What exactly do I need?

[BossTidas]

Hi, I've been trying to get into online D&D for a while now but every time I do the pricing confuses me until I give up trying to understand it.

Right now, I am trying to play DM Curse of Strahd for four players. I think that means I need the...

~Curse of Strahd Adventure Module (Maps, Creatures, and Tokens included (?))
~Player Handbook (Character Creation)
~Ultimate Membership (To host a game and to share the PHB with my players)

I have two questions:
1. Do I ALSO need to buy the Monster Manual if I only intend on playing published content, not homebrew?
2. If I have the rules that are included with Ultimate, does that mean I still need the PHB to allow my players to build characters?

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Boss and welcome to FG.

This post should answer all your questions; but if it doesn't post back. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?32987-What-do-I-need-to-play-5e

[BossTidas]

Thank you very much, especially for your hasty reply :D

[LordEntrails]

Mr. Z's link is very detailed. If you want a very simple explanation;
1) No, all Monsters references in CoS are included int he FG module.
2) No, (but you probably will want it) you can use the free included Basic Rules to create characters or you can manually create the characters from print versions.

[Zacchaeus]

Also just to answer your first question properly, all the adventures include everything you need to run the adventure without needing anything else. In some cases there are links to other books especially the DMG but 99.9% of the material is in the adventure.