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.
"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
Over 20 plus years of gaming I have accumulated a lot of dud games, supplements, and adventure modules. Some I purchased and some were given to me, but all of them did not succeed as commercial ventures. What can a GM do with a failed RPG product? Do what any scrapyard would do: Scrap the whole thing down to its individual parts. For instance, I have ...
This is a lesson that applies to your game table and to life in general. I recently watched the documentary Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus. The filmmaker is an evolutionary biologist who takes a hard look at the debate behind teaching evolution versus intelligent design, but who also looks at the approach that proponents of both methods use in making their arguments. In one ...
While at Gen Con I met and hung out with some very nice people. Not just fellow gamers, but also industry insiders (who in the end were also fellow gamers). I had a very strong impression that anyone could spend some time with their favorite game designer, artist, or author at Gen Con. No one turned me away, and every professional that I met made some time for ...
In this episode I talk about what I am including in my GM’s kit for Gen Con 2011. I also refer to Kurt Schneider’s Index Cards for Prep articles, as well as my own Three of My Favorite Items for GMing article.
What do you have in your GM’s kit? Tell us by leaving a comment below.
Some GMs approach the players as their rivals in the game. This is not to say that they are hostile to the players, but that the GM believes that he or she must meet or surpass the players through the game’s mechanics. This approach may result in preparation decisions that are not inspired by the game’s storyline but are instead born of meta-knowledge of the players and the ...
It has long been known that index cards are the duct tape in any GM's kit. Cheap, plentiful, and versatile, index cards are great for everything from taking notes to improvising terrain for miniatures. So start using index cards if you do not already.
Now that I have tackled the obvious choice for any GM's kit, let me share with you three items that I think should be just ...
Before I get to the the review, I need to tell you my feelings about ham.
Trust me. There is a point to this.
I do not like ham. Never have. I like bacon, pork chops, and pork roast, but I have never liked ham. I cannot blame this on ham though, because this is a matter of my personal tastes. You can serve a world class Virginia smoked ham ...
This is written as a response to Quieo’s Suggestion Pot comment. But before we get into the nitty-gritty of this article I suggest checking out two of my other articles on improvising: Preparing to Improvise is all about the fundamentals of improvising as a GM. Improvising? Don’t Worry About Beginnings & Endings, Focus On Transitions gives you an easy to ...
Saturday was the “Day of Fudge” and overall it was a great experience. You can check out my personal blog for more details if you are interested, but I want to focus on one particular moment of my game. Maybe you can relate to it as a GM yourself.
The Setup
My game was a four hour one-shot held at my local game shop. The premise was that the players ...
Today I am going to describe two ways of structuring your plots. One of these methods is bad and the other is good, but you need to understand both in order to see the value of one over the other. plot: Also called storyline. the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story. (As ...
Back in April I offered to run a game online for three randomly chosen Gnome Stew readers. Now I am going to share with you how I prepared for the game, how I ran the game, and how the game turned out.
But first I want to thank recursive.faults, Wulf Gar, and itliaf for participating in this game. All three of you were very cooperative, and you made my ...
My wife is a neat freak. Spring cleaning never truly ends for her, but when the seasons change suddenly the house is redecorated right under my nose. Winter themed knick-knacks are replaced with spring themed knick-knacks. Artwork changes, colors change, and everything seems to change ever so slightly.
My utilitarian mind cannot comprehend why she does this. Do we really need a little banner in the garden that changes ...
You established what an epic campaign is for your group with act one, and you threw the PCs a few curveballs with act two, but now it is time to wrap up your campaign and this series of articles with act three! It is time to settle things once and for all between the heroes and the evil mastermind.
Bring Back The Most Memorable NPCs From Previous Sessions
The first ...
In the first part of this three part series I focused on understanding what “epic” means to your group, deciding upon the scope of the campaign, and building up a sense of dread for the PCs before revealing a glimmer of hope. In this part I’m going to focus on creating a rivalry between the PCs and their supposed allies, unleashing the villains full force, and throwing in ...
This is the first of a three part series on how to have an epic campaign in three acts. What constitutes an act may be a session, a month of gaming, or a certain span of achievement (i.e. – 10 levels of character advancement in D&D 4th Edition). This first part deals with the pre-campaign tasks and the first act. epic - noting or ...
