New Year, New Game (NYNG), Gnome Stew’s side project to encourage GMs to try running new games, will kick off Monday, January 13, and it will work a bit differently this year.

In 2012 and 2013, NYNG was two things: a contest for Gnome Stew readers and a blog carnival for RPG bloggers. This year I don’t have time to run the blog carnival side of it, so I’m paring back to just the contest. (It has nothing to do with the quality of NYNG blog posts in past years, which was high; it’s purely a time crunch, as I’m busy editing our next book.)

There will be a full announcement when the contest officially opens. This is the heads-up that it’s coming, so that you can start thinking about your entry now.

As in the first two years, we’ll be kicking in Gnome Stew funds and Engine Publishing books for prizes, and we’ll archive all entries on the NYNG site to provide inspiration to GMs down the line.

In the meantime, you can read more about the annual NYNG challenge and check out dozens of game ideas from 2012 and 2013.

I can’t wait to hear about your game ideas!