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
1,107 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
It’s official, the next edition of D&D is in the works, and those Coastal Wizards are asking for help in crafting the rules. But you probably knew this; heck, it was in the New York Times. Perhaps you’ve volunteered to help out and put your stamp on the next iteration of Gygax & Arneson’s creation. Good for you. But this article isn’t about D&D, or crowdsourcing, ...
If you want an NPC to be likable or to have some humanity, give him or her a sense of humor. Obviously, this will work with run-of-the-mill NPCs: badass mercenaries, otherwise boring experts, or just portable boxes of healing. But where this idea really works is when you want an NPC to be liked. For instance, let’s say you will be using an NPC as ...
Thanksgiving day is over. The fried turkey didn’t burn my house down or even singe me (actually, it was pretty danged tasty), so instead of some amateurish video of me running around, panicking like a sorority girl in a horror movie, you get this very-incomplete list of RPG-related sales. “Stay home? But it’s Black Friday!” Yes, stay home. (And get out of my article.) ...
Of course, you already knew that, didn’t you? GMs have a number of jobs to do: think about the next session(s), prepare material, engage the players, drop hints and clues, introduce conflict, convey information to the group, manage the table, answer rules and setting questions, run the game (including all the little jobs therein), take notes, write up summaries, rinse and repeat. (Your mileage may ...
No, it’s not another article on the game charter (a/k/a the social contract). This is about an organizational charter or license for a group of adventurers. While I originally used this in a traditional fantasy game (it doesn’t get more trad than Greyhawk), it can be adapted to nearly any genre with a little manipulation. Call it deputizing the party, Letters of Marque and Reprisal, or a license ...
Over at the Suggestion Pot, Gnome Stew reader and high-level Cleric BishopOfBattle cast Divination (or maybe it was Find the Path; I’ve taken too many negative levels in d20 to be an expert). Anyway, he asked: How do the Gnomes go about getting better player feedback? Often articles mention "Ask your players" but I often have difficulty getting useful (or sometimes any) feedback from ...
Two students train at a martial arts school. One fights only students at or below his level, and has an excellent win-loss record. The other fights only students above his level, and has a terrible win-loss record. Which one is learning faster? - Overheard at a martial arts seminar When was the last time you got ...
The Forgotten Realms is a very complete and immersive setting, and I played in a great FR campaign under a most excellent GM. But the Forgotten Realms calendar has always frustrated me. If you’re not familiar with it, a week is ten days, the names of the months make no sense, and the holidays are irregularly spaced between some of the months. However, a year is 365.25 days, ...
It’s that time of year again. When the temperatures hit the triple digits, when downtown Indianapolis gets funky, and when kids are squeezing as much fun out of the last little bits of summer before school starts. That’s right, it’s time for tax-free weekends and back to school sales. Time to pick up another year’s worth of gaming supplies. Even if your state isn’t ...
It’s easy to see a role-playing game as a one-way street; the flow of information is generally from GM to players. But the GM should also be collecting information on his players and their characters. If you’re paying attention to your players, you can really make the game fun for them. After all, the players are your primary audience. They’re also your opponents. You should go into ...
This is part two of a two-part series on index cards. The first part dealt with using index cards during game prep, and included a brief overview of what kinds of cards are available, and how to store them. While no single approach is ideal for everyone, this article will focus on how I’ve been using index cards, along with some ideas that I’ve seen in use, ...
This is part one of a two-part series on index cards. The second part will deal with using index cards at the gaming table. Unless you’re new to gaming, or live and die by the laptop, you’re probably familiar with index cards at the gaming table. A stack fits in your hand, and they can be used for any number of things, from notes to character ...
It’s not the most intuitive notion, but taking a break from gaming is a good way to improve your GMing. Don’t just take a break from GMing, take a break from gaming. (Some of you may know that my wife and I had our second daughter recently. No, this is not the result of sleep deprivation; I had this piece half-written before the third trimester.) ...
My object all sublime I shall achieve in time To let the punishment fit the crime - Gilbert & Sullivan, “The Mikado” Consider the following: A player has just conceived and executed a plan so audacious, clever, and funny that she gets ...
Gripe all you want about 4E, but I’ve learned more than a few things from everyone’s favorite whipping-boy RPG. As a player, I spent more than a few tense moments at the beginning of many encounters, wondering how the party was going to survive this onslaught. Once I recognized the pattern (thanks to a comment by Martin), it all made sense. A number of factors contribute ...
