The Crusty Old Gnome: Tips for New Game Masters
Face to face, out in the heat, hanging tough, staying hungry… — Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger” In a proud GM Dad moment, my eldest daughter just ran her...
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Category: Intro to Game Mastering
Exploring Encounter Theory: How to Craft RPG Adventures
Want to write better adventures? Want to prep more efficiently? Sick of players skipping all of your best content? Prep Smarter, Not Harder, with Encounter Theory Encounter Theory: The Adventure Design Workbook is a fresh way to look at adventure design by Ben Riggs, the voice of the...
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Level up your GM skills with these amazing non-gaming resources
Learn how Daniel Kwan fosters positive, collaborative relationships with the members of his gaming table with two resources that you might not find at your local game store.
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Getting Players to GM
As a GM, do you really get to play like everyone else at the table? Do you get to enjoy the setting and the rules of a game in the same way? Do you experience the unexpected as deeply as you would from the perspective of a single character? Do you get to feel like you’re one of the party, standing...
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The GM and the Chef
It’s International Tabletop Game Day and I am lucky enough to be at a friend’s house to run a rousing game of Pasión de las Pasiones. I walk in to the smell of something delicious and the sizzle of a hot pan on the stove. Fellow gnome Camdon is standing in the kitchen and he’s got piles of...
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Adding a New Gamer to an Existing Group
For those of us who have gamed for a long time (I just hit 35 years of RPG experience myself), it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that not everyone is a gamer, or that “gamer” is really a spectrum. There are those folks that only like Yahtzee and Spades. There are folks that...
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The City of Danger GMing Workshop
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about taking the first step to becoming a GM. It can be nerve wracking to cross the screen and run a game for the first time. Our organized play society, though, needs more GMs. I fear that if we ask our existing GMs to provide all the games that players want,...
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Your Time Is Now
Experience tends to be the defining metric when discussing whether someone is a good or great GM. That precious commodity that’s measured in years, campaigns, or game systems. It’s also something that gamers new to being behind the screen tend to focus on too much. The reality being that within...
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Troy’s Crock Pot: Twist and Launch
I love it when my gaming interests intersect with real life – or at least – the lives of our family’s mini-mes. The First Born’s final class assignment for her social studies unit on the medieval period was to construct a catapult. So, armed with scrap wood from my shop, an instructional...
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Troy’s Crock Pot: Learning from others
One of the best ways to learn is by watching other GMs work. Being a player gives you perspective – often a better perspective than what’s offered from behind the screen. Good practices. Bad practices. You can learn from all of it. Here are some of things I’ve learned about the GMing craft by...
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It Came From The Stew Pot
Written by a team of veteran Gamers and Gamemasters, Gnome Stew is a widely read gaming blog with multiple awards, ennies, and thousands of articles. We’re dedicated to helping gamers have more fun at the gaming table.
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Through our partner Engine Publishing, we've published six system-neutral books for GMs, with over 28,000 copies sold. Available in print and PDF.
Focal PointThe Complete Game Master's Guide to Running Extraordinary Sessions
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UnframedThe Art of Improvisation for Game Masters
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OdysseyThe Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management
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Never UnpreparedThe Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep
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Masks1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game
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Eureka501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters
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Through our partnership in the G.E.M. collective, many of the Gnomes are affiliated with creating products through Encoded Designs. Available in print and PDF.
Misdirected Mark ProductionsGnomes on Podcasts, even a Gnome Only Podcast!
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Rockerboys and Vending MachinesDo you have what it takes to save Neon City in this 80s, neon, cyberpunk game?
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Character CacheArt by Matt Morrow, Characters By Encoded Gnomes
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