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
Being stuck inside on a winter's afternoon, it seemed an opportune time to run an impromptu game of D&D for two of my children.
(Carolyn's always in the mood for something fresh, so after weeks of train games and card games like Poo, Uno and Hike, she was willing to dive back into an rpg, while Jonathan was eager to use the new plaster dungeon terrain set he helped ...
Last week, some friends were discussing adventure design for publication, but the conversation drifted towards a topic I hadn't really thought about in a long time. Traps.
Way Back When Way back in ancient days, in basic and early AD&D, traps were horrific. You fail your disable trap skill and you're only one save versus poison from a grim death. Bigger than that, though, were the super traps. ...
This summer it's been my good fortune to visit a lot of parks and zoos with the family. Seeing a little wildlife, exploring a little greenery — even in carefully controlled park conditions — has invigorated my planning for wilderness encounters.
I mean, if going more extreme fits you, be my guest. One member of our gaming group took a safari to Africa last year before running the Serpent's ...
Looking to recharge creatively, I’ve been diving back into an old friend, my collection of pulp fiction. Specifically, this bit of inspiration came from the Robert E. Howard Conan tale, “The Servants of Bit-Yakin.”
The first part of the serialized novella is a cliffhanger, for Conan stumbles into a trap as he explores the jungle palace ruins. It reads:
He turned toward the arch — with appalling suddenness the seemingly ...
A new season begins tonight. It's not the new season of a cooking show--honestly, hardtack is difficult to make sexy, even if you have Kitchen Stadium's resources. No, tonight is the first session of the new 13 week adventure, Dark Legacy of Evard.
I'm looking forward to welcoming new GMs into the fold; a few of our players from the previous seasons are stepping up to run tables ...
Back in December, I promised to deliver my rant on prestige classes.
Instead, I ended up designing one.
(Nothing in life goes in a straight line, it seems. Just curves, twists and unexpected opportunities.)
Using the 3.5 variant Pathfinder rules, I submitted and had published the Dawa Defender, which is available as a free download, Wayfinder 4, over at paizo.com. Thanks to some development from editors Liz Courts, Adam Daigle and ...
Most editions of D&D have featured a spell called speak with dead (which I'll call Speak with Dead for readability) that allows the caster to, for the span of a brief conversation, talk to a corpse.
In D&D, it's a pretty minor spell -- cool, but it's got nothing on flinging fireballs and waving around your finger of death.
Except here's the thing: Speak with Dead would change the world.
And ...
Last year, my group had two simultaneous D&D 4e games going, one set in the Forgotten Realms and one in Eberron. They both ended, and I don't see myself ever playing a long-term 4e game again -- and I just realized that this isn't the first time this has happened.
A quick aside: I could care less what anyone else plays -- as long as you're having fun, you're ...
What’s the Crock Pot? Just a simmering bowl of lentils and herbs, with a dash of GMing observations. Don’t be afraid to dip in your ladle and stir, or throw in something from your own spice rack.
Nothing ups the ante in a fantasy roleplaying game like having the party confront a dragon. After all, dragons are the baddest actors in the realm — or at least, ...
The group of players gathered for my Steffenhold campaign is growing in number -- pushing into the “large group” category.
Mindful of the table challenges in managing eight or more players (longer combat rounds being the most significant one), I’ve been taking a restrained approach to encounter building.
Restrained? you might ask. Yes, restrained.
Given that my Steffenhold campaign is a 3.5/Pathfinder hybrid, and thus designed for a party of four, ...
The Stew forges on, dragging you kicking and screaming into the digital age, this time with a review of the iPhone/iPad app, Battle Map. Educate yourself on this tool available for GMs willing to take their map-making skills to the “next level” (see what I did there?) and whether this application is for you.
Well, that is, if you own an iOS device, that is.
First, might I suggest you ...
One of my initial disappointments with the Fourth Edition’s Player’s Handbook was lack of space devoted to development of a character’s story.
Not their abilities — their individual story.
As a GM, I love when players bring a concept to the table that allows their growth along storylines. Extra feats and class abilities are fine and dandy — but these are basically add-ons to a character’s combat capabilities.
Missing from 4E ...
During a break at the Saturday Gaming Group’s last session, I brought up the notion of doing a steampunk campaign when the current Steffenhold campaign reached a natural stopping point.*
Save for one other member of the table, I got a round of quizzical expressions. “Steampunk? What’s that?”
I was surprised. I really thought the genre of brass goggle-wearing adventurers and steam-chugging flying contraptions was more widely understood. No matter, ...
Previously we've spent time discussing the potential for the use of the iPad as a GM's tool, the applications, accessories, and potential workflow. Now, bringing it all together, we're happy to demonstrate the iPad in action and give you a glimpse of what's possible.
It's important to also keep in mind that as of this writing, the iPad has only been out for six days. Not to provide excuses ...
If you play D&D 4e, there's a decent chance you use WotC's D&D Insider Character Builder.
It automates a lot of things that frankly would otherwise be a pain in the ass, like creating power cards and calculating 99.9% of what's on your character sheet.
For a crunchy, tactical, numbers-heavy game like 4e, it's a real boon. My whole group relies on it, and anecdotally I'd say most D&D players ...
