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
1,109 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
Luke Crane, the creator of the Burning Wheel RPG and one of the best GMs I've ever gamed with, often does something very clever for convention games: He runs replayable scenarios.
"Replayable" as in, even if you've played the exact same event before, it will be dramatically different -- but just as fun -- every time.
That sounds like a pretty handy thing for a GM to have on hand, ...
My planning cycles for my current game are, for me, pretty short -- usually one week. That's actually a good thing, because it forces me to focus on the important stuff and helps me avoid getting bogged down in crap that won't hit the table, but it does mean that I'll take all the help I can get.
One thing I find helpful is having a list of adventure ...
So imagine this situation, it is about 1 day until game time and your encounter with the BBEG or a very important plot piece or fight is slated to happen in the next game. Unfortunately, the characters aren't quite ready to take it on or the player who has backstory hooks isn't going to be there. Darnit, what do you do? The obvious answer is to stall ...
My group is three sessions into a Star Trek series with me in the GM's chair, and last night's episode cemented one of the things I like most about running this game: the episodic structure.
I've played episodic games before (notably Stargate) and enjoyed them, but until now I'd never run one. There are different ways to approach them (and the Decipher Star Trek RPG Narrator's Guide offers excellent ...
I'm fascinated by the similarities and differences between movies and adventures, as well as the ways movies can be used to inspire games, and a striking difference between them hit me recently: Pivotal moments in movies are often difficult to translate into adventures.
I'm a spoiler nazi, so I won't reveal the movie I was watching when this popped into my head, but here's the pivotal incident: A firefight ...
The Desire is a full color 57 page PDF for Fourth Edition D&D by Nevermet Press (www.nevermetpress.com). (Also included was a grayscale PDF, oriented in Portrait, intended for easy printing. That's a nice feature, though one I didn't take advantage of.) Please note that the PDFs were freely provided by the publisher for review purposes.
Structure The PDF begins with a blurb about Nevermet Press followed by A Message ...
Do your adventures read like a published module? Do they have the precise mix of clues, red herrings, and challenges to keep the players interested enough to work hard for the final reveal? When you’re writing your adventures, do you agonize over maintaining the perfect balance between challenge and reward? Then you’re doing it wrong. Wait, what? Bear with me for a ...
Reading through the April '09 issue of Wired, I came across this quote from James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron):
But the beauty of [adventures] is that they don't have to be logical. They just have to have plausibility. If there's a visceral, cinematic thing happening that [your players like], they don't care if it goes against what's likely.
That's more or less how I read it, too -- I ...
Phil "The Chatty DM" writes one of the best blogs for GMs out there, Musings of the Chatty DM, and he's recently kicked off something I wanted to share with Gnome Stew Readers:
Project Kobold Love
So what is it? Here's the quick summary in Phil's own words:
I’m sick and tired of the Editions Wars. So much so that I want to show that a game system is just an ...
In attempting to re-envision the Forgotten Realms before the official campaign setting is released, this series has looked at the advantages of DMs putting their own touch to the setting, using the town of Fallcrest from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and providing a tour of how Mystra’s fall changed the politics and power structure of the North.
To close out the series, let’s have a look at some ...
The second annual Worldwide Adventure Writing Month starts tomorrow, July 1st.
Last year's WoAdWriMo generated seven free adventures that you can download or read online. The guidelines last year included a goal of 32 pages, but that suggestion is gone from this year's event -- you can write as little or as much as you like.
The many lazy gnomes who write Gnome Stew will be climbing out of our ...
I've tried different approaches to game prep over the years, but lately I tend to do it all in one big rush. The rush is preceded by brainstorming and outlining, but most of my prep happens all at once.
One thing I've found about this method is that it's almost inevitable that I'm to going to get GM's block during prep. I reach a point where I just don't ...
