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
Over at the Suggestion Pot, Gnome Stew reader and high-level Cleric BishopOfBattle cast Divination (or maybe it was Find the Path; I’ve taken too many negative levels in d20 to be an expert). Anyway, he asked: How do the Gnomes go about getting better player feedback? Often articles mention "Ask your players" but I often have difficulty getting useful (or sometimes any) feedback from ...
It’s easy to see a role-playing game as a one-way street; the flow of information is generally from GM to players. But the GM should also be collecting information on his players and their characters. If you’re paying attention to your players, you can really make the game fun for them. After all, the players are your primary audience. They’re also your opponents. You should go into ...
One issue that comes up at the start of every campaign, at least in my group, is whether everyone speaks a common language or not. Sometimes we talk about whether the game setting should even have one? Something that acts as a lingua-franca, a widely spread language shared by many people throughout the world. With Gnome Stew being translated into other languages, this seems like the perfect ...
For many of us older gamers, we have gamed with various groups during our gaming careers, and have moved from one location to another. We would love to game again with some of our friends who are now hundreds of miles away. With the birth of the Internet, we have clamored for a solution that would allow us to connect with those friends. Many different solutions have come ...
Fudge: The gift that keeps on giving. Or at least keeps on producing articles and tangential discussion in the comments… This is part three of my probably over-wrought, and certainly drawn-out series on fudging, based entirely on my own experience and opinions. The other parts can be found here and here. (Epilogue to the story: In commemoration of the Act of Fudge ...
Don’t you just hate it when your fudge falls out? This is a continuation of Wednesday’s article on fudging. In that article, the events that led up to the fudging, my rationale for doing so, and the actual fudging was laid out. This article covers the reaction from my players, and possible reactions that you may face if you decide to fudge. Clarifications One point ...
Have you ever had that weird sensation that you’re not actually playing the same game as everyone else at the table? You’ve described the scene: a noble and his retinue are in a large hall. The noble is about to engage the party in conversation, almost certainly to hand out a mission. And then the rogue chimes in with, “When he starts talking, I’m going to try to ...
