What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. Matt Neagley brings up an excellent point. When talking horror games, d20 Modern might work just as well - if not better - than D&D. The Shadow Chasers campaign (and its d20 ...

One type of house rule is the supplemental house rule. Supplemental house rules are created to address something that you consider "missing" from the rules system that you are using. In theory, you aren't changing rules as much as adding new ones. Some examples: In early D&D and AD&D, making a roll of natural 20 a critical hit that inflicts double damage (this one proved to be so universally popular that ...

When I write GMing advice here on the Stew -- and previously on Treasure Tables, as well as for freelance projects -- one of my goals is to only give advice that a) I have taken myself, b) is based on observing other GMs or games or c) I would take if the opportunity arose. Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a series of articles outlining six ways ...

Being a gnome has its perks. Snazzy felt hat, early access to next season's hottest lawn ornaments, plus I get to promote my other web sites shamelessly. This is one of those shameless promotions. Announcing YouMeetInATavern.com's first contest: "Can You Scare Us?" With Halloween fast approaching the YMIAT staff wants to be scared! Do you have what it takes to terrify us? Can you design a horrifying monster or villain? ...

The following is a situation that I've thought about using in an adventure. During rush hour in the big city, it's not uncommon to bump into people on the way to work. Most of us don't even take notice besides an "excuse me" and perhaps a quick wallet tap. In my scenario, I was going to have a PC watching the news while having lunch. A woman's face flashes across ...

Building a world Mo spread Simon C's way to use a deck of cards to generate characters who relate to their cultures-- kowtowing to social pressures, rebelling against their peers, and more. Paul Tevis pointed out Superstruct, a game/future forecasting of the world in 2019, after one of several drastic changes. It's a big collaborative project that started October 6th and runs through November 17th. Speaking of ways for the world ...

Welcome the first in an ongoing series here on the Stew: 100-Word Solutions to GMing Problems! Every 100-Word Solutions post gets its start as a question I email out to the gnomes -- a GMing conundrum of some sort. Here's the first one: "You completely spaced out on game prep -- it's 30 minutes before your players show up for tonight's game -- an ongoing campaign -- and you realize ...

As a GM, when I buy a new RPG I expect the publisher to provide the following support for free: Website for the game. At a minimum, this should include news, a release schedule and links or info where I can buy supplements. But it should do a whole lot more... A sample. Sure, I've already bought the book -- but this might have been the reason why. And even ...

When Dungeons & Dragons hit the shelves in 1974, the world's first roleplaying game (although it didn't bill itself as such) was incomplete; they assumed that you owned copies of Chainmail and Outdoor Survival. Referees that didn't own those books were forced to improvise; thus the first house rules were born. Since then, house ruling has become a time-honored tradition amongst GMs. Whether pulling unofficial rules from game magazines, ...

The Ghostwalk Campaign Option (2003, Wizards of the Coast) is the gem of my collection of Third Edition gaming materials. Even though it is often overlooked because of its release just prior to the 3.5 revision of the rules, my appreciation for the supplement has only grown in the intervening five years.  And because the setting presents components such as the Tombyards, the Spirit Wood, a nemesis that ...

It’s a given that  your October- or Halloween-themed 4E-dungeon’s going to have a hovering ghost (page 116, Monster Manual) haunting the undisturbed crypt, at least one gruesome hag (page150) stirring a kettle with a noxious brew and a blood-thirsty vampire (page 258) waiting in the wings — so to speak — to strike. But here are some other monsters from that glorious tome you could use to slip ...

This is the fourth and final article in this series -- the home stretch. My definition of "roleplaying-intensive" is in Part 1, along with tips 1-3; tips 4-6 are in Part 2 and tips 7-9 are in Part 3.) 10. Driftable Mechanics (This topic was suggested by Gnome Stew reader Irda Ranger -- excellent suggestion, IR.) "Drift" just means taking an element -- usually a mechanic -- from one RPG and ...

October is upon us (by which I mean I'm writing this on the 1st, not that you'll necessarily see it on the 1st). While I haven't had to deal with one in well over a decade, I have no doubt that the "DnD* is a tool of the Devil" crowd are still out there and going strong, if a tad less vocal, and that one of the oddball bits of our hobby ...

What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of DMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack. The brew that is Gnome Stew is all about dispensing tasty GMing advice. Frequent readers know I tend to offer a nuts’n’bolts approach to such things. I’m not a gaming theory sort of ...

Sometimes you know it's an off week, but you game anyway. I had one of those experiences last week; different players were fighting off sickness, bad news, and exhaustion. I pinned too many hopes on the game-- I was sick and hoped we'd be distracted from the bad news, and I didn't realize how little sleep people had had until halfway through. Deciding to press on wasn't a ...