Why Follow ME, And Die!

For those new to my blog, podcast, and YouTube channel, I wanted to explain where Follow Me, And Die! comes from.

Origins

Back in the mid 80’s my brother, Robert, started up a new campaign while I was off at my freshman year of college. Over Thanksgiving break, I rolled up a character, Griswald, a half-elf Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User. We went through four years of game time in four days.

Over the next few years, until after grad school, we played a lot. Griswald was always going off to fight and monsters and other enemies. He would hire all the mercenaries he cold find. From the first fight he did this and for many after, he would be the last one standing, or only have a couple of mercenaries left.

One day, I said in frustration to my brother, Robert, the DM, that it wasn’t fair he couldn’t find mercenaries.

Robert quickly replied, “Well it’s like this, word has gotten out and it’s like ‘Follow Me, And Die!'” That was both true and funny.

The first time most of my mercenaries lived to see victory, it was a shock to us all. That success has repeated ever since. Not always a sure thing, but Griswald has managed to hold his own.

Choosing A Name

In 2009 when I decided to start a blog, I needed a name and “Follow Me, And Die!” was the perfect name. It expressed a truth about my favorite D&D character’s experience, and meshed perfectly with my sense of humor. What better name for a social media brand than “Follow Me, And Die!”

You can here the companion podcast here, or watch the companion YouTube video here.

Here are two older articles talking about Follow Me, And Die!

Why “Follow Me And Die!”?

The Story Behind “Follow Me, And Die!”

Deven Rue – A New Website

If you are a fan of the cartographer and overall creative genius, Deven Rue, you may have noticed that her website rueink.com isn’t working.

This is because she changed her URL to devenrue.com. So update your bookmarks and check out her new site. Wow, did she ever make it look cool!

She also has a Patreon and her website is designed to cater to her Patrons. She offers a cartography course, and a birthday option to get cool things on your birthday. There are many other tiers each with their own rewards.

So if you like maps and props for your table, then visit her site, and support her Patreon to help her keep making cool things!

To say I’m a fan, is an understatement. I’ve enjoyed her work since before she started her Patreon, and backed her Patreon before things really took off for her after her first mention on Critical Role.

The initial display of Deven Rue’s new website. It rotates between different images.

Noteboards Leaving U.S.

Stattys, the company that owns Noteboard is closing their US branch. They have a 20% off sale using the code
“we-wish-you-well”

I have one and just in case, bought another using this code.

I am not affiliated with the company.

These were all the rage in the G+ days. If you don’t get one now, you’ll be paying European shipping prices to get one.

It has a grid on one side and blank on the other. Use a wet or dry erase marker and you’ve got a portable flip map for minis or just drawing a map to show players. Great for use at convention games.

Here’s their website: https://thenoteboard.com/

I bought one a few years ago. I first used it at Gary Con 11 in 2019. The very first game I used it, I got distracted and used a permanent marker. Thankfully, going over it with the permanent marker in short sections make it relatively easy to erase.

A few years ago when the original crew behind Noteboard was seeking a buyer, I considered buying it, but didn’t think I had the right capital or experience. Part of me wishes that I’d at least tried to get it.

I’m not sure if I’m the first to blog about Stattys closing their U.S. location, but I am sure the effects of COVID-19 are a big part of this decision.

I Must Be Doing Something Right

Yesterday, I woke up from a nap to see the following on the Discord server for my Sunday Roll20 AD&D game. [Listen to the companion podcast here.]

I made a comment of appreciation and got this reply.

I guess I’m going something right, this is how I feel about my brother Robert’s game. If I didn’t live nearly 600 miles away, I’d do something about that.

One thing I’ve found about a campaign world you engage in, is that it becomes an important part of your life. The creativity feeds an itch you can’t otherwise scratch. The bonding with family and friends is a great way to have stories that are over the top hilarious to us, and without a long set up to give background, are maybe a chuckle from others who weren’t there.

I think this is why things like Critical Role are so popular. It is an invitation to participate in the game world and the fans buy in with creativity on their side. There is fan art, fan fiction, fan cosplay, etc.

While they are not rolling dice and actually playing the game, they are still going along for the ride, filling in the blanks with their own imagination, just as in any RPG game, or a radio show, or reading a book. They are getting the creative, living in the moment, as observers of the heroes, and are essentially seeing the same benefit as playing does. The audience is like the crowd in the streets observing the heroes. They are unnamed NPC’s.

Some say the not actually playing the game doesn’t make them real fans of the game. I bet if they could find a group, they’d play.

I can only hope that all DMs/GMs can evoke a living world with the collaboration of their players. Once the world comes alive for the players, they will get hooked. It came alive for me as DM the moment the players started interacting with it.

Session summaries

Having write ups of a game session is helpful to keep track of when the party was where, and whom they met, and what they did.

I first experienced session summaries, as an official thing players can do to earn XP, in the AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign, Graveyard of Empires, of over four years of Wednesday nights. I’ve written about it many times. The DM gives 150 XP per level, so at 7th level, I’m earning 1,050 XP per session. John, the DM, wants at least one player to do an “official” summary, but each player can participate. We used a G+ group for this.

For the AD&D campaign, John made us pay for training. After awhile, he modified the Session Summary award for virtual GP equal to our XP awards that could be used to pay for training, and could be shared with others.

John carried on with that in the two year Stars Without Number [Affiliate Link] campaign, and now the follow-up to the original campaign, called After The Fall, using OSE [Affiliate Link]. The Stars Without Number game was posted to a Discord server. For After The Fall we are using a wiki software called MediaWiki that the GM hosts on his website.

My Campaigns

I use session summaries that I write as GM for my games, to ensure I don’t lose track of anything. I write them for the players, as I know what the GM needs to know, but also sprinkle in some things they didn’t necessarily know to reward them for reading it. I used the free Campaign Wiki site. It requires manual formatting, but is simple, and one can export it to text or HTML.

I first did this with my AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign, The Broken Lands, and then the Delving Deeper campaign, Delver’s Deep. With Delver’s Deep I also put it into the Markdown editor Joplin. Joplin has a desktop and an Android and iPhone app and it can be synced vie Dropdown or similar service.

It may seem like a lot of work, but the information is built over time. the most amount of work is getting the starting information the players need, and to cross-link things as they begin interacting with the world. After 10, 20, 30, and now 43 sessions, The Broken Lands wiki looks quite impressive.

For the most part I try to do the summaries right after the session so it is more complete. I do this for both the Wednesday night campaigns and my campaigns.

The Benefits

There are several benefits for a campaign wiki:

  • The GM has a handy cross-linked reference to minimize forgetting what the players know and keep track of multiple threads of information.
  • Diligent players can keep up with things, and also have a reference.
  • New players or players that miss a session can more easily get up to speed with what is going on.
  • It could be the basis for a novel or short stories, or help create modules based on the campaign.

My First Experience With Campaign Summaries

Campaign summaries are nothing new to me. Back in the day when I first played Griswald, the namesake of Follow Me, And Die! i wrote up a personal summary of what Griswald did. I maintained that for every session for a few years of real time, and over ten years of game time. I did this because my brother Robert, my first and favorite DM, has a very rich campaign world. It is about 36 years old. Now his wife and kids and spouses play in it.

I still have it somewhere, and at one point when I had a decent enough computer, I typed up those notes.

One funny thing is I used the dating system of my brother Robert and I have Griswald at one year ahead of where Robert said I was. He said he was DM and he was right, so I accepted it.

What is your experience with campaign summaries whether back in the day, or more recently?

How I run AD&D

I’ve mentioned bits and pieces of how I run AD&D in various blog article and quick blurbs on various social media, but I don'[t think I’ve ever done a complete explanation.

AD&D (and by that I mean 1st edition), is what I’ve played and ran the most. AD&D is a collection of “modules” that one can use or not use. My preferences for how I run it are largely influenced by how we played it back in the day. One example is weapon speed. We tried it a few times and gave up on it.

In some ways AD&D is a better as a source of an example system for something, like random gems and jewelry. I like a simpler set of rules, like Delving Deeper. The Dungeon Master’s Guide is a great tool for any GM for any game.

AD&D is also a great example of how NOT to organize an RPG rule book. Like rules should be near each other, like height, weight, and age tables. I recall similar things being near each other in the DMG, but that is only my mental catalog, some things have 40 or 50 pages between them. Then there is something like multiple attacks by fighters like 3/2 attacks per round, which is mentioned in a couple places in the Players Handbook and a couple more in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

I used to have a fully functioning catalog and ability to find stuff in the various manuals, but over the years, some things have faded. Things that I recall as near each other, are nowhere near each other. I am slowly getting the pieces needed organized.

Books Used:

For the DM, whatever I want. But generally the Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, and Fiend Folio. I use all kinds of things for planning settlements, lairs, tombs, and dungeons.

For the Players, the Players Handbook and spells from Unearthed Arcana as they discover them.

[All of the above links are Affiliate Links.]

Character Creation

4d6 arrange as desired. I have a rule I call, “But I want it….” that allows players to have the minimums they need to run the sub-classes.

But I Want It – Players wishing to play a class who do not roll the stats for it, can set the minimum stats for those ability scores that are pertinent, but all other stats will be rolled on a d4+8 making their range 9-12.

Starting gold is 3d6 x10.

Hit points are maximum at first level, including the bonus or penalty from Constitution.

Death at -10 Hit Points. Binding wounds stabilizes, but does not bring consciousness. If knocked to negative hit points, you have experience trauma and are out for 1 hour per negative. Magical healing can minimize this.

Birth Date: Calendar is 12 months of 28 days, so d12 for month and 3d10-2 for 1st-28th day of the month.

Alignment: Good and evil are as one does. I have evil characters who are saving the world as long as they continue to get rich off it. Are they truly evil?

Alignment Languages: NONE. We NEVER used them that I can recall back in the day.

Detect Evil – Only beings of great power and consciously and consistently devoted to evil will register. I don’t necessarily play kobolds, goblins, and orcs as evil, just against the status quo of the “civilized” groups. I take this from the DMG. Good or Evil are based on one’s actions. Call yourself evil but if you save children from a burning building, you’re not necessarily evil.

Classes: Players Handbook, bard class document. Any race can play any class. I also allow non-standard multi-class options, like a half-elf cleric/ranger.

Experience Points for casting spells. Spell casters get 100 XP per level of spell they cast that benefits the adventure. The spell has to work, so interrupted spells are just waster, no benefit. I took this from my brother Robert, my first and favorite DM.

Reading Spells – We never required Read Magic to read spells. That’s how I still do it, as do most I have played with. Nor do we require Write to inscribe a spell into a spell book.

Spell Components – We alternated or were not consistent with spell components. sometimes back in the day we were super strict about spell components. Other times we only required components for the big power spells that needed rare or valuable components. In my campaign, I don’t worry about spell components.

Spell Range and Area of Effect – Range is in feet indoors and yards outdoors. Area of Effect is ALWAYS as stated, feet are always feet. It’s easy to confuse this and an enormous AoE gets used, when it really isn’t that big.

Gaining levels. If the party acquires enough loot to level up, they must be in a safe place, such as getting back to town, or a fortified location that allows them to rest up. On the journey across the sands of The Broken Lands, I have ruled that the lairs they cleared out are secure.

Don’t Roll a 1 – When a task is relatively trivial, but there is urgency, danger, etc. I tell players, “Don’t roll a 1.” on a d20. This ratchets up the tension and focuses everyone to watch and see if the 5% chance of failing a simple task under stress thwarts their plans. I use this mostly at convention games, and use it in all games I run, not just AD&D.

Deities – Not really a rule, but they way I’m handling deities in my campaign. Instead of pantheons and all the different bits, the main focus is the general phrase powers of light and powers of darkness. There are individual deities, but few stick to just one. This has a bonus for the home brewing GM. You don’t have to make up a pantheon to fit your world, or file off the serial numbers from another pantheon to make it fit.

The powers of light support life and natural death. The powers of darkness deceive and promise eternal life, that ends up being undeath. This is the good/evil conflict in my campaign.


GM Rulings

As situations come up in the course of play, I make GM rulings and add them to a GM rulings document in Roll20 for the players to see, and to remind me.

Shooting Into Combat – Normally, there is a chance to hit allies. After a fight with an Ettin, I decided to make a formal change, so it is clear. It makes sense to me that when the party is fighting a giant sized creature and no one in the party is Enlarged/Polymorphed/Etc. to also be giant sized, and there is sufficient illumination/vision to see both targets, that there is no chance for friendly fire. I made one formal check and no one was hit. I silently decided not to make further checks to avoid bogging down the combat with discussion. If you do missile fire into the dark or vs. an invisible opponent, even if a giant, there is a chance to hit an ally.

Spell Casting While Invisible – Enlarge does not constitute an attack when cast on an ally. Thus an invisible caster stays invisible. My current party loves to enlarge their tank so he hits harder.

Adding spells from Unearthed Arcana – I added some spells as part of the normal spells, like ceremony, phantom armor, and alter self.

Brazier for summoning Fire Elementals – As per MM p. 37 Elementals can only be summoned once per day per device. A device capable of summoning more than one type, can summon one of each type each day.

3/2 Attacks per Round – Like so many other simple things in AD&D, all the rules for this are scattered. I made a GM ruling that gathers all the information together and how it works.

This rule is all over the place and buried in the Gygaxian prose. It ONLY applies when fighting non 0 Level types. Any classed PC or NPC or monsters of 1 or more Hit Dice. For 0 level types fighter classes get 1 attack per level up to 6 available opponents, if surrounded.

3/2 means every other round of melee you get 2 attacks, once at beginning of the round, and once at end. The first attack goes first, in spite of the initiative.

This is made clear on page 63 of the DMG (see quote below in yellow) that the 3/2 means every odd numbered round of melee they get 2 attacks. (Every odd numbered round of melee for that individual is how I interpret this. If the first round of combat is only melee for SOME combatants, and those with 3/2 don’t engage in melee until round 2, then it is their 1st round of melee. One attack at beginning of round, and one at end.)

Those with 2 attacks per round get one at beginning and one at end of each round of melee.

Haste adds one to this number, 3/2 would be 3 attacks one round and 2 the next. 2 attacks per round becomes 3. Slow removes the 2nd attack in melee.

Casting Verbal Component Spells underwater – Water Breathing or Airy Water or similar required to cast spells while underwater.

Water Breathing in air – Air breathing creatures in air with this spell can breathe normally and don’t need to stay underwater until the spell expires.

Rules From Other Games

I like the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic from D&D 5e. This would make sense in a situation where a player or party says they avoid the medusa’s gaze. If the medusa tries to gaze into their eyes rolling the save vs. petrification with advantage makes sense.

I also like the Usage Die from Black Hack [Affiliate Link]. This makes a lot of sense for a magic item with charges. The DM assigns a usage die and that way there is the mystery of no one knowing how many charges it has, and the benefit of the DM not having to keep track.

Fudge/Fate dice are interesting and can add a special element to a challenge or other scenario. The plus, minus, blank options could be used to gauge the degree of something. For example, with a reaction check, you could “flavor” the role with a fudge die. + means the best possible interpretation, – the worst interpretation, and blank a meh interpretation.

I have yet to incorporate these into my campaign, it is there in the back of my mind, in case there is a situation where it makes sense to use it.

Conclusion

I feel like I’m leaving something out. If I think of it, I will update the above. Part of my method is habit and preference born of habit. The rest is either from my experience as a GM or playing with various GMs.