New (not really) DM itching to start, just looking for some advice

Dear fellow DnDers, So I've been out of the DnD setting for quite some time (almost 15 years). I started DnD because I really liekd world building, getting some friends together and just having a nice time while entertaining them with my creations.  Bach when I first started I really fleshed out a whole home-brew setting. Maps, gods, kingdoms you name it, if I thought of it I put it in there. But life happened and I left the hobby for a long time. Now I find myself in a place where I don't really know any DnD fans like myself. But the bug has come back and I want to continue telling the story of my world, heavily influenced by the actions of the players I work with.  I've played a pretty lengthy campaign in my home brew already, a lot of things have happened and I want to continue with the story. But I feel like I've been out of it too long and hesitant to just start dmming again, especially with the whole online happening. But I want to start again soon, and this post will be the start of it. I would just like to gather some advice from experienced roll20 players. What should I really have ready when starting in an online setting like this? I'd love to hear your experiences and opinions, my goals is to get started again before of the end of this year and find a group that works well and is able to participate. TL:DR;  what should I have ready for my first campaign as a DM afte rnot playing for 15 years (my edition was 3.5e, but got everything from 5e here ready to go). And also if you're interested in joining in (keep in mind it'll take a month or so before I start) don't hesitate to message me.

If you have DM’ed before then what you need to prep for and get used to is the differences between playing online and playing at the table. there is a good forum guide ….. for moving from tabletop to online …. Read that there Are a few different skills involved ( apart from the tech) the differences I found were…… managing everyone having their turn to speak and not talking over each other having maps ready ….. go to Pinterest and Patreon are 2 good starting places. have your dice rollers set up. Macros or grab the attack from the character sheet and pull to the bottom of the screen …… and most importantly, when the Tech lets you down (or u can’t sort out the Tech) learn to “just get on with the game”  roll basic D20’s, make it up, keep the game going and sort out the tech problem for “next week”

For a setting like that, my advice would be to start building your world in a game.  You will never invite players to this particular game, since it will only be for world building.  All of your world maps, prominent npcs, rollable tables for things, etc. should all be here. What you want in this game may grow over time, but this will be the template for any games you run.  This can grow over time as needed to accommodate what you want in future games. When you want to start a game with actual players, copy this world building game, and invite players to the copy.  If they do anything that will change your world in some way that you would need to remember in future games, then make changes to your world building game.  Otherwise, it is simply left alone to be the template that you copy for actual games. Once you get going with actually running games, you may find the Pro subscription to be an immense help.  When running your own custom content, using the transmogrifier to move content easily and quickly from one game to another may be worth the price by itself.  Access to the api and all the tricks you can take advantage of with scripts will certainly make running games easier.  But all that is in the future.  Lastly, there is a pinned thread at the top of this Specific Use forum that is all about Roll20 Tricks.  The first post is an index.  When you start, some of the techniques in that thread may not mean anything to you.  Be sure to check that thread every once in a while to see if there is anything you can use.  As you gain time and experience with the interface, you may find that more of the tricks there may become useful to you. 

Thanks for the advice people. I'll look for that treat and someone already gave me a nice map making tool. It still seems quite daunting though even with most of the settings already fleshed out.

Don't feel like you have to re-create your entire homebrew setting in Roll20 before you start playing. It's not like your players are going to explore it all during session one. Think about what would new players with 1st level characters really need in order to get started in your campaign, and focus on creating that in Roll20 first. A starter village, or where ever you plan for them to begin, and the first adventure, that's all you need. Then, as you get more comfortable with using Roll20, you can add more content for your players to explore as you go along. I've been running a campaign in Roll20 for several years now, working through the classic T-G-D series of adventure modules, and as long as I stay at least one "chapter" of the campaign ahead of my players, I'm good. And they always take longer to explore an area than I think they will, so that makes it even easier to stay ahead of them.

That's pretty much what I had in mind. I just want to make sure there's a world map ready and my starting village. And work bottom-up from there. Another question I was pondering, are there any other tools worthy of exploring for online DnD besides roll20? One in particular comes to mind, map making tools, and of course others that might be of interest.

Are you asking about competing game-hosting services, that are similar to Roll20? Or 3rd party tools that can help to enhance your Roll20 game? As you might expect, Roll20 doesn't really like people to advertise for competing services on their own forums. However, your Google-Fu doesn't have to be very strong in order to figure out what some of the more popular options are.

The tools to enhance the game obs.

I can't offer a lot of advice on that, unfortunately. I don't run 5e, so I don't need/use a lot of the integrated products for that. One thing I do find indispensable is a good screen grab program. I build a lot of my battle maps for Roll20 using art assets I've purchased in the marketplace. My usual process is to build a map using tiles and other artwork, focusing on things that are not likely to be "moved" during game play. When I am finished, I screen shot the map, in sections if necessary, then re-assemble them for my live campaign. What this does is greatly reduce the number of individual art objects that my players' computers will need to load when they get to that map.