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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

May 25, 2010 by 4

Sure he’s the Villain, but is he the Bad Guy?

In a lot of RPGs there’s an unspoken assumption that the PCs are the good guys, the villains are the bad guys, and everything is clear cut and black and white, but in real life, few if any people actively identify themselves as “Bad Guys”. They may not identify their actions as “Bad Guy” actions and even when they do, they usually rationalize their motives. When creating ...
Apr 29, 2009 by 14

The Evil Campaign

Time to dip into the Suggestion Pot to see what's cooking.... BladeMaster0182 writes "I was wondering if you guys had any advice on running an evil campaign. They’re a different monster than good ones (since evil characters are likely to kill each other.) What is a good way to keep it going? Some ideas I had were have them be apart of the same race or order." Good suggestion, and ...
Aug 4, 2008 by 47

Hot Button: A Touch of Evil

I apologize for the almost exclusively "D&D-ish" nature of today's Hot Button, but I think it definitely deserves addressing. It's a question that also comes up in other games that have similar distinctions (such as Palladium's alignment system or Star Wars Light Side/Dark Side distinctions). Do you allow evil player characters in your standard campaigns? I mention "standard" because I'm sure all of us old-timers can recall at least one ...

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