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
1,183 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.
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There. The title says it. I admit it. I don't like published adventures. In my 30 years of GMing I have used published adventures only a handful of times. For the most part I stay away from them and write my own materials. Why don't I like published adventures? There are a few reasons.
A Gradual Falling Out
Published adventures, or Modules as we called them when I was just ...
Ever play Vampire during the day in a well lit room? Then you know how important aligning the mood of the room with the game you are playing can be. Some games are more susceptible to it than others, but when the atmosphere of where you are playing does not align with what you are playing, it can create a barrier from really immersing into the game. Over the years ...
I love to GM mysteries and conspiracies. I have been running them for years, ever since I picked up the first edition of Conspiracy X in 1996. Players do not always enjoy these types of adventures, often finding them frustrating and confusing. The most common reason for this is because they lose track of the clues, and thus cannot reach the necessary conclusions to solve the mystery or ...
Some campaigns are not that good, some are fine, and some are ones we never forget. In my last article I talked about my Elhal campaign, and how it was one of the great ones. In a discussion on G+ (btw, Circle +Gnome Stew), some Plussers asked me what made Elhal so great. So I did some soul searching, as well as asked some of my players and we ...
I recently killed my All For One campaign even though there was nothing seriously wrong with it. It was doing ok, but it was not doing great. Overall I would give the campaign a solid C. It was missing that spark. The spark that separates an OK game from a great game. Once I admitted that spark was not there, it was time for it to go. I ...
I am frequently tired on Monday's after I GM. At first it would be easy to say that my source of fatigue is from gaming until midnight on a Sunday. If I just went to bed right after the game, perhaps I would be less tired. The key word is "if"; if I would go to bed, or perhaps better stated, if I could go to bed. Today's ...
Since the Jetsons, I have been waiting for video chat. It’s been a long wait. When Skype arrived on the scene, it was like fulfillment of a childhood promise (though I am still waiting for my flying car)! Skype is great for one-on-one video chatting, but group video chat is a premium feature and not everyone wants to pay for it. Then Google+ arrived, and I discovered the Hangout. ...
Connecting the dots. Mysteries are always about connecting the dots. In novels and books, the author is in complete control of the pacing of the clues (read: information) and how they are presented to the reader. In an RPG, disseminating information to the players can be a bit more haphazard which can often foil the unveiling of a mystery in a graceful manner. I started to think about ...
A few months ago, I backed a Kickstarter for a product called Writers Dice, by Daniel Solis. I just got my dice this past week, and wanted to use them in my All For One game. So I started to think about how to work them in. I came up with three ways that I could use them to enhance my game and add a bit of randomness to ...
What do Data, Odo, and the Pathfinder Gunslinger class have in common? Why is it that playing Amber with new players is so much better than with players who have played before? Why is it that splat books almost always dilute, if not ruin, the games they are made for? What the hell is the Weirdo Card? Want some answers? Lets get started.
Note: I am going to make some ...
A few years ago, I ran a home-brewed fantasy campaign using the Iron Heroes system. I fell in love with the setting that my players and I created, and for the past few months have been toying with the idea of bringing it back, but not with the same mechanics. The more I looked at the setting, I started to realize that different game systems could be used ...
I love starting new campaigns. As a GM it is so exciting to be learning the rules to a new game, and to start to think about how the campaign is going to be run. When I am learning a new game, I like to absorb as much information as I can about the genre and setting. In a way I treat this aspect of campaign prep like ...
Last month, one of our readers, bonao94 made a suggestion: A round-up of awesome and/or innovative indie RPGs from the last few years that people who are trying to broaden their role-playing horizons should try out.
Being the most System Promiscuous Gnome in the Stew, I thought I would pick a few of my favorite games to share. I am always hesitant about the term “Indie” when it comes to ...
I recently started my new All For One campaign, and while I was preparing for its launch, I set up what is now becoming my standard collection of tools for my campaign group. These tools are a collection of various applications that I use to organize my campaign and to keep it running. In today’s article I thought I would dump the toolbox out and show you each tool ...
I just recently kicked off a new campaign, running Triple Ace Games’ All For One. I had the fortune of having two months to plan this campaign before I ran my first session, while I was closing out my most recent Corporation game. While I was getting ready for this campaign, I had some discussions with my players about our views of how the campaign would run, the types of ...
