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
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"If you aren’t reading Gnome Stew, you’re missing out." -- Wolfgang Baur
I have an affinity for mystery/investigation adventures. I love setting up a crime scene and having the PCs uncover clues and follow leads until they reach the final confrontation with the perpetrator.
Mystery adventures require careful planning. All of the clues need to fit (or be dismissed as red herrings) and the players need to be able to weave them together effectively. A mystery that is too convoluted can ...
Lets face it, if you are a total improv GM or an uber-prep GM, game mastering is work; more work than being a player. Considering that most of us do not make a living GMing, and have other jobs and responsibilities, why would we want to take on more work in our lives? There must be a reason we accept the responsibility and work of creating a game ...
Over in Le Pote du Suggestiones, Gnome Stew reader gustavovp asked us a great question. As I was typing up a response that began "I don't think there's an article in this, because..." I realized that there was -- and that many of our readers may not know about the Suggestion Pot at all.
The Suggestion What, Now?
Given that close to 4,000 of you read the Stew via RSS ...
Martin's excellent article on episodic gameplay made me think about my own episodic campaigns. For many of the reasons he outlined, I've found episodic campaigns to be a fun way to run a game and I've run several successful ones.
That said there were a number of pitfalls that I've encountered along the way, and some of these did derail episodic campaigns. I thought it might be a good idea ...
One question that comes up over and over when I talk to different GMs is about how to take notes for their session. It is a topic that I take personally, as I have gone through a number of different note taking styles and used all sorts of different tools, over the years. Thanks to Stew reader Tabulazero for suggesting this article topic.
Rather than this being an article ...
Phil's article made me think about my own GM evaluations over the years. While I've always been pretty good at self-criticism, it took me quite a while to realize that, when canvassing players, I was usually looking for affirmation, not criticism.
Let's face it; as a GM you put in a lot more time and effort than the average player. You're responsible for bringing an adventure to the table ...
Am I the only one creeped out by the fact that it's 2010?
For me, the winter holiday season is a time of reflection when it comes to RPGs. With the hustle and bustle of the various holidays (my household celebrates Christmas, Chanukah, and New Years' Eve), I rarely have time to game in the latter half of December. With gaming in my blood, I usually do find time ...
This past GenCon, Paizo Publishing released the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Now if you've been a GM (or DM, I'll use the generic here since it's what the Open Game Content and Pathfinder uses) for more than a couple of weeks then you probably know that Pathfinder is a refinement of the previous (D&D3.5) version of Dungeons & Dragons. Today's article takes a look at Pathfinder from a prospective ...
A few days ago, after running a session, a thought struck me. It’s one of the most important things that I think can be asked by any Game Master: What do my players really want out of the game? While it’s a simple question, and something that doesn’t seem like it would be hard to figure out, a lot of groups get into the groove of playing a ...
Here's a situation that should be familiar to just about any GM: You pick up a new RPG, and you're stoked about running it. You've got the player buy-in you need to make for a good game. So...how do you actually go about, you know, running it for the first time?
I wrote about the general case back in May, in the article 17 Steps to GMing a New ...
Every time with every group that I have ever been in, when the GM was bringing his or her campaign to a close the question "Who want to GM next?" came up. With some groups the hands shot up without a second thought. With other groups you might as well have asked "Who wants a red hot poker in the eye?"
That isn't the issue I'm addressing though. Thinking ...
Several years ago, a GM that I was acquainted with organized his weekly group into a club. Everyone paid a fee and the GM would ostensibly use this money to purchase gaming materials that he would keep after use.
A few years later (but still several years ago...darn I feel old!), I was discussing this arrangement with a fellow gamer buddy. He had a rather heated reaction against it, ...
