Award-Winning GMing Advice
Gnome Stew won the silver ENnie Award for Best Blog in
2011 and
2010 -- thank you for your support! Online since 2008, we've published
1,109 articles packed with GMing tips and advice, as well as
two books for GMs. Our
top 30 articles make a great starting point for new readers.
"I check Gnome Stew every day." -- Monte Cook
"fantastic blog for game masters, dungeon masters, and rpg fans" -- Wil Wheaton
"If you aren’t reading Gnome Stew, you’re missing out." -- Wolfgang Baur
Here's one way that you can tell that our first annual New Year, New Game challenge had some excellent entries: After the first round of secret ballot voting for our favorites, there was a three-way tie. We broke that tie with a runoff vote between those three entries.
Because we received over 50 entries in the contest -- the threshold for awarding a second prize -- we'll be giving ...
Yesterday marked the end of Gnome Stew's first annual New Year, New Game (NYNG) challenge and blog carnival, and today I'm here to share a smorgasbord of excellent blog posts from all over the world about running new games.
This was our first blog carnival, but it won't be our last -- and with 14 participants (15 with us), I'd say it was a great first outing. A big ...
This article was written for the first annual New Year, New Game blog carnival hosted by Gnome Stew as part of the 2012 NYNG challenge.
This past weekend I wrapped up a 16-month Star Trek campaign, and ending it (always a tricky affair) made me think about how I started it -- which in turn seemed like a pretty good topic to cover for NYNG.
I'm going to talk specifics ...
Over the past couple of years, I've refined a simple, lazy, but highly effective approach to RPG background music. I call it the Three Playlist System, and in this article I'm going to show you how to use it.
This approach to BGM balances the desire to set the mood at the gaming table with the need to focus on what really matters: the game. I want background music ...
Gnome Stew's first annual New Year, New Game (NYNG) contest and blog carnival both end January 23, a bit less than a week away.
The contest features a grand prize worth over $150, courtesy of our four sponsors: DriveThruRPG, Engine Publishing, Obsidian Portal, and Tabletop Adventures. You can enter it right here on the Stew.
The NYNG blog carnival, also hosted here, is themed around running new games -- tips, ...
Have you sent us email at martin at gnomestew dot com in the recent or not-so-recent past? And if so, did you not get a reply?
That would be because I only NOW figured out that this address is not forwarding properly to my "hub" account and likely has not been for a very long time. I respond to every single legitimate (IE non-spam) email I get from readers, ...
Legend is a reimplementation of the d20 System core rules from Rule of Cool -- a d20 fantasy RPG that does things differently. It's as much of a change from core d20 as d20 Modern was from D&D 3.0.
Through January 14, 2012, it's available for a pay-what-you-like donation to Child's Play. If you have the slightest interest in d20, it's well worth checking out (see my recent post ...
Welcome to the first annual New Year, New Game challenge!
New Year, New Game (NYNG for short) is a new Gnome Stew venture -- an annual challenge to GMs all over the world: Run a new game this year.
New Year, New Game is an idea that we hope will catch on with gamers all over the world, much like GM’s Day did (it’s celebrated on March 4th every year). ...
As part of our first annual New Year, New Game challenge, we're also running our first-ever blog carnival!
This is separate from the NYNG contest, although the timeframe is the same and folks are welcome to both enter the contest and take part in the blog carnival.
A blog carnival is an event that features multiple blogs contributing posts on the same broad topic, in this case posts about running ...
Welcome to 2012! Before we all get exploded by the Mayan apocalypse (save for those lucky few who get saved by John Cusack driving a succession of improbably durable vehicles), why not take part in a GMing challenge?
Or better yet, a challenge that's also a contest where you can win cool things?
Or even better still, a challenge that's also a contest and our first-ever blog carnival?
The first stop ...
Welcome to our final article of 2011, my twice-yearly State of the Stew rundown on our stats, milestones, and so forth for the past year. We do one of these in December and one in May (the site's birthday), and while they don't make for scintillating read or appeal to everyone, I'm a big believer in marking milestones, I enjoy reading these kinds of posts when other sites ...
It's an annual tradition here on the Stew to douse the fire, let the gnomes escape from the stewpot, and not try to round the little buggers up again until the new year.
Or, 'tis the season for reruns -- the week when we take a break from writing new GMing content and instead bring you our favorite articles from the past year on the Stew.
Merry Christmas and a ...
It's an annual tradition here on the Stew to douse the fire, let the gnomes escape from the stewpot, and not try to round the little buggers up again until the new year.
Or, 'tis the season for reruns -- the week when we take a break from writing new GMing content and instead bring you our favorite articles from the past year on the Stew.
Merry Christmas and a ...
It's an annual tradition here on the Stew to douse the fire, let the gnomes escape from the stewpot, and not try to round the little buggers up again until the new year.
Or, 'tis the season for reruns -- the week when we take a break from writing new GMing content and instead bring you our favorite articles from the past year on the Stew.
Merry Christmas and a ...
It's an annual tradition here on the Stew to douse the fire, let the gnomes escape from the stewpot, and not try to round the little buggers up again until the new year.
Or, 'tis the season for reruns -- the week when we take a break from writing new GMing content and instead bring you our favorite articles from the past year on the Stew.
Merry Christmas and a ...
