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Hey Jeremy,
I'm totally new to all of this myself, having only completed one electronics project in my entire life, and that was motorising focusing on my Esprit.
One thing I can tell you though is that Nema 17 is the frame size of the motor, and doesn't say much about the amount of torque it delivers, though you may find there's some upper or lower bounds for motors with that size.
You need to figure out how much torque you need, and from there find a motor that delivers that. If you don't know how, or can't be bothered, you can always wing it (that's what I did), but you run the risk of buying multiple times when you find out the thing you originally bought wasn't right (also what I did).
Another thing to keep in mind is that those stepper controller boards will have limited current output, often controlled by a potentiometer. I didn't know this (probably a real "duh" for anyone that knows anything about electronics). I mention this because when I bought my first controller boards of the low-cost ebay-knockoff variety, this wasn't mentioned on the specs at all and I ended up not supplying enough current to my motor, causing it to deliver significantly less torque than it could.
You probably won't need 12 volts either, but again it's going to depend on the specifics of the motor in question.
Do you have a design in mind? How's this physically going to fit together? Any reduction steps will modify the amount of torque, in turn changing the requirements of the motor.
Cheers,
Lee
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