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
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 ...
I finally played A Penny for My Thoughts for the first time at a recent RPG meetup. I ran the group straight from the book, following the written guidance and cues. It was a good session-- with prep so light I could never complain-- but many of the pitfalls the author warned about did come true in our session.
Later, I played a pair of games on Halloween ...
Today is Halloween here in the United States, and of all of the holidays Halloween is my favorite for gaming! Even non-gamers get into the act of imaginative play and storytelling around Halloween. Halloween is a holiday that makes it easy for adults to let down their guard and indulge their childish and mischievous natures without fear of embarrassment. This makes it easy for people who consider RPGs ...
At GenCon I was one of the lucky few who managed to find a slot at a Dresden Table. Rubi was kind to me, I guess. I've been a fan of the novels for years, and separately enjoyed games by Evil Hat-- in fact, I'm running a Spirit of the Century game right now. Those two things came together to make my first Dresden experience a great one. ...
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 ...
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, ...
Dragon Rider, A New Prophecy by ~valadant on deviantART
I was adding some tarragon and parsley to the suggestion pot earlier, and what did I come across? Jim C asking the following: Hey Guys,
I actually a couple of questions/suggestions/topics for thought, all from one game idea.
A while ago a friend of mine had an idea for a game about dragon riders. The game never actually happened; I think ...
This weekend I sat down in the player's chair again. After an extended and glorious fight two weeks ago, the D&D game reached a "chapter break" and we picked a new game to play for a few months while my brain recovers from high level D&D 3.5 prep.
The game we selected is Aces and Eights. We have played around with it a couple of times in the past-- ...
This is one in a periodic series of articles looking at second cities — places to base a campaign in published settings other than such signature cities as Waterdeep, Greyhawk or Sharn.
City: Hardby (5,100)
Published setting: Greyhawk (Wizards of the Coast/TSR)
Why it’s a good choice:
Clearly, the City of Greyhawk is the heart of the Flanaess, which means many of the great adventuring sites are near to the Free ...
There's a fox in the henhouse over at Open Design, Wolfgang Baur's design project that produces d20 OGL and 4E materials for its patrons.
This particular fox is games designer John Wick, who was the principal designer for 7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings rpgs and has recently released Houses of the Blooded through his Wicked Dead Brewing Co.
Wick's been taking aim at some d20 sacred cows, ...
Recently fellow gnome John Arcadian and I attended “Con on the Cob” where we hung out with the crew from Windmill Game Co. They are the creative power behind the new Dread: Tales of Terror series which are supplements that provide wonderful scenarios and questionnaires for the fabulous game Dread.
Now every year I run a very simple RPG for non-gamers around Halloween time. In the past I have ...
One of the most fun things for me to do at GenCon is to wander the Dealers Room and check out the new stuff. GenCon is a natural place for RPG Publishers to launch new books and this year was no exception. One of the books that caught my eye was Fantasy Craft by Crafty Games. After the con, I received a free copy of Fantasy Craft for this ...
Ryan and Jay, those d20-rolling enthusiasts over at 3.5 Private Sanctuary, devoted Episode 87 of their podcast to the subject of divinity and the role of gods in a campaign world.
And at one point, Ryan and Jay make a solid case for always using default pantheon — the Greyhawk-lite list of gods and goddesses from the Player's Handbook — for every campaign.
Basically, their argument boils back to the ...
This past GenCon, Paizo Publishing released the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Now if you've been a GM (or DM, I'll use the generic here since it's what the Open Game Content and Pathfinder uses) for more than a couple of weeks then you probably know that Pathfinder is a refinement of the previous (D&D3.5) version of Dungeons & Dragons. Today's article takes a look at Pathfinder from a prospective ...
