch12, and Welcome! to the Community,

Pretty much what JohnD has already said. All I'll add is let us know your timezone, days and times avaliable, etc - things like that which will help a GM decide to invite you into their game or not.

Personally, I do like it if "newbies" (I don't like calling people "noobs") have a good understanding of how to work FG (shorthand for Fantasy Grounds). This is a personal thing and certainly note a "rule" of the Community, but to this end if you haven't done so already, let me encourage you to take a look at some of the great Tutorial Videos available on the Fantasy Grounds Wiki (and on YouTube). Damn's are good, as are Xorn's, and people seem to like mine as well (mine are also available from the links in my sig, below).

Start with the ones on the CoreRPG, because the CoreRPG forms the foundation of just about all the RPGs we play with Fantasy Grounds - so by learning how to use FG with the CoreRPG you'll learn about 80% of what you'll need to know to play any RPG with Fantasy Grounds. Once you've gone through the CoreRPG Videos you can then go on to Videos about your chosen RPG.

When you get familiar with the basic Fantasy Grounds product the next step is to check out some of the Extensions (Plug-Ins) for FG, such as the DOE: Sound, DOE: Locations, DOE: Weather and DOE: Organisations Extensions (to name a but a few - and a Shameless(TM) Self-Plug).

And keep on asking questions - we're a pretty friendly lot here, and we love answering questions.

Cheers

[LordEntrails]

Welcome, I think you will find many of us have similar stories and you will love it here and FG.

One thing I will add to the above advice is to check out this blog, I think it's pretty good advice. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/entry.php?94-A-Guide-to-Recruiting-for-Fantasy-Grounds
You will find that there are many more players looking for games than their are DM's running games. But be persistent and you'll find what you seek.

[Talyn]

That I can recall, I think I've only ever seen one LFG ad that specifically stated "experienced FG users only." For the most part, we're a pretty accommodating community and being helpful and mentoring others helps to grow the community. So I'd say just jump in. Do what you can to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts and usage of the Fantasy Grounds client and the basics of whichever ruleset(s) you would like to play in. At least get as far as how to make a character. There are plenty of YouTube videos and there are people streaming on Twitch fequently too.

About the only caveat I'd offer is, maybe not join an Organized Play (Adventurer's League or Pathfinder Society) until you're a little more familiar with how to do things, and I only say that because those sessions are on a timer so having to teach slows things down and the GM may be forced to "hand-wave" the ending instead of playing through the climactic ending the way it was intended.

[patoarch12]

Great info, thanks guys!

[HoratioDrank]

You could also pop on to the Fantasy Grounds Discord Server (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?26556-Discord-server-for-the-Fantasy-Grounds-Community). You can chat live with moderators and players. There is even a #looking_for_group channel where occasionally pick-up games form.