In what must be the most brazen or naive scheme ever devised by those foul-smelling doglike lizards, some Kobolds have asked us Gnomes to review the latest issue of their magazine, tempting us with a free PDF issue. Do these Kobolds really think that a new edition means that all the old rivalries are forgotten? Do they think that a simple bribe will make up for past atrocities? Can ...

Reading fellow Gnome Scott Martin’s article on “Setting vs. Cast” made me realize that I generally don’t enjoy RPG settings borrowed from books, movies, or television.  (For the sake of this article, let’s call them literary settings.) Asking “Why not?” led to this article, which includes advice for using literary settings. I recognize the popularity of literary settings; entire systems are written for them. But they ...

I love gaming goodies, tsotchkes, and widgets in all forms -- special dice for each campaign, mascots, a wide range of miniatures, Tact-Tiles, piles of books...the more the better! But when I'm GMing, I keep my side of the screen pretty lean. Here are the highlights -- tools I consider essential to my GMing arsenal, and which I highly recommend for any GM (brand spanking new or grizzled veteran). A ...

My wife and I are enjoying a free trial of the Star Trek Online game this week. So far, the game is fun: you get the feel of the universe, the uniforms you know and love, plus all of the technology, aliens, ship combat and a good mix of away missions. So far, it feels like a new Star Trek TV series, with your character as the ...

I looked up at our little counter this morning and saw that as of February 9th, Gnome Stew had published 599 articles. We're all eyeballs-deep in our secret project right now, and I think I've cracked the whip over my fellow gnomes' backs enough over the last few months, so I thought I'd give them a break and make #600 a short article asking a simple, reflective question: What has ...

Stew reader LesInk threw an interesting morsel into the suggestion pot the other day. It is about the concept of railroading and how you force an event to happen when the plot absolutely calls for it. The concept is an interesting one, and LesInk put forth a great solution along with the question and story.   Dear Gnomies, I believe ...

Welcome to the second digest of Gnome Stew's bite-sized game mastering tips, all of which were originally posted on Twitter (@gnomestew) from July 14, 2009 through February 7, 2010. (Punctuality: not always our strong suit...) We archive our GMing tweets in this article series, making them searchable and collecting them for readers who don't use Twitter. Bite-sized tips can be a great source of inspiration, and can help keep ...

Aside from a lack of fear, one of the biggest problems in having player characters act realistically in a combat situation is the use of hit points (or a similar mechanic). The player knows how much damage her PC can soak before falling and can make tactical decisions based on the amount of damage that a creature/armed villain/martial artist/trap doles out. Ultimately, this is a matter of security. Players ...

Over the last couple of years, I have been lucky to play in two linked series of Star Wars Saga games. My experience with the system has been as a player, but my GM and I have discussed the system quite a bit. He'll chime in with comments in italics throughout the article. Katana Geldar wrote a nice post about the recent announcement by Wizards of the ...

While I was watching old movies and cleaning out my basement a few weeks ago, I watched a movie that made me go “Wow! That was totally someone’s role-playing game!”.  It wasn’t the first time that happened to me, and this isn't the first time that the idea has been discussed here on the stew ( 1 | 2 ). There are a lot of movies and ...

Are there GMing questions you'd like to ask, but that you're kind of of embarrassed about asking? Questions that seem too basic, too simple, or too should-be-obvious to ask other GMs in person? Here on the Stew, we love practical GMing questions -- and there's no shame in asking them. Any of them. I've been GMing for over 20 years, and I still fuck up on a semi-regular basis. All of ...

One of the challenges in a new campaign occurs when the players discover that they do not like their characters. Given time, the lack of excitement on the players’ part will degrade any efforts to sustain the campaign and ultimately lead to its collapse. Even the greatest plotline or the most richly described world will not hold your players at the table if they have no passion or ...

Get your bull's-eye lantern, a 10 ft pole, and some spikes, because we are taking a journey into the dungeons of yesteryear. For those of you who did not battle the  Slavers, wander the Borderlands, defeat the Giants, and stood in the Demonweb Pits, you are in luck. Goodman Games provides you an old school Sherpa, in the way of The Dungeon Alphabet. Disclaimer—Goodman games was kind enough to ...

As a GM, you have access to a lot of information the players never see. This can be mutually frustrating, because you have ideas and concepts you never get to illustrate, and the players may have holes in their picture of the game world that they would like to understand. One of the less common techniques for giving the players a broader view of the world you’ve created ...

Andy Collins, Wizards of the Coast's RPG Development & Editing Manager, wrote to us asking if we thought our readers would be interested in this job opening at WotC. We think you'll be interested: A new job posting for an RPG Editor just went up on the Hasbro job site. This person reports directly to me, so I have a vested interest in (and significant influence on) the result of ...