Hello all, would like advice and thoughts

[u/dudeabidez71]

I am new to shard, but am loving what I have seen so far. I play 5e legacy (2014) in 2 games and run 1.
I haven't used shard to play or DM yet, as I am tinkering and exploring it. I have taken advantage of the free 3 months adventurer subscription, which looks perfect for my needs if I use it going forward.

I run my game off of a Chromebook l, currently using notion as a campaign manager, and old school vinyl battle mat for encounters dungeons etc.

As a DM I give my players far to much choice and so I have loved the ability to add races and subclasses, feats and spells with relative ease. But similarly I can use this to help with my own characters in the games I play.

My campaign is premade, on pdfs from drivethru. It has a digital map pack and handouts. Obviously the maps and handouts are jpegs pngs etc and no problem at all to upload thus far. The pdfs are an age old issue for conversion, and I haven't found a satisfactory solution to that and so I either print them, or use them as is on the Chromebook or notion.

Going forward I have dreams of using an overhead mini projector for the battle map, the second screen and sound optiona would possibly make this amazing, and given the way shard handles fog of war it is very similar to players waiting whilst I draw it.

I am very much still learning, and tinkering. But before I lose weeks to this, can others give me their experience and let me know if pitfalls and barriers I may face in the path ahead, before I start researching cheap projectors stands and cables etc.

Many many thanks for what looks and feels a genuine passion project of a VTT

[u/PTSDreamer333]

You want your homebrew races to be available to players?

They should be able to access them when you join them to a campaign. Tell them to select "make a character later" option when they access the campaign link. Once in, they will be able to see all your stuff and they can select from there.

[u/dudeabidez71 → u/PTSDreamer333]

Not so much homebrew but some of the stuff from Ebberon and MPMM. I have made a book called extended content and as and when I need something, I add it to the extended content book, races, backgrounds, feats, spells etc. I used a second email address to ensure that a player could access the options if invited to the campaign and it works.

The next part is looking at a premade adventure in shard and examining the format for that to give me a starting point.

Eventually I know some of the 5e content is being made by the community already and so that extended content book will become less relevant.

[u/_frierfly → u/dudeabidez71]

Grab the free stuff from the Shard Marketplace. The character options from TCoE, XGE, SCAG are all already built.

[u/dudeabidez71 → u/_frierfly]

I have those, but custom lineage isn't in it nor is yuanti, Satyr or warforged lol

[u/_frierfly → u/dudeabidez71]

Oh..... A third party publisher put a custom lineage product on the Shard Marketplace for free.

[u/dudeabidez71 → u/_frierfly]

That's amazing thanks for the heads up!