This past weekend I just finished running a medium length campaign for my group. The game had been a play test and world-building project. The group travelled far and wide across the world and grew to great heights of notoriousness . . . uh, I meant fame. A couple of sessions before the projected finish of the campaign, a few members of the group told me how much ...
While prepping for my regular Sunday game yesterday, I came across an incredible link on Boing Boing. This might already be floating around out there in the general gaming geekdom, but I hadn't found it yet and felt it needed sharing! A gamer who seems to go by the online name of Burntwire took two years to build his gaming space into a great place to fit ...
I’ve been running my gaming group through a dungeon using Dungeonaday.com. In the last session the group came across a really well written puzzle and it got me thinking about the use of puzzles in games. Puzzles can be incredibly fun or incredibly frustrating. From the GM’s perspective, you don’t want to give the players something so easy it won’t feel like they have overcome anything, but ...
While watching Star Wars the other day, okay Something, Something, Something, Dark-side, I realized that very few people in the Star Wars stories(aside from Jedi) had that many "special" powers. Sure the Jedi and Sith are the powerhouses of the universe, but for the most part everyone was on the same playing field. Tech of course made some people better *cough cough* Bobba fett *cough cough* and a ...
Stew reader LesInk threw an interesting morsel into the suggestion pot the other day. It is about the concept of railroading and how you force an event to happen when the plot absolutely calls for it. The concept is an interesting one, and LesInk put forth a great solution along with the question and story. Dear Gnomies, I believe ...
While I was watching old movies and cleaning out my basement a few weeks ago, I watched a movie that made me go “Wow! That was totally someone’s role-playing game!”. It wasn’t the first time that happened to me, and this isn't the first time that the idea has been discussed here on the stew ( 1 | 2 ). There are a lot of movies and ...
While talking with a friend about a game system development issue, I had the spark of an idea for an alternate hit point system that could easily be merged into almost any game system. It applies mostly to enemies and is aimed at controlling the pacing and drama of combat. Sitting down to think about this, it feels really sound and interesting. I'm going to use it ...
Trap: 2 a : something by which one is caught or stopped unawares; also : a position or situation from which it is difficult or impossible to escape One of my recent personal goals has been to focus on the types of Game Mastering that I don't normally do. To that end, I started thinking about what traps ...
Many games revolve around the idea of the heroes preventing an end of the world scenario, but I've often found the "end of the world" feel missing when hearing about, or playing, these types of games. I'd like to see it included more. How could an apocalypse affect the game you are currently running? Whether it is a looming disaster that the party is attempting to deter, a ...
It is no secret that I’m a fan of shared narrative in the games I run and create. If you are unfamiliar with the term, shared narrative is essentially handing narrative control of the story over to the players instead of the Game Master. If you want a more detailed explanation of shared narrative, here is an article that I wrote on the subject a while back. ...
Looking for an article idea to finish this week off with, I went trolling through the suggestion pot. The most recent question caught my eye. Crushnaut asks: "I would like to work a rival, or reoccurring adversary into the next campaign I run. How do you guys work these into your stories? Do you use the powerful, yet utterly hopeless defiler as seen ...
I've always had a bit of an issue dealing with money and loot in-game. Depending on the game system and setting that we are playing, money is very important. For some game systems, like D&D and Shadowrun, it enables the PCs to get gear that enhances their abilities. In other game systems, where the mechanical effect isn’t as tangible, it gives the PCs a resource with which ...
I tend to be a very story driven GM. I have a very laissez-faire attitude towards violations of rules in favor of cool things going on. It works well, but not always. I realize, in the course of running some games, that I often forget to make my enemies utilize their most deadly powers or I forget modifiers to their armor, etc. Usually it isn't a big deal, ...
I've got a little story for you today, it came from my last game session and it centers around the kinds of rewards we, as GMs, give to players. Sure there are rewards of straight in-game currency, there are rewards of items that boost the characters' stats and abilities, and there are rewards of plot relevant items or information that help move the story along. There are also ...
The Gnome Stew suggestion pot has 2 questions about a tricky situation that comes up every so often. Parties and gaming groups that have grown too big. This is something I just finished dealing with in my current gaming group, so I thought I would tackle the issue. The first comment was from Zaraphina: Zaraphina I’m ...
New to the Stew? There are 619 articles packed with GMing tips and advice in our archives. Why not start with our 
