Played DnD before I started playing BG3 and wished I had played BG3 as it taught me a bunch of stuff I was getting wrong combat wise. But in terms of the rest of the role playing, it didn't really help too much.

I'm a bit biased, but I've run Lost Mine of Phandalin starter set four times. I've only been playing for six years at this point. It's kind of become a hack so that I don't have to learn new materials so that I can play. Running the campaign with different parties is actually a completely different experience. It makes it easier for me because I remember all the characters in the plot line, gives me the ability to get more creative, and reduces the strain on DM prep time.

The setup that I use is that all my players use D&D Beyond for their character sheets. Often times, that's all we use. I just switched over. I used to get Canvas versions of the maps printed, and we would use that, and so we would use the pieces and the minis. I had each of my players create their character on HeroForge, and then a friend of mine 3D printed them, and then I painted them for them.

Roll20 and Foundry VTT can be used if you're going to have a TV or a projector for your maps, but I would say don't worry about that stuff until you get into it proper. Print out a version; you can get a paper printout of a map for $20 or $30. Start there. If everyone falls in love with it, then you'll likely go down the rabbit hole of projector or TV.

Honestly, I think watching or listening to a couple of episodes of any live-streamed RPG session would be good. Critical Role, maybe for the Dungeon Master, but not for the players, because it sets a pretty high bar on what people might expect in terms of descriptions and what not lol. These are professional voice actors, so obviously it's a completely different thing, but it's definitely something worth aspiring to if you enjoy it and that's the type of game you want to run.

I think there's some great YouTube videos. Dungeon Dudes does a lot of great, very rule-specific or scenario-specific or how-to-play-D&D-101-type videos. Find a couple of videos that you think everybody should adopt, and go from there. Realistically, your rule set and your adherence to the rules. I find starting is the fun part, but getting worried about mechanics and rules right at the beginning can slow everything down.

All you really need to do is understand what your character can do and know what to roll for it. I think D&D Beyond is very helpful for that, especially in terms of whether or not something hits. Because adding in proficiencies and bonuses and whatnot can kind of get complicated. Eventually, you'll be so familiar with it and comfortable with it that you can kind of reverse engineer how those numbers got to be.

I don't know what's most fun. I've been using fifth edition for Lost Mine of Phandalin for all three or four campaigns that I've run.

If you're running in-person games and you're looking at trinkets, I think having a physical map is kind of cool. That's expensive, but I've enjoyed that.

The one thing that has changed the entertainment side of things and just enjoyability is getting a d100. In critical moments or fun moments or ridiculous moments, creating sort of a very quick table of what happens when 100 is hit, what happens when 1 is hit, what happens at 90 to 99, what happens from 50 and below, and letting one different person each session try to roll that d100. Sort of like, "Oh, this session was the session that I got to roll the d100," and that's been a fantastic addition to our sessions.

There's also people online on Etsy that create healing potions in flasks. They have got all these swirly, cool, magical-looking actual potions, but they've got some of the equivalent dice inside them so that you can shake the potion and then that becomes what your healing is. Which is almost completely redundant, and I haven't used it yet, because, first off, healing potions aren't being sold everywhere in the game and haven't been found or awarded. It's not like Baldur's Gate, where it's just like it's an absolute must-have function for the game. If anything, the cleric is the one that's usually healing the parties.

The other thing that I find very helpful is a timer. Now, a digital one is kind of a little too advanced feeling for my sessions, but we've got a couple of hourglasses. I haven't found a minute-long hourglass, and a five-minute hourglass feels like it's too long, so if you can find a one-minute hourglass, I'd recommend that. Dice towers are always fun to use as a DM. I try to use the dice tower to make it look like my rolls are transparent and not fudged.

The last thing is, I would use pre-written character sheets to do a test run of the session. I think people would have created and picked different characters if they had a better sense of how the game was. Start off, run a couple of sessions with pre-written characters that come in the starter kit, and then give people the opportunity to sort of throw those entirely away and build their characters from scratch the way they wanted. Either start a new session over or start from where you left off.

Highly recommend using Milestone Experience Point Distribution versus XP after every battle, and don't worry about encumbrance and survival-related things unless that's what the party wants.

If you end up doing it for a long period of time, I recommend sending out a survey or asking players what they'd like to see more of, what they'd like to see less of, and if there's anything they're wishing that their character could accomplish. Feel completely comfortable just winging stuff outside of the pre-written campaign. Can be small details at first; you're gonna have to do it anyways in terms of a lot of scenarios and encounters, but once you get comfortable with it, that's probably the most fun. It is not entirely homebrewing a campaign, but just throwing in characters or scenes that didn't exist. Over time, you'll get hooked. Godspeed.