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
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Two students train at a martial arts school. One fights only students at or below his level, and has an excellent win-loss record. The other fights only students above his level, and has a terrible win-loss record. Which one is learning faster? - Overheard at a martial arts seminar When was the last time you got ...
In a recent game that a friend ran we were railroaded as players. The game was a science fiction setting using Savage Worlds, and I and the one other player were both playing PCs who had arranged passage on a small starship. While the ship was docked at a space station the PCs were in private living quarters minding their own business. Panicked pounding on the door to ...
The gnome NPC just rolled a 1.
Tracking down the source of the rumors led to a paranoid gnome minstrel named Barty who just couldn't stop telling tales about the true (and imagined) indiscretions of the daughters of the finest families in town.
Barty was causing other problems, too, which is why the PCs felt that had to intervene. Of course the problem was a particularly sticky one: How do ...
Failure's an important element in many adventures. We looked at some cases where failure seemed to derail the plot and looked at ways to keep the game running. Let's step back a moment and look at failure from a bigger perspective.
Planning for Failure
In Heather's article, Influence vs. Scripting: the Fine Line of Free Will, she argues that absolutes are plot holes in disguise. In the glossary, she ...
Von Bek has an excellent question about making character failure interesting.
Hi all,
One thing I sometimes struggle with is player failure, I’ve come up with a few simple failures, like taking more time, or breaking something, but wondered if there were others I might have missed out on.
I know of GUMSHOE, I believe a system that treats failure differently? But are there other systems out, or things that work ...
