I just started playing DnD a year ago for the first time at 31. I’d always wanted to play, ever since I was a kid, but never had the chance. So I decided to grab my wife and a couple of my wife’s friends and DM a short one shot, just to see if we enjoyed it. I spent a lot of time watching videos and looking at the DM communities, and after a couple weeks, we played it. It was a blast, and now a year later we’ve finished our first module and are midway through our second, and I’ve loved every second of it. We have three more players, two of which have played for years, and I’m still DMing.

If you’ve got some friends that play in person and they have an open slot, I’d 100% say go for it. Let them know you’re a total noob and just follow their lead; everyone was new at some point.

In my experience, the D&D community is very welcoming to newcomers. In addition to the classic online LFG stuff (lemmy, reddit, discord), I would give your local hobby shop(s) a visit. Chances are they host weekly games, or at the very least can point you in the right direction.

I will say, with D&D 5e, they really made an effort to streamline the learning curve, and it shows. I'll message you a tool I found really helpful for learning the rules.

(Also, don't limit yourself to D&D! There are plenty of great pen and paper roleplaying systems out there. Call of Cthulhu is a great example of one I've been meaning to play.)

I'm still new to DnD, but after a few quick experiences, I think playing in-person has some benefits, especially for newcomers. It's hard to get going with an online group when people have different levels of investment and commitment to the timeslot, and I've found online groups fall apart more easily than IRL groups. As a newcomer, my first "group" fell apart after 3 sessions, and I never really got a good feel for how the game went. It took my cousins and their friends inviting me for an IRL game to really get into it and enjoy it.

If you're really looking at online, there are various Discord servers that will run games on roll20 and whatnot. I also just saw an ad for startplaying.games earlier, which apparently has paid games.

As for tools, it's really up to you. Some people like using the physical books, others enjoy the way the information flows in something like DnDBeyond or Roll20's compendiums.