Also would we use that roll20 thing for virtual dice rolling?

Ideally dice rolls should be secret. Only the GM should see. Maybe not for everything but for plenty of stuff.

I'm in for D&D, yes.

This just landed on my twitter feed which seemed kind of appropriate for people thinking of playing for the first time...
https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/1009510993922281472

Awesome. Thanks, man.

Having now thought this through properly and managed to get a reign on my excitedness, I doubt very much that I can commit to a weekly session, as much as I’d love to. So, with regret, I’m out.

A one shot is likely going to take a minimum of 4-6 hours, if you're lucky. A good session of D&D really wants to be around 3hrs so you have enough time to get into it from starting/picking up from last session, and then getting into the flow of actually playing the game. I don't want to make it a weekly thing, bi-weekly seems fair enough. It gives me time to chase people in between sessions if stuff needs doing, and making sure everything is ready to make the session smooth. 

I understand the difficulty of asking people to commit, which is why I don't fancy doing a big campaign. A one shot tends to break down into 3 nice chunks 
- getting to know each other and the situation you find yourself in
- exploring the setting and figuring out what it's all building too (usually a level up here)
- ending the one shot with the final encounter/event

That totals out at 9 hours, and it's a big commitment, but bi-weekly should be fine for that angle I feel.

Nina is knocking it out of the park with the questions so...

Nina wrote:

How much time would you need to prepare a session Tempy? An hour? A week? I have no idea about this all, so I don't think it'd be a bad idea to throw a couple of dates out that suit you. How would you see the first session, just everyone getting to know each other, set the story and characters up etc and dive in in a second session? And a couple of noob questions. I've been listening to the Adventure Zone, is it only the GM who does the dice rolls? Will there be a map everyone can look at? (I noticed pie posted something that could be useful on the previous page). How does the character creation go? Will the GM have a list of classes to choose from and you fill one in to your liking? Can there be double classes? Like I said, I don't know anything about it but it has crossed my mind a couple times for a while to try it out at some point. I mean, Blizzard is very close to B's work, the Pillars of Eternity guys are also in Irvine, there must be a scene for that here. That's 3 game companies close to each other in a super boring part of SoCal.

Writing the campaign will take me a week or two. Prep in between is minimal if i've done a good job. 

I think D&D is a lot better if you make your own character rather than pick up a pre-made, but that needs the players to go through the Player's Handbook, which is something I'd probably DM people about to make sure they're doing it right - i've had to help 6 people now and I am fairly ok at remembering it all. I like the first session to be actually playing, it's more fun to learn each other's characters by playing and talking instead of just posting a biography. Everyone does dice rolls, but who does them depends on what is being rolled. Roll20 does support maps and online rolling and a lot of other tools and I would probably be looking at using that, but I dunno how hard it is to make maps.

What or where should I go to pick up the basics of how this whole thing works? More of a general guide rather than a game specific one.

Enjoyed reading through some of that Twitter chat last night. Thanks, Ram.

I can do weeknights post 8p.m. most of the time, barring anything that crops up in the real world. But most weeks I'm at home 3/4 nights so shouldn't be an issue.

I would be so up for this but would struggle to commit to more than 1-2 hours at a time. Also I've never played D&D before.

I'm well up for you streaming it. Well up.

This has reminded me I needed to get a headset with mic for my pc. Purchased!

Would these be the rules we need to look at @Tempy?

Most of the things I've read so far seems to suggest you'll have 4 different classes, with at least some magic and healing abilities. Will that be a requirement?

If everyone has chosen a class, will we tell each other them before we start and make changes if needed? Or do we dm Tempy about our ideas and he will make sure the team is balanced?

And just to be sure, all races and classes can be mixed right? I was reading the ranger class and it had examples of elves and humans (I think), but a dwarf should be able to be a ranger too, right?

I’m basically cool any day in the evening!

I can do most nights after 8pm and am happy to spend 3 hours a session if needed. Streaming not an issue and am happy to be guided by Tempy and other experts. I'm just grateful that Tempy has taken it upon himself to get this running so happy to fit in around other people; basically I'm pretty malleable.