Author: Martin Ralya
| June 14, 2013 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Battle Boards, a product that just launched on Kickstarter, are magnetic, dry-erase battle grids that can be combined using velcro strips. (They have no connection to Battlegraph Dry Erase Tiles, aka Battle Boards, which we reviewed here back in 2009.) Although we’ve reviewed products like this before on the Stew — Battlegraph Dry Erase Tiles, noted above, as well as Tact-Tiles in 2006 and Automagic Tiles just last month — Battle Boards don’t fall into quite the same category as those products. Yes, they’re modular…
| June 13, 2013 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Phil Vecchione’s Never Unprepared is nominated for an Origins Award for Best Game-Related Publication, and if you’re going to Origins I’d like to ask for your vote. It’s my understanding that every attendee receives a ballot, and those ballots determine the winner. I won’t be able to make it to the con to vote myself. We’re crapping in our red felt hats over being nominated, so the next few days will be tense around the gnome garden. If you do vote for Never Unprepared, thank…
| June 3, 2013 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
The Stew’s fourth system-neutral book for GMs, Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management, is now available for preorder! Preorder Odyssey now When you preorder, you’ll immediately receive the PDF (bookmarked, hyperlinked, and DRM-free), EPUB, MOBI, and text versions of the book — weeks before they’re available anywhere else. You’ll be one of the first people on the planet to get a look at Odyssey, and you’ll be able to put it to use in your campaign right away. The book is already…
| May 31, 2013 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Gnome Stew’s fourth book, Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management, will be available for preorder June 3. Today I’d like to share our final preview of the book, which comes in two parts: a larger PDF sample, and a selection of artwork from the book. Free sample PDF Download a 19-page preview of Odyssey This sample PDF, which is at a lower resolution than the retail version to keep the file size down, includes the front and back covers, table of contents,…
| May 28, 2013 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Ralph Clark from Ingression Point asked me if I’d be up for reviewing a pre-release set of his company’s dry-erase Automagic Tiles, which are currently being funded through Kickstarter. I’m a fan of dry-erase tiles for tactical mapping, so I said yes; a package of tiles arrived a few days later. This review is based on pre-release tiles that might differ from the finished product. What has come before It’s impossible for me to review Automagic Tiles outside of the context of two similar products…
| May 16, 2013 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Preorders for our next book, Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management, will be opening on June 3, and we want you to be able to check out the book before deciding whether to preorder. You can now download a free 9-page PDF preview of Odyssey that includes the cover, table of contents, introduction, and opening section. This should give you a good idea of what topics the book covers and how it approaches them. The initial announcement of Odyssey also offers some…
| May 12, 2013 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Five years ago today, Gnome Stew went live with 10 articles and around 250 RSS subscribers. In that five years we’ve published around 1,400 articles, had 1.7 million visitors, drawn 25,000 comments, won three ENnie Awards and an RPG Site of the Year Award, and published three GMing books (soon to be four). The Stew has gone places and done things I never expected. We’ve had some downs, but it’s been mostly ups — and the ups have been pretty damned awesome. And much of…
