Meet the creative team behind Gnome Stew:

John Arcadian

(See John’s articles | Link to bio)

My experience with roleplaying games started way back when I was a kid. I bought every 2nd Ed. D&D book available, and a lot of first Ed. ones. I love Shadowrun as a setting, and was enamored with MechWarrior. I never actually got to play tabletop until college though. Almost as soon as I got a few games into being a player, I knew I was going to be a game master. I immediately started running crappy games to learn the ropes, and eventually got better . . . hopefully.

After gaining experience with other systems and being the defacto game master for my core group, I got the bug to start working on more gaming theory and eventually began developing for a project called Silvervine Games. While this has led to some incredible things in my life, it has best led me into deeper analysis of other systems and the themes available in roleplaying games. When I write or think about gaming, I like to focus on system neutral elements that can improve any gaming experience.

Walt Ciechanowski

(See Walt’s articles | Link to bio)

Walt’s been a game master ever since he accidentally picked up the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set in 1982. Since then, he’s GMed many campaigns and wrote a monthly column, Keeping Kosher, on RPGNet. Walt also co-ran and participated in LARPs and has been a convention GM at GenCon.

For the last few years Walt’s been doing freelance work and playtesting for RPG companies including Adamant Entertainment, Cubicle 7, Green Ronin, and Paradigm Concepts. He’s also published a short story and is still working on his never-ending novel. Still a Jersey boy at heart, Walt lives in Springfield, Pennsylvania with his wonderful (and thankfully gamer!) wife Helena, their beautiful daughter Leianna and their incredibly cute son Stephen. Amazingly, he still finds time to torture his players on a semi-regular basis.

DNAphil

(See DNAphil’s articles | Link to bio)

I have been a GM for the past 25 years. I started running the “pink” box D&D, and over the years have played many games including: Amber:Diceless, Vampire, D&D (all versions), Palladium, Conspiracy X, Whispering Vault, and Iron Heroes. My strengths as a GM include campaign creation and management, and session prep. y biggest weakness as a GM is to run a game without any notes and creating house rules. I am definitely a storyteller GM, with my focus being on story and not rules (though I am working on that). I have had the fortune to have the same gaming group for the past 14 years.

I have been a regular attendee of GenCon since it moved to Indanapolis. Over the past few years, I have spoken at GenCon on the area of Metagaming in RPGs as well as part of the GM-Fu panel discussions. I am a member of the somewhat unknown but nevertheless infamous GreenShirts (known for our custom made green bowling shirts). As “seasoned gamer,” I am married with two children, and have spent the past few years learning how to adapt my gaming lifestyle to family and a career. When not gaming I am a computer geek (linux and windows) and a lifehacker.

Scott Martin

(See Scott’s articles | Link to bio)

Scott was first pushed to DM in fifth grade to allow the class to play in more manageable groups. Early on he enjoyed mastering complex mechanical systems (like Shadowrun, Champions, and BattleTech), found new styles in college (Spelljammer with rotating GMs, Amber, and Mage: The Ascension), and keeps returning to D&D.

Recently, Scott has run a number of different games with different groups. A few years ago the meandering group played Vampire and homebrew Wheel of Time and he ran My Life with Master and Dogs in the Vineyard for them. In a parallel group (the trads), he played D&D, WEG Star Wars, and Shadowrun and ran several Mage campaigns. He is currently running a D&D campaign for them. The Hanford group met over a pickup game of Spirit of the Century, and has since played Coyote Trail, Universalis, and SAGA Star Wars. Scott is currently producing a Primetime Adventure series with them.

Matthew J. Neagley

(See Matthew’s articles | Link to bio)

First introduced to RPGs through the DnD Red Box Set in 1990, geographic isolation and other issues kept him from finding a regular playing group until he entered college six years later. It did not, however, stop him from devouring every scrap of RPG, adventure, and wargaming material he could get his hands on. In college he recruited a group of friends that enjoyed an occasional game, improved his skills as a GM through the practice, but contacting a vicious case of GMing ADD. Still fighting this insidious foe today, his GMing to do list is littered with the broken wrecks of half-formed campaigns, worlds, characters, settings, and home-brewed systems. Luckily for him, one of his college players took over his GMing duty*, allowing him the luxury of GMing only when one of his projects finally comes to fruition.

*No fool, he married her.

Martin Ralya

(See Martin’s articles | Link to bio)

Gnome-in-Chief here at Gnome Stew, and formerly the author of Treasure Tables, Martin has been gaming since 1987 and GMing since 1989. From 2004 onwards, Martin has been a freelance writer for the RPG industry, with work in Dragon Magazine and in products from Goodman Games, Necromancer Games, and Tabletop Adventures, among others. His work has twice been nominated for a GenCon EN World RPG Award (an “ENnie”).

Over the years, Martin has GMed AD&D 2e, D&D 3.x, Call of Cthulhu, Mage: The Awakening, Shadowrun, Warhammer FRP and several other RPGs, and played too many different games to count. He lives in Utah with his amazing wife, Alysia, their gorgeous daughter, Lark, and their neurotic beagle, Charlie, in a house full of books, movies, and games.

Kurt ‘Telas’ Schneider

(See Kurt’s articles | Link to bio)

Kurt Schneider started role-playing gaming in 1979 at summer camp, and went on to run a number of campaigns and systems (including AD&D, Top Secret, Champions, RuneQuest, and James Bond 007) through high school. For a while, Kurt took a break from a regular gaming schedule to focus on other activities and interests, like working out, cars, climbing, skiing, martial arts, and scuba diving. (Says Kurt: “Gaming is fun, but there is definitely more to life.“)

Born in Texas, raised in Louisiana, and having lived in Mississippi and Colorado, Kurt now resides in Austin, TX, and attempts (poorly) to balance his gaming with other activities, such as taking care of a wonderful wife and daughter, fixing computers and networks for money, and staying getting fit. You might have seen his rantings and ravings on various forums and mailing lists under Telas or TelasTX. Favorite gaming quote: “A game is only as balanced – or as good – as the GM.

Troy E. Taylor

(See Troy’s articles | Link to bio)

Troy keeps learning the GMing craft by running his homebrew Steffenhold game for friends. He’s happiest when creating dungeon terrain from plaster casts or detailing metal miniatures with craft paint. Troy’s personal “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” includes the Dennis O’Neil/Neal Adams Batman of the 1970s, Jeremy Brett’s interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s adept of the Blue Star, Lythande, and Robert Jordan’s meddlesome channeler, Moiraine Damodred of the Blue Ajah.

Troy has written for Dragon magazine and is the author of the d20 game supplement Unorthodox Modern Cheerleaders. These days he hangs out under a full moon in a garden patch with other leafy but lycanthropic freelancers at Werecabbages.com.
In the real world, Troy is a career journalist who lives in central Illinois with his wife, Paula, and their three children, who delight in devouring his grilled pizza and beating him at Sorry!, Sequence and Parcheesi.

Retired Gnomes

Our thanks to former members of the Gnome Stew team:

Patrick Benson

(See Patrick’s articles | Link to bio)

Patrick has been a GM since he was 15 years old. He enjoys rules light systems that focus on being cinematic and offer lots of opportunities for role playing. His GMing style is to design around what the players found interesting during the last session, and to rely upon improvisation in order to direct the players towards set plot points.

Patrick is currently working on his own RPG system based upon the Fudge system. He is a Systems Engineer for a software development firm in Chicago, and is married to his beautiful wife Karen who is his only ally in the epic struggle with their two children for control of their own home (the kids are winning).

Adam Nave

(See Adam’s articles | Link to bio)

Adam has been GMing off and on for 8 years, and gaming for only a bit longer. Back in 2003, Adam was one of the leads on the Fantasy Community Council’s Netbook of Traps and a reviewer and contributor to the Netbook of Classes (but good luck finding a copy of either). Adam plays a lot of D&D, but also enjoys the occasional game of Feng Shui, and is usually up for any system, if he can find the time. He is lucky enough to have a large group of friends who are gamers, a wife who is a gamer, and a little girl who likes to throw dice more than eat them. Adam also hates gnomes, and only agreed to this because he likes the idea of stewing them.