New to Roll20

Hi Everyone, I have played RPG's for a long time (D&D 1st, 2nd, 4th editions, Twilight 2000, Top Secret, Robotech, etc.), and I just joined Roll20 and am new to playing these games online.  I want to GM a G.I. Joe the Roleplaying Game campaign and I'm not sure where to start. I hope it is okay to get some advice on how to do this on the forum. With a niche game like G.I. Joe do players need to have their own hard copies of the rule book? Is there a way to upload character sheets? Is Discord the best way to play these games online? etc. I guess where is the best place to start to getting a grasp of it all. Thanks for any advice thrown my way, and PMs are welcome from experienced players.

While I cannot answer all your questions, I know that the players do not need their own books, as long as you are willing to walk them through everything, and explain things as needed as you go, as the GM.  Having access to the books certainly helps, but not a requirement. (just more work on you!) Advice I have seen others in the past mention is start at getting the character sheet done (not currently in place that I can see, so you will need to do it yourself, or adapt something existing).  Then go from there.

Hey Billy, you going to create and run the GI Joe game, and recruit some Players?  Is it the G.I. Joe game by Renegade Games (publisher)? If so, bad news / good news. That game has not been ported into Roll20. Also there is not a Character Sheet made for it in Roll20 yet. The good news is you can certainly still play it here, in the sense that Roll20 is system agnostic and you can set-up whatever games you want. It's just not pre-made for you on here. Character sheet... You can create (using code) or ask someone else to create one. Use the Roll20 Character Sheets forum to request that. Alternatively you can try to upload a PDF character sheet. To an extent it might work. This PDF approach would deter automation procedures, but would be functional as-far as reading a character's stats, bio, etc. Still a 3rd approach is No use of Roll20's character sheet feature, instead use the Plain Text field of the Character Bios feature of roll20. This is just a plain empty space that each Player-Character can type into. So they can type-out their Name, Stats, Weapons, etc. So you have a lot of options depending on how detailed and automated you want it to be.  Rule books --- not available for this game in Roll20 so you're on your own. Either you could own the rules and know it, get your players to buy it, or just teach them how to play it verbally if you can.  Voice and Cameras -- you can do this in Roll20 (it works fairly well), or if you want to use Discord in the background instead as many people do then in-that-case I recommend going into your Roll20 Game's settings and DISABLE the Roll20 Voice-Video by setting it to NONE in the dropdown.  Your first step to see your path ahead: click CREATE GAME in Roll20. Choose NONE for the Character sheet. Click LAUNCH GAME. Go into the game's settings (above the chatroom in your game table). Adjust the settings. Next go into the PAGES menu. Create your first map or landing page. Next go into Journals tab. Create several blank Characters. Open the Characters and look what's there (a blank slot for text and a picture). 

Thank you for the feed back and I really appreciate it. It gives me a starting point to try to get the game set up.