New Dm Decision!

[Sacklar]

Ok i have just decided that i want to put my card into dming and have a couple questions.

First: Should i split my sessions in two, meaning should i have dndbeyond Chr sheets and Fantasy ground actual playing?

Second If i do that should i get Source books in dndbeyond and adventures on FG

Third what would be the perks of doing it all on FG and just do away with dndbeyond?

Fourth Before i do any Homebrew i think i need to start with some adventures made by dnd which ones would u guys suggest for starting DM?

[LordEntrails]

Why would you split your digital tools? Not that DDB is hard to learn, but you would have to learn 2 programs. You would have to access two programs to get your stuff. You wouldn't be able to leverage your homebrew as easily since it would be split across 2 programs. I'm a big proponent of using a single tool (for gaming or for work), even when some features here or there might be better done by different programs, having a single program do everything has benefits as well.

Well, if you made all your purchases on FG, then you could get one of the bundle deals. Which if you split your are going to have a harder time doing.

Besides, do you want to have to export/import your and your players characters every time they change equipment or level up?

LMOP is always a good starting point.
Dragon Heist is... not for beginners, and imo only worth doing if you do the Alexandrian Remix.
PoTA is not a bad start, but is probably not for a first time DM either. Though if you are an experienced player and don't mind at least a minor amount of prep work it can be a great start.
IceSpire Peak is adequate. It's not actually a shining example, but it does aim to cater to new DMs and does include some optional ways of running a game (including Quest Boards, which I personally do not like).

[GavinRuneblade]

My thoughts on beyond vs FG for the books is that on beyond you only are paying for a license to use the book as long as beyond lasts. On FG you are buying a digital book that you will still have access to after smiteworks is gone. This might not seem like a big deal, but I invested in D&D Insider and WotC cancelled it making all the money a waste. I don't do that anymore. I buy my game books, I don't rent them. Beyond is renting.

Also, as Lord Entrails said, do you really want to have to export/import everytime someone makes a change?

[similarly]

If you want to do character sheet in D&D Beyond, there's an importer to import D&D beyond character sheets into FG.

Here it is!
https://ai6k.com/dndbeyond/

I've used this and I think the characters came across quite smoothly.

But I only used this because my group was finished a campaign in Roll20 and wanted to use the same characters in FG.
When I begin my next FG campaign, I'll have my group make their characters directly in FG. I think it's much better than DnDB.

[Sacklar]

thanks for u guys comments now i just gotta think on it and do it :) but it looks like i will purchase everything on FG instead of splitting it up.

Think my first purchase's will be Starter pack and one low lvl adventure

[Granamere]

Welcome!

Before you go buy anything you might want to take a few classes at https://fantasygroundscollege.net/. They are free. This will let you get your feet wet and ask questions before you sink any money in. I would start with a "D&D 5e & FG New Users Intro Class" then take a DM101. This should give you a good idea of how the system works and I bet by the time you are through you have a good idea what you will need and how to move forward.

If you can not get into the new users class take the Character creation class. It is also a good place to start.

This forum is a great place also to get good advice.

[GavinRuneblade]

thanks for u guys comments now i just gotta think on it and do it :) but it looks like i will purchase everything on FG instead of splitting it up.

Think my first purchase's will be Starter pack and one low lvl adventure

There is a lot of free and pay what you want stuff on the DMs Guild too. don't assume you have to spend to get a great experience.

[irondeacon]

I love the physical books, they are on my shelf until I wear them out. I went ahead and picked up the WotC source books at D&D Beyond so that my players have a reference when I am not hosting them on FG. I also had my players create their characters in D&D beyond and used the wonderful importer similarly references above to pull them into FG for the first session. If my budget was more limited and I had to chose only one route, I personaly would purchase the FG products over both the D&D Beyond and the physical copies, as that seems to me to have the most utility for my players.

[Ampersandrew]

My thoughts on beyond vs FG for the books is that on beyond you only are paying for a license to use the book as long as beyond lasts. On FG you are buying a digital book that you will still have access to after smiteworks is gone. This might not seem like a big deal, but I invested in D&D Insider and WotC cancelled it making all the money a waste. I don't do that anymore. I buy my game books, I don't rent them. Beyond is renting.

As yoda once said "Buy or do not buy. There is no rent!"

[Jiub]

I had a lot of success with dnd noobs by having them make characters in dnd beyond and then I imported them using the above importer to fg. Very easy to do and works remarkably well. I also bought the core books in dndbeyond to share with the players there so they can access on their own time. Personally, I think dnd beyond offers a More accessible point of entry especially if your group, like mine is new to dnd and new to FG. But after that initial character creation, we’ve been exclusively FG for playing and for character leveling up, equipping etc. If you can only have one, go with FG. But if you’re able to get dnd beyond too (or have a player buy dndbeyond material and share), it’s great for sharing and accessing offline.

Adventures, I only by in FG.

[Wizards Ghost]

Have you tried the new Character Wizard in FG ? It works real well now. Personally i hate it when ppl come with DND Beyond Chars to Import them, it just makes Things unnecesaary complicated.
One Tool for the Job, thats My thinking.
Oh, and if you look araound theres a fairly new Extension from MadNomad, which makes, coupled to Rob2e's stuff Character Craetion a thing of minutes.

[Jiub]

Have you tried the new Character Wizard in FG ? It works real well now. Personally i hate it when ppl come with DND Beyond Chars to Import them, it just makes Things unnecesaary complicated.
One Tool for the Job, thats My thinking.
Oh, and if you look araound theres a fairly new Extension from MadNomad, which makes, coupled to Rob2e's stuff Character Craetion a thing of minutes.

I agree - the new character builder is nice. And I would recommend folks with some dnd exp just use that to keep everything in house instead of dndbeyond. For my particular group of complete noobs, dndbeyond was the way to go for character creation. They just found it easier. And now they love the game AND have come to love FG just by learning through doing. Worked out.

Haven’t tried MadNomad’s latest, I will check it out, thanks!

[A Social Yeti]

I would first and foremost find and commit to just one VTT tool, or none at all.

Think of it like this:
each tool the players need in order to get to have you GM for them. That is a barrier to entry.
The fewer tools they have to have, the more of them are able and willingly to be players with you.


To GM for online players you would be a one or two tool minimum, best to try and not go over that if possible.

Anyone that uses a VTT, they tend to also use discord/meet or some form of audio/video chat system.
roll20 has not the best video chat to use, and FG only has text built in, no audio or video options.

So most GMs say what VTT they use (if any) and what main communications platform they use ( i find discord seems the most common).
Also there are plenty to be found GMing only from discord or meet or whatever, a VTT is just a tool that can be a great aid to have, but it they are not necessary to GM traditionally table top RPGs online.

The problem hang up for not using a VTT is that everyone needs a copy of the play books themselves. It won't work out well to be reading all the rules about 5e spells to someone who does not have the books they need for that already.
So the VTTs biggest power for GMs, is that it allows the GM to be the source for all the books/rules. None of the players need to own the books, when in the VTT with the GM host the players have access, just as if the GM hosted them at home and set all the books they owned out on the table for everyone to use.

So i do find a VTT to be a great thing, just pointing out, you can totally GM without them and plenty do.



If you assume at minimum two tools will be needed, you only increase the barrier to entry by adding more to the pile. And trust me on this, do not try to gauge how little effort a single other tool is. Any, even a small modicum of additional effort, is a barrier that will reduce the potential number of players you may engage with.

Remember the watch word KISS, it is my guide number one and has never failed me yet. And has saved me from myself many times.

Once you pick a VVT or choose not to, now you know exactly where you are going to invest your monye.
Either in that VTT's digital rule books and adventures, or in your own physical copies.


The reason to do all of it one place, FG, roll20, whatever, is really just ease of your own life and ease on your players too.
I find it is common that a lot of what we imagine we will get, winds up not being worth the effort it took to get.


Any one option you pick is probably not going to be 100% all and everything that would make it be perfect for you.
But the effort to try and get it there, is probably a lot more hassle, which cuts into the value of the reward sought. While just coping with a less than the idealized situation in the first place, winds up at a better net gain for having skipped the bigger hassle and dealt with the smaller one instead.

Whatever short coming that was you had been considering to cope wit by throwing more tools at it, just say'n bet it don't pan out to feel worth while in the long run for all the extra effort that takes.





4th:
I'd suggest not one of the offical big ones from Hasbro as a first outing. Those tend to be geared to fairly epic proportions for a long play campaigns. And some of them involve a lot a lot of NPCs for the GM to have to be.
Look for adventures that assume to be run in just 2-4 sessions. If you want to do a long term set of characters, consider stitching several of those 2-4 session adventures together so that as the end one, they can pick up the story thread of the next one.
But int his way you're not on the hook for anything that is explicitly epic in scale. Each little shorter adventure can still be a one off self contained adventure that dos not nee to have bigger picture ramifications or ties into everything going on somehow.

Or you can of course just do pure one off stuff too. A single adventure with a set of made for it toons and all that as those can be easier to get a feel for the basics of GMing.
But not all players are as into one off adventures, that's a spectrum among us for sure, that some players do or just do not get in for single one offs like that.

And when it comes to working on homebrew stuff.
I find a good way to get started is just to tweak the lore of the world a little first.
Instead of trying to re-rig full rule sets or make a full on interesting story adventure on your own.
Just tweak stuff in the general lore of the world you're playing in to be a bit of "how you see it."

example:
in my magical fantasy setting, magic is common and not criminal or ostracized in any way. But it is entirely socially taboo to just openly use magic in pubic. And the magic guilds and colleges very much like this social norm, and help maintain it. Because if it were not this as a social norm, no doubt the noble houses would come under pressure from the vast majority of non magical using commoners to regulate magic use if they foudn it too scary or whatever. Like IRL and the MPAA, they choose a form of self regulation as better than to be regulated directly by outsiders.


or that all creatures of the underdark in my world are ecologically like all creatures from IRL no sun cave life. Smei translucent pale albino skin that quickly burns when exposed to direct sun light, and the only races on the planet that don't have a variety of skin color shades among them.


Just start out small like that. making small personal changes to the world you GM, to be like what you think it ought to be/be what you think will make for a more interesting RP world to be in.


Once you start doing that, it will snowball all on it's own into you eventually dreaming up a whole grand adventure in the world you are imaging. It happens easier and easier as you have a clearer and clearer idea of exactly how the world you GM ticks.
Because it is all that stuff that is what makes the adventures really feel like grand adventures.
the difference between,

the module to go fight the badass dragon
vs.
we know that there is a dragon here in the wold causing problems, anyone feel like trying to help deal with it?


and the more and more of this stuff that we know about the wold that we have built up.
the more this is just stuff that is going on in the world, whit or without the players. now i can actually let the players discover what all could use help or be taken advantage of (might be evil), becasue there is all this stuff going on in it. And having just spent the time slowly "home brewing" little minor changes here and there. i wind up with a whole pile of busy world that it beceoms a lot easier to pull adventures out of, rather than have to dream it up from scratch right here and now on it's own for this adventure.


Let home brew be a long slow build up process, rather than thought of like switch you flip to just go full home brew at some point.





One thing to keep in mind:

The only down side to buying into a VTT is that anyone that don't like the VTT you picked, and won't use it, is now an RPGer you can't play with.
It is the only thing i dislike about the VTTs. In the business strategies they have chosen, they do cause some amount of schism among the RPG community. I dearly wish they could find a way to chase their profits but also allow "cross play."
So that whatever tool the GM liked they liked, and whatever tool the player liked they liked, and even though i bought a techniques and they bought a Numark, we can still share albums and have a DJ jam together.

That'd be really cool of yall in the industry, you know, to not private eco system wall us off from each other, even though we might be playing the same 5e or whatever rule set.

Just say'n lots of industries have greatly benefited both the bueinss and the consumer, from having standards that they all share in. You know like not having proprietary sized record holes, actually made for more record sales for all the businesses, and more access to a greater variety of music for the consumers.

[ddaley]

Ok i have just decided that i want to put my card into dming and have a couple questions.

First: Should i split my sessions in two, meaning should i have dndbeyond Chr sheets and Fantasy ground actual playing?

Second If i do that should i get Source books in dndbeyond and adventures on FG

Third what would be the perks of doing it all on FG and just do away with dndbeyond?

Fourth Before i do any Homebrew i think i need to start with some adventures made by dnd which ones would u guys suggest for starting DM?


For now, I buy almost everything on both dndbeyond and Fantasy Grounds. I run the adventure from Fantasy Grounds, since it has the more capable tool set for that. However, I read the adventure, even while running a session, on dndbeyond, because it is so much easier to navigate and read text. Also, it is super easy in dndbeyond to open things ahead of time in tabs in the browser. Having a dual monitor setup helps a lot. I run FG full screen on one monitor and have the browser open on the other monitor.

Also, the players create and, for the most part, level up their characters in dndbeyond, because it is much easier for them. The group that I am playing with now is new to 5e (and D&D in general).

EDIT: I should note that I have the master tier level on dndbeyond, so I can share my content with my players via the Campaign section in dndbeyond.

[ddaley]

If you want to do character sheet in D&D Beyond, there's an importer to import D&D beyond character sheets into FG.

Here it is!
https://ai6k.com/dndbeyond/

I've used this and I think the characters came across quite smoothly.

But I only used this because my group was finished a campaign in Roll20 and wanted to use the same characters in FG.
When I begin my next FG campaign, I'll have my group make their characters directly in FG. I think it's much better than DnDB.

Thanks for the link. I just used it to convert 5 characters... it seemed to work pretty well!

[YggBjorn]

I am going to agree with what others have said.

Take a character creation class for free on fantasygroundscollege.net It will be easier to walk your players through character creation if you have done it from their perspective. The Starter Kit is a great choice! It comes with The Lost Mines of Phandelver which is a fun module with plenty of community created content you can find. I suggest looking for extra maps that, at least in my version, were not present in the starter kit.

Good luck and have fun!

[ddaley]

I am going to agree with what others have said.

Take a character creation class for free on fantasygroundscollege.net It will be easier to walk your players through character creation if you have done it from their perspective. The Starter Kit is a great choice! It comes with The Lost Mines of Phandelver which is a fun module with plenty of community created content you can find. I suggest looking for extra maps that, at least in my version, were not present in the starter kit.

Good luck and have fun!

It's not just the character creation that is the problem for new players... although, that is a problem. One of my players managed to mess up his character and we couldn't figure out how to fix it. We ended up deleting it and creating a new one.

Trying to run a game solely in FG can be quite cumbersome... trying to find creatures, encounters, parcels, area descriptions, combat tracker, party sheet, maps, etc. it's easy to get lost in all of the windows. Navigating in dndbeyond is so much easier. And, like I mentioned, you can open things that you'll think you need for the session ahead of time in tabs in the browser.

[similarly]

I am going to agree with what others have said.

Take a character creation class for free on fantasygroundscollege.net It will be easier to walk your players through character creation if you have done it from their perspective. The Starter Kit is a great choice! It comes with The Lost Mines of Phandelver which is a fun module with plenty of community created content you can find. I suggest looking for extra maps that, at least in my version, were not present in the starter kit.

Good luck and have fun!

I second this. FG College has not only character creation classes but combat classes and DM classes. I took a DM class recently and really learned a lot.

[LordEntrails]

And, like I mentioned, you can open things that you'll think you need for the session ahead of time in tabs in the browser.
Use the hot bar. You can put 96 things pinned there. You can also make your own story or adventure flow image and link/pin an unlimited number of things there. Or you can open all the windows you want, and minimize them and put the tokens around your screen how you want. You can't actually read more than one thing at a time, so the windows don't all need to be (and shouldn't be) open. Limit what you have open, but organize things so what ever you want is just one or two clicks away. Not really any differnent 96 browser tabs (which is going to have issues of its own!).

FG has a lot of tools to organize and speed play, but you have to think in the "FG way" and not try to make FG fit some other workflow, if you want all the benefits :)