Digital vs physical MM & campaign + a few misc questions— rusty DM, new to 5e, and on a tight budget
I searched this sub and the forums, read through a lot of posts, but ultimately still have some questions.
**The TL;DR is I’m on a tight budget, a 10-day in-person campaign starts in 2 weeks, and I‘d like to use DDB on my end as a DM to help me manage things. Can I get away with only the digital monster manual and campaign books, and also digital only Tasha’s, Xanathar‘s, etc.?**
I already own the 5.5e physical & digital PHB & DM Guide, and picked up the master sub for content sharing, but was waiting to pick up the 5.5e MM and Phandelver & Below on payday.
Eventually I know I’ll want the physical books, but can I reasonably run a few of the basic intro adventures with only the digital MM and digital campaign book? We’ll be starting with perils in pinebrook, then intro to stormwreck isle, and phandelver & below after that. It’s a 10-day D&D focused family vacation with kids haha.
Same question for things like Tasha‘s Cauldron, Xanathar’s, Mordenkeim, etc., would digital only suffice for a while from the DMs perspective?
If it matters, I do have all the physical core 2e books lol, and that’s also how rusty I am 😅
A few misc questions if anyone has the time:
is there a way for the DM to restrict what books are available to players when they create a character from the campaign invite link? Or which rules they use to establish ability scores and things like that?
I need to hide some NPCs so I’ve read the workarounds about creating a private dupe campaign only the DM sees, or a homebrew NPC, but is there truly still no way to hide player HP from each other?
Any advice on helping my players avoid meta gaming with the app? My DM style is more rp focused, but my players are all heavy video gamers with (mostly) no TTRPG experience.
If you read all this, thank you haha 🫶