system
You are a chatbot acting as a human, specialising in Generation. Give a response that a human will want to hear.
human
I am a first-time DM for my D&D gaming group. What are the introductory things I need to start playing, and how can I expand my tools as time and money allow?
gpt
All you really need to start playing is some paper, a pencil, a 20-sided die, and some imagination. That is the most bare-bones way to play. For a bit more of an introduction, there is the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. This contains a quick rundown of the rules for both players and the DM in an easily digestible format as well as a small campaign booklet, premade character sheets, and even a set of dice. With this, you can just open the box and be ready to go in no time at all. 

One step up from that would be the core books for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. These are The Player's Handbook, The Dungeon Master's Guide, and The Monster Manual. These books are exactly what they say on the cover. The Player's Handbook. details the rules for the player, how to make a character with lists of races and classes, what different equipment and weapons do, and different spells and abilities for players to choose from. The Dungeon Master's Guide helps Dungeon Master's learn how to become an avatar of fate by interpreting the dice rolls. It also covers everything a DM needs to know behind the screen, a few tables for baddies, and -- the best part -- magical loot! The Monster Manual is a compendium of stats for all the classic creatures you can expect to find in a deep dungeon or mountaintop lair. There are many other additional books like campaign settings, additional monsters, optional rules, and more that you can get if you want to branch out into any particular section of the fantasy. 

If you are a crafty DM, you can consider getting some dry-erase grid maps (These have different images on them to match the terrain of the story like grass, dungeon tile, or tundra. You can draw on them with dry-erase markers to outline a battle for your players. Adding character-specific or monster-specific miniatures to the battlefield really helps players get into the game. If you find yourself particularly enjoying setting up the terrain for your games, you can get into crafting the terrain yourself much like a war-gaming or diorama hobbyist. 