This is the last article that I will write for Gnome Stew, and I wanted to use it to thank all of the Gnome Stew gang and the readers. At first I had plans to make some sort of grand statement regarding games, theories, and the state of RPGs in general, but I realized that such statements are exactly what our community does not need. Further segmenting RPG ...
Seasons greetings and happy holidays to all this fine Christmas Day! To show our appreciation to you, our dear readers, we Gnomes are giving you a gift for being such dedicated devourers of the stew!
Here is our gift to you. Enjoy!
What did I get? What did I get?
Your gift is a zip file with the files needed for you to create your own tokens (or pogs) to use ...
When I run my D&D 4e game I use a random encounter generator. I look at the stats for the various monsters, and I then put those monsters into the game. This might result in a zombie, some lizard people, a classic magical beast, and a handful of human minions being the encounter. If the PCs decide to travel into the woods that evening these monsters are suddenly ...
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Today is a day for gathering with friends and family to reflect upon what we have and to show our gratitude towards each other. Regardless of where you live, what holidays you observe, or what you believe allow me this moment to extend the thanks of all of us gnomes to you our readers. Without you this site would be ...
As a player I recently experienced two opposite approaches to how a game master can react to the players’ input during a session. One GM made sure to incorporate what the PCs did into the game, and the other made sure to keep the plot on track with what he had prepared. I am not going to go into the details, but guess which game sucked? ...
Recently fellow gnome John Arcadian and I attended “Con on the Cob” where we hung out with the crew from Windmill Game Co. They are the creative power behind the new Dread: Tales of Terror series which are supplements that provide wonderful scenarios and questionnaires for the fabulous game Dread.
Now every year I run a very simple RPG for non-gamers around Halloween time. In the past I have ...
This year at Gen Con Vicki Potter from Tabletop Adventures joined fellow gnomes Kurt “Telas” Schneider, Phil “DNAphil” Vecchione, and myself to give the seminar “All Grown Up, and Still Gaming". We discussed gaming with a career, gaming after marriage, and gaming as a parent. And since it was at Gen Con we got lots of great feedback and tips from the plethora of gamers in attendance. ...
Today I offer no advice, but instead I seek to hear from others. In the near future I plan on organizing a local mini-convention for RPG fans. Nothing against board, card, video, or war games, but I want to focus on RPGs exclusively. The plan is to hold this event at my local library where I can reserve presentation space for free as long as the event ...
In a recent game that a friend ran we were railroaded as players. The game was a science fiction setting using Savage Worlds, and I and the one other player were both playing PCs who had arranged passage on a small starship. While the ship was docked at a space station the PCs were in private living quarters minding their own business. Panicked pounding on the door to ...
My greatest mistakes and achievements as a gamemaster seem to occur more frequently in stituations outside of my gaming norm. For example, when I GM at a convention I notice that I have to focus more on reading the player's motivation, because often that person and I have just met. When I run a new system I tend to push myself harder on understanding the rules better, because ...
This year at Gen Con I attended a seminar given by Ramsey “Tome Wyrm” Lundock titled Secrets for Instant GMing. Focused on how a GM can improvise when the players do something unexpected the seminar was informative and well done. I enjoyed the seminar enough that I bought a copy of Lundock’s books Instant GM: A Bag of Tricks and Instant GM II: On Your Mark, Get Set, ...
I hear people brag about their sandbox games. About how the players can have their PCs interact with the world in an unrestricted manner. How the gameworld is not bogged down with a plot that railroads the players, but instead the PCs encounter unique self-contained events that the PCs may investigate further or walk away from at any time. Every time I have played in a campaign ...
This year I ran four RPG events at Gen Con. I’m confident that each was a success based upon the feedback that I was given by the players. If you happened to play in one of my games at Gen Con this year (or attended one of the seminars I was involved in) please leave a comment with your feedback about the game that you played in. I ...
On May 13th, 2009 (I suggest that you read that article first if you have not already) I posted a review of the EpicWords web site and service. I gave the site a solid “C”, and I mentioned that the site was constantly improving. Well I believe that it has improved in enough ways for me to revisit my original review and to add this follow-up. Hey! ...
Recently a GM gave me the role playing kiss of death in a game in which I was a player. It was a science fiction one shot. The society of the game world was dystopian, and the player characters were trying to overthrow the oppressive government. My character was a techie and when we came across a door locked by a computer system I said that my character ...
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