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
Jennifer loved Borderlands--in fact, the excitement from just the announcement of Borderlands 2 was enough for her to dust it off and put it into play again. Borderlands calls itself a shooter/RPG--and, while it's a little short on the roleplaying, there are quests, exploration, character improvement, and discovery. Pandora is a fun world to wander; it's a dystopian, disastrous future, featuring vending machines filled with guns, quirky ...
In the first installment of Gnew Years Resolutions for 2012 some of the Gnomes offered gaming resolutions and readers were invited to join along with us. Here's how we've been progressing for the first quarter:
John: My resolution was to be more conscious about prepping for games. I tend to fall back on improv as a Game Master, but I've been hitting the prep phase hard for games lately. ...
Sometimes you have to wing it, but the secret to improvising is that you have a set of plans and formulas that you can follow whenever you need to do so. This is a trick that I have used when a plot is not capturing my players’ attention, or if I am asked to run a game on short notice. It came from my wife’s following of the ...
Some campaigns are not that good, some are fine, and some are ones we never forget. In my last article I talked about my Elhal campaign, and how it was one of the great ones. In a discussion on G+ (btw, Circle +Gnome Stew), some Plussers asked me what made Elhal so great. So I did some soul searching, as well as asked some of my players and we ...
A few weeks back my wife's pregnancy was taking its toll and she had to take a break from gaming until after the baby is born (it should be this week!). Rather than cut out gaming completely (mostly because we'd miss the socialization) I decided to run a game of Hellfrost for the rest of the group. I just had three problems.
First and foremost, I'd never played or ...
Today's guest article was written by reader Andrew Bell. He's about to swap places with the GM of a long-running successful campaign, and he's got some excellent ideas to share about making sure his game is every bit as good -- but different, too. Thanks, Andrew!
In a few short weeks, the game in which I currently play is coming to an end after seven years. Loose threads are ...
This is a milestone month for me. We are expecting our third child to come any day now and I turn 40 this Saturday. I started gaming with the Moldvay Basic Set of Dungeons & Dragons, making this my 30th year of gaming as well!
Given the fact that I need to lighten my load a bit, and the fact that yesterday was April Fool's Day, I thought I'd ...
Like Most GMs, you probably find your self wondering from time to time just how competent your players are. Are they the well oiled, expertly min-maxed team they claim to be, or are they a bunch of bumbling monkeys? Luckily there’s a simple mathematically accurate method to test their claims based on simple linear algebra:
Start with your dungeon map. Here’s a sample randomly generated dungeon from Donjon RPG ...
I recently killed my All For One campaign even though there was nothing seriously wrong with it. It was doing ok, but it was not doing great. Overall I would give the campaign a solid C. It was missing that spark. The spark that separates an OK game from a great game. Once I admitted that spark was not there, it was time for it to go. I ...
I've read a number of interesting posts this week about Mass Effect 3, how very right it got its gameplay--and how its ending just didn't match. Shamus Young, who used to write DM of the Rings, wrote a few posts analyzing issues from the game's ending. If you're playing the game, the next linked post leads to posts with massive spoilers. Click carefully.
In Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy, ...
It sits there in your hand, this awesome module that has an incredible story, a great concept, a well thought out adventure path, and it’s perfect for the game you’ve always wanted to run…. except it’s not in the system you or your group likes to play. While standing in the game store, you mull over your options. You could pick up the source books for the ...
Over the next few months I will be sharing with you the process of one of my campaigns in the occasional article. This is the first of that series of articles, and it deals with getting the overall scope of the campaign in order before focusing on the more granular details.
If all goes well, the current GM of my regular group's game will be wrapping up some plot points ...
Need a spiffy map for you game and are strapped for cash? Want to make it large and visible, but don’t have a plotter at home...or the dough to have your local printshop take care of it for you? Provided you’ve the source art—or access to a community willing to share—here’s a low-cost way for you to manufacture maps, maps, maps to your hearts content!
If you’re like me—good ...
When it comes to RPG systems, I've found that the five senses are usually either lumped together into one score (D&D 4e, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds), or parceled out for sight and hearing (Call of Cthulhu, D&D 3.5). Advantages and disadvantages generally only deal with sight and hearing as well and, even when the other senses are touched, it's rare for them to actually matter in play.
I'm guilty of ...
I am frequently tired on Monday's after I GM. At first it would be easy to say that my source of fatigue is from gaming until midnight on a Sunday. If I just went to bed right after the game, perhaps I would be less tired. The key word is "if"; if I would go to bed, or perhaps better stated, if I could go to bed. Today's ...
