Help a New GM not ruining the game

Good day, I will be starting my first session as a GM pretty soon with friends. We all are beginners, some with more experiences than others. I was wondering if I should purchase a module from the marketplace and follow the story given or I should go from scratch. I am a little scared of starting from scratch and then missing content or ruining the game for everyone since it's my first GM experience.  I would really appreciate any feedback on what I should do or what content to purchase for beginners. Thank you,

Maybe you should try the Master's Vault?&nbsp; It is free, and sort of a tutorial with Roll20 as well as a beginning adventure.&nbsp; <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/module/40/the-masters-vault" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/module/40/the-masters-vault</a> Then you can decide whether you want to come up with your own or buy content after that.

Welcome to Roll20 and ttrpgs Vincent, I think it depends a lot on you and your players. If you've got a story idea and your players are interested in it, then go for it. If you don't have an idea or haven't ever built a story idea into a full blown creation like a campaign use one of the pre written adventures. Roll20 offers the Masters vault as a free introductory 5e adventure and while I haven't played it, it has been well reviewed. There's also the lost mines of phandelver which you can purchase for a similar experience. Really though, in my opinion what pre written campaign or module,&nbsp;and even which rpg system, you decide to go with depends a lot more on the kind of story beats you and your players want to play with than it does on your experience level. Want to do an epic planehopping adventure, go with the new descent into avernus. Want something a little more classical fantasy, go for storm king's thunder. Want a pirate or swashbuckling adventure, go for saltmarsh. Each of these starts at level 1 and goes from there which should give you and your players plenty of time to get used to your growing capabilities. Even if you run a pre written module, you aren't tied into following the module to the letter, or even for the whole module. Maybe your group gets inspired by some minor piece or you think that a story beat should be different. Regardless of how closely you follow a prewritten adventure or how Homebrew your game is, the biggest key to gming well, and enjoying it, is preparation. Know what's going on in the game beyond just the next emcounter, what rules you need to be ready to know, what your players are capable of, and where the story is going. In these forums we can help you with how to handle these tasks using the Roll20 platform, but the better places to ask general gming and rules questions are internet forums dedicated to how to play ttrpgs like the rpg stack exchange , or the subreddit for your system or general RPGs (e.g. r/dnd). I hope that helps, and happy rolling, Scott

Echoing Scott C. on the the purpose of the forums.&nbsp; However, if you want help with how to use the Roll20 platform to help run you game, that is perfect for here. I started running games with pencil and paper, then transferred here when I moved away from my favorite group.&nbsp; I have since run nearly every game on this platform.&nbsp; The sheets, with there auto calculations and roll buttons, have greatly increased the spend of the game.&nbsp; Add in a few of the right API scripts (Pro user option) and things go even faster.&nbsp;&nbsp; The maps are helpful with their built in measure tool.&nbsp; You don't need to buy map resources, but doing so does make some games easier.&nbsp; If you are going to buy, make sure the sets are common enough to use repeatedly until you know you are here for the long haul.&nbsp; Actually, I would stick to a free account until you know for sure that this is what you want to put your hard earned money toward (keep in mind, I only lasted a month until before the Pro Subscription was tempting enough to buy).&nbsp; Dynamic lighting is awesome with a group, but that's a paid tool.&nbsp;&nbsp; I use a fair number of handouts for game data not everyone knows, which makes finding rules and campaign data easy to find for the players. I also like using some third party sites to track my campaign data.&nbsp;&nbsp; I understand you are very new to this and may not know the questions to ask.&nbsp; Whatever comes to mind, feel free to post a question about the platform.&nbsp; The folks here are very friendly.&nbsp;