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
Let me tell you about the schenanigans my friend and I pulled in the 4E game my wife runs last Sunday:
My wife is huge on custom magic items. Some are just little flavor differences, others are completely whole cloth inventions of hers. That's how our party ended up with a magic levitating ship. While neutrally buoyant and able to be pulled with effort, it requires magic residuum (pricey stuff) to ...
D&D 4th Edition blog At Will recently interviewed several of the gnomes -- DNAphil, Matthew, myself, Patrick, Scott and Telas -- for their d12 Interviews series, and that interview has been posted today: d12 Interviews: Gnome Stew.
The focus of the interview is on D&D 4e, and the hook, of course, is that we were asked 12 questions. We're all felt hats and hot air, so naturally we had ...
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.
D&D’s creators made a bold decision with the Fourth Edition: They scrubbed clean the setting lore that too often was an obstacle to new players learning the game. The complex cosmology, the maps ...
As soon as I'd read -- and loved -- the 4e core books (reviewed right here on the Stew), I was excited about seeing the 4e Forgotten Realms setting book. I paid full price for the privilege of getting it at the one store in my area that had it on release day (our lone Borders), and tucked into it right away.
After several days with it, here are ...
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.
Characters with class
One of the new online features for Fourth Edition, once Wizards of the Coast gets the DDI rolling, is supposed to be a character creator. But in addition to generating stats ...
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.
Death-proofed PCs
Everything I’d heard about Fourth Edition D&D was how hard it was to kill first-level characters — they’re resilient, they’re loaded with offensive capabilities and they’ve got a batch of hit points. ...
In Boss Around the Gnomes, I asked Gnome Stew readers what you'd like to hear about the 4e core books from a GM's perspective. I wrote a lengthy, detailed post about my first impressions, and now I'm ready to tackle the specifics.
Rather than C&P large chunks of my other post, if a question was substantially covered in my review I just pointed thataway for a few answers. It ...
With D&D 4th Edition launching today, there'll be lots of places where you can read general reviews and discussion about the nitty-gritty of the rules, but I have a hunch that there won't be many sites other than Gnome Stew talking about the three core books -- Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual -- specifically from a GMing perspective.
That doesn't mean that there's nothing here for ...
Big News!
Today's big news, of course: Kung-Fu Panda opens in theaters...
Oh, That Big News
Ahem. D&D 4th Edition launches today! Some of you may have already checked out the leaked PDFs, but I'm willing to bet plenty of folks are doing exactly what I'm doing: Counting the minutes until, the gods of Barnes & Noble willing, I can pick up my 4e core books after work, devour them and ...
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.
Laugh it up, fuzzball
Francis, the batted-around badger minion from D&D’s 4E promotional vid introducing the tiefling as a core player race, makes an appearance in the promotional posters provided to game ...
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.
Gnome-je vu
Why all the 4E fuss? I’ll tell you why. Gnomes are in the Third Edition Monster Manual, too. And they have a lair (“Gnomes make their homes in hilly, woodland lands. They ...
It seems Hamlet had a less vexing decision than the one that seemingly faces many DMs of Dungeons and Dragons. Namely, do I switch to the new fourth edition of the game, or stick with the version I’m playing?
I think it’s fair many factors will go into your thinking. Here’s what I’m weighing, right now.
Cost
The biggie. At $104.95 msrp for the three core rulebooks, this ...
When D&D 4th Edition launches on June 6th, many GMs will be making a tough decision: to 4e or not to 4e. Several of us gnomes have already made that choice, though, and will be snagging all three core books either on or shortly after launch day.
We'll be rubbing our grubby little gnome-paws all over them anyway, and we'd love to write about all three core books from ...
