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
I'm filled with curiosity about 5e, as I'm sure Wizards of the Coast intended with their press release. So far, I haven't figured out exactly what it'll look like, but I've been thinking about it since the announcement. I seem to have different reactions as I consider the different groups and hats that I wear.
Home Games The ongoing weekly game that I'm playing in currently is Pathfinder; thanks ...
With our regular game canceled last week, we tried out a game that has been neglected on my shelf for too long. The game was In A Wicked Age. It features a short rulebook, simple character sheets, and seemed perfect for a fill in game. We got started a little late, didn't get all the characters tied together, and quit a few scenes before we reached the end--but ...
The fight ended with a hurrah around the table; Thomas, Dram, Baumain, Xori, and Vash were cheered by the townsfolk as the dragon fell to their blades, spells, and prayers. At tables around the room, similar cheers had been erupting every fifteen minutes or so. My table's dragon was the last to fall.
Organized play is an interesting beast. We just completed our fourth season of
D&D Encounters: The ...
I am arranging a small convention that will be open to the public in the small town where I live. More details will be coming about that in future articles, but the purpose of the convention is to introduce new people to RPGs. For this reason I am building the convention around the theme of using open source systems and materials, because a free sample never hurts when ...
At our last roleplaying meetup, we cast about for a good game. We had kicked around the idea of playing Diaspora on the message board, but no one had studied enough to lead everyone through the process. Or so we thought... until we agreed that building a cluster together sounded like fun, and decided that we'd share the responsibility instead of relying on a GM to guide us.
So ...
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 ...
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 ...
Before I get to the the review, I need to tell you my feelings about ham.
Trust me. There is a point to this.
I do not like ham. Never have. I like bacon, pork chops, and pork roast, but I have never liked ham. I cannot blame this on ham though, because this is a matter of my personal tastes. You can serve a world class Virginia smoked ham ...
Looking to recharge creatively, I’ve been diving back into an old friend, my collection of pulp fiction. Specifically, this bit of inspiration came from the Robert E. Howard Conan tale, “The Servants of Bit-Yakin.”
The first part of the serialized novella is a cliffhanger, for Conan stumbles into a trap as he explores the jungle palace ruins. It reads:
He turned toward the arch — with appalling suddenness the seemingly ...
A new season begins tonight. It's not the new season of a cooking show--honestly, hardtack is difficult to make sexy, even if you have Kitchen Stadium's resources. No, tonight is the first session of the new 13 week adventure, Dark Legacy of Evard.
I'm looking forward to welcoming new GMs into the fold; a few of our players from the previous seasons are stepping up to run tables ...
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 ...
Back in 2009 I proposed and launched the “Day of Fudge”, or DoF, with the support of some of the members over at the Fudge RPG Community Yahoo Group. Here is some background info from my personal blog (which is nowhere near as popular as this one due to the lack of pointy red felt hats): Every year the first Saturday of June is ...
I’m an unapologetic fan of the “Wheel of Time” series by the late Robert Jordan and its current author, Brandon Sanderson. (1)
It was interest in trying out the 2001 roleplaying game based on the d20/Third Edition system that moved me to the GMing side the screen in the first place.
I ran two solid campaigns using those rules. It went pretty well. Yes, the channellers can rule combat encounters ...
I hate press releases -- really. Engine Publishing doesn't do press releases, period, and I rarely read the ones put out by other companies. But this draft press release, which was leaked to Gnome Stew by an anonymous party whose name definitely doesn't rhyme with Shmyan Shmancey, was too juicy to pass up:
RENTON, Washington, April 15. Wizards of the Coast, the leader in hobby games, is pleased to ...
Earlier this year, I updated you about the work that Dias Ex Machina games was doing with its Techno-Fantasy GSL game Amethyst:Foundations (here and here, oh and here), and it’s Modern-SciFi game NeuroSpasta. I had a chance to catch up with Chris Dias, and find out what is going on over at DEM, and to talk about GMing in general.
So when we last ran an article about DEM ...
