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
1,110 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
Recently, I've been reading the five Otori novels, and have really enjoyed the complex world that they've created. I don't know a lot about Japanese history, so I have no idea how closely the concepts correlate to real world events, but it's a great, complex world that I'd love to game in. But it'd only work well under unusual circumstances.
Playing in her world is similar to playing ...
There’s a change on the horizon in an effort to monetize RPGs—in fact they’re already here, albeit in minor form: the collectible RPG. The RPG where players will need to pay-to-play for specific abilities. Collect ‘em all! This paradigm shift brings with it some new considerations when you sit down to run a game at your table.
Dollars for Powers
Many RPGs over the years have included diverse mechanics and ...
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about the differences between public and private games, particularly with a view to some problems that are more common in public games. Before I go any further, you should go read Steel Wing's great post about his own public play experiences over on ENWorld. The post is Why Organized Play has been an Awesome Experience. Organized play really is ...
For the last year, the local organized environment featured just 4th Edition D&D. One Pathfinder Society GM ran a table, but had the same players show up consistently and wound up closing his table and running it as a campaign. A few home groups met publicly for a week or two to recruit an extra player, Call of Cthulhu recruited and filled two tables for months, but everything ...
Today a GM came in and asked to talk about laying out a new plot. She is an officer in a WoW roleplaying guild, and was looking for advice on a new story arc. I'd never been in an MMO roleplaying guild before (though I have, at least, played WoW before), but figured that plots are plots. Besides, I do have some experience spinning out plots... so I ...
I’m likely going to make the world meta-explode with this one, but let’s take that risk and talk about games. Not just the tabletop games we play, or the video games we play when we aren’t running a game or playing in one. No, let’s talk about games within the games we play. Amalgamation When we sit down to play a ...
Every Game Master has been in the situation where a player starts pursuing some course of action that you just can’t divine the purpose off. They attempt a long complicated string of skill rolls, roleplaying interactions, and other hare brained interactions to get to … well, you never quite know until the very end. Maybe they just wanted that extra +2 bonus, or to get a better ...
So stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
A Dragonblooded paladin who is trying to make a more noble name for his people, a shadowy thief/assassin Eladrin kicked out of his people for his devious ways, a high ranking human cleric of pelor fresh from the convent, and a tiefling warlock with a dark past walk into a tavern where a man in a corner gives them a ...
Back in December, I promised to deliver my rant on prestige classes.
Instead, I ended up designing one.
(Nothing in life goes in a straight line, it seems. Just curves, twists and unexpected opportunities.)
Using the 3.5 variant Pathfinder rules, I submitted and had published the Dawa Defender, which is available as a free download, Wayfinder 4, over at paizo.com. Thanks to some development from editors Liz Courts, Adam Daigle and ...
If you've been longing to hone your GMing skills, do I have a program for you. Much like the body bootcamps advertised by gyms, this innovative system is designed to increase your flexibility, bulk up your strengths, and build your endurance. It's an intensive program--my first run lasted 18 weeks (including a couple of double sessions), and I'm currently three weeks into a 13 week commitment.
The program is ...
One of my initial disappointments with the Fourth Edition’s Player’s Handbook was lack of space devoted to development of a character’s story.
Not their abilities — their individual story.
As a GM, I love when players bring a concept to the table that allows their growth along storylines. Extra feats and class abilities are fine and dandy — but these are basically add-ons to a character’s combat capabilities.
Missing from 4E ...
Dislcaimer--This is not some Legend of Zelda fanfic. If you want that stuff, go to the experts.
While we Gnomes work tirelessly at making our stew and serving up great GMing advice, when we are not tending the giant cauldron, we are like you: out on the Internet surfing for drow p0rn RPG blogs and podcasts. We wanted to share some of our current favorite ...
During a break at the Saturday Gaming Group’s last session, I brought up the notion of doing a steampunk campaign when the current Steffenhold campaign reached a natural stopping point.*
Save for one other member of the table, I got a round of quizzical expressions. “Steampunk? What’s that?”
I was surprised. I really thought the genre of brass goggle-wearing adventurers and steam-chugging flying contraptions was more widely understood. No matter, ...
One issue I always have when I’m on the players’ side of the table is with common world and game knowledge. How much does my character actually know about the monsters or magic in the world he lives in? Does my character know in-depth info about the political structures of the megacorp he is working against, or just that they have them like any large company? Will saying ...
Previously we've spent time discussing the potential for the use of the iPad as a GM's tool, the applications, accessories, and potential workflow. Now, bringing it all together, we're happy to demonstrate the iPad in action and give you a glimpse of what's possible.
It's important to also keep in mind that as of this writing, the iPad has only been out for six days. Not to provide excuses ...
