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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 1,110 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

Jul 30, 2010 by 10

Where did the Monsters Wander?

As a GM, wandering monsters and other random encounters can be difficult to utilize without being a burden on the game. The best illustration of this point I’ve so far seen is in Rich Burlew’s excellent comic, Order of the Stick. But is it true that the wandering monster is nothing but a boring waste of time? Where did they come from in the first place, why ...
May 11, 2010 by 11

Getting Out Of The Ditch

You have spent weeks crafting an incredible web of intrigue. It is a like an onion, with layer after layer of clues and red herrings. You have guided your players into this web and watched them pickup clues, trying to put the pieces together to discover what amazing twist lies in the center of the web.  Then at the moment where they are on the verge of the ...
Nov 19, 2009 by 10

A Game is a Work in Progress

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 ...

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Written by a team of veteran GMs, Gnome Stew is the most widely read game mastering blog on the planet.

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Metagaming, Noooo

It's why you always kill the grand vizier.