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
Back in October we partnered with Fear the Boot to run a charity auction benefiting the March of Dimes and raised $200. One of the things that the winner of this auction, Gnome Stew reader JavaDragon, won was the opportunity to write the first-ever guest article on the Stew -- this one.
JavaDragon did a killer job, and turned out exactly the sort of article the Stew is known ...
I went to a book signing last night to see Brandon Sanderson, one of my favorite authors, and got a double header: Peter Orullian, who I wasn't familiar with, was also part of the event.
In addition to being incredibly nice, approachable, passionate folks, they both said some things that I wanted to get down right away -- and share with you, because while they were speaking about writing, ...
Today a GM came in and asked to talk about laying out a new plot. She is an officer in a WoW roleplaying guild, and was looking for advice on a new story arc. I'd never been in an MMO roleplaying guild before (though I have, at least, played WoW before), but figured that plots are plots. Besides, I do have some experience spinning out plots... so I ...
Every Game Master has been in the situation where a player starts pursuing some course of action that you just can’t divine the purpose off. They attempt a long complicated string of skill rolls, roleplaying interactions, and other hare brained interactions to get to … well, you never quite know until the very end. Maybe they just wanted that extra +2 bonus, or to get a better ...
In one convention game I ran, my players got around a door by using a spell to turn stone into bread. They turned the dungeon wall next to the door into a brick shaped piece of pumpernickel, punched through bread and got through the door. Someone watching the game remarked that they wouldn’t have let them use the spell like that. I asked why, and they said ...
Last year I did a review of a local convention in Hudson, Ohio called Con On The Cob. It is one that I attend every year. You can read all about it in the review, but I have to unabashedly say that it is one of the most awesome conventions I’ve ever been to. The size is just right to meet and hang out without it being ...
Trap: 2 a : something by which one is caught or stopped unawares; also : a position or situation from which it is difficult or impossible to escape One of my recent personal goals has been to focus on the types of Game Mastering that I don't normally do. To that end, I started thinking about what traps ...
I love it when a new GM steps up to the plate! Good GMs are what keep our hobby going and expanding our ranks is a real benefit to tabletop RPGs across the board. Yet I've noticed that there are some common mistakes made amongst new GMs that veteran GMs tend to avoid due to their years of acquired wisdom and experience (i.e. - we have already made ...
