As a GM, you have access to a lot of information the players never see. This can be mutually frustrating, because you have ideas and concepts you never get to illustrate, and the players may have holes in their picture of the game world that they would like to understand. One of the less common techniques for giving the players a broader view of the world you’ve created ...

Herein you’ll find a handful of campaign seeds that are currently wasting away on the back burners of us gnomes, most likely never to be run.  I like to think of this article series as a sort of holiday tradition. Not only is it in the spirit of giving, but since the holiday season puts most games on hiatus and gaming lulls are potentially fatal, having a handful ...

Forgot to get a gift for a GM in your life, or just don't know enough about the hobby to know what's good and what's crap? Alternately, are you looking for something that isn't necessarily about gaming, so you don't get them a gaming book EVERY gift giving holiday? Well, look no further. Life Magazine has put together several coffee table books full of inspiration for any GM while technically ...

This article is part of the Game Cryer's Holiday Gift Guide. You can see other gift ideas for you and your gaming friends at the main Gift Guide page here. Shock: Social Science Fiction from GlyphPress was on my wish list for quite some time, and when I finally got my grubby little paws on a copy I was overjoyed. As the name implies, it's a science fiction game ...

Ideally, every new campaign you design has complete player buy in. You’ve discussed systems, options, flavor, outlined the basic thrust of the game, and everyone is on the same page and ready to go. In reality though, some games defy the full disclosure approach. Sometimes you want to throw in a major twist, some concepts are ruined by full disclosure, and other times you need to start work ...

Chances are, you’ve run a session that was less than stellar, and one of your players has given you the most common player boredom clue ever: stacking dice. Now, sure, when you see this cue, it’s important to re-evaluate the pacing of your adventure, but more importantly, you should be evaluating their dice stacking skills. After all, you’re the GM, and a player stacking dice at your table ...

If you've been carefully combing over our website every hour or so like a loyal gnome, and for shame if you haven't, you noticed that yesterday we had a new download available. Gnome Stew is proud to present our Print and Fold Gnome Miniatures! We received an e-mail late September from one of our servicemen. One of the things we discussed with him was good sources for inexpensive minis. Never ...

Gnomestew reader Idran's comment on Martin's article on the Decamer Campaignstarted me thinking about RPG monsters. Turns out, they're quite an international bunch, and while I certainly don't begrudge the creators and designers of RPGs from drawing from a myriad of sources, and though it's never bothered me before, suddenly it became obvious the nonsensical nature of the convention of retaining original names when drawing from a wide variety of sources. Using Martin's ...

Those of you who are old fogies like I am will remember when Cracked Mazagine was a poor man's alternative to Mad. The rest of you may remember it's failed 2006 re-imagining as a men's magazine and subsequent cancellation three issues later (though if you blinked, there's a good chance you missed it). These days Cracked exists solely as Cracked.com, a website dedicated mostly to humor articles, "top 10" ...

There's a trend I've seen in rpgs towards using small enemies at low power stages of campaigns and then dropping them during high power stages of campaigns. This trend is stronger in certain genres and playstyles, but it's pretty normal in most cases. That makes sense. Small enemies aren't generally physically imposing and they're usually portrayed as having high pitched voices or Napoleon Complexes, so it's easy to ...

When I first saw the summary page for Miskatonic River Press’s new adventure book Our Ladies of Sorrow I was Instantly excited about getting my hands on a copy. Not only is the cover art phenomenal (click through on the link above to see the original as opposed to my butchered version on the left), but the promise of a mythological ghost story featuring goddesses of grief madness ...

Reading a post over on Story Games, I began to get a bit nostalgic for the days of my youth that I spent on Red Box DnD. The subject of the article I was reading was "Did we (indie game enthusiasts) enjoy DnD back then, and can't now or Did we never enjoy DnD that much and didn't realize it at the time?" and as someone who enjoys "indie" RPGs ...

This article be th' same as Th' Sweet trade Article: Landlubber`s Version, jus' sea dogd up a bit. So if ye dasn't feel like givin' yersef a migrane jus' t' get into th' spirit o' th' tide, click through t' th' other one. `Tis Talk Like a Sea dog Tide, so 't seems only fittin' that we take a eyeball th' issue o' th' sweet trade an' how 't ...

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, so it seems only fitting that we take a look at the issue of piracy and how it relates to RPGs. Now, I'm usually a very tolerant and accepting gnome, just ask any StarWars fan, so it's no surprise that I have a very liberal attitude about piracy. Piracy... is wrong. Yeah, you can argue if you like, but unless you belong to some ...

I've been thinking about interviews a lot lately. First, because I've had this article on the back burner for months now without any inspiration to pick it up and dust it off. Second, because as of last week, I've been downsized.  It wasn't just me mind you. They let almost our whole department go, and they're outsourcing the work to another division. It wasn't anyone's fault. My boss was just following orders, the big ...