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
Happy GM's Day! To celebrate this, the Earth's finest holiday, I wanted to highlight some resources we've posted that relate to seven specific topics:
Setting up your gaming space
Props and materials
Technology
Prep-light GMing and improvisation
Adventures
First-time GMing
Treasure
With over 850 articles, these aren't the only seven topics we've covered in depth, but they offer a good cross-section of the Stew and its 10 current authors, and they all feature evergreen articles -- ...
It's March fourth, and you know what that means: we all march fo(u)rth for GM's Day!
Happy GM's Day from all of us gnomes, from the bottom of our grubby gnomish hearts* -- GMs of the world, you rock!
This year, we're officially lame: We're so insanely busy getting all of our ducks in the row for the upcoming release of our first book, Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire ...
Well good old Johnny has decided to take a step away from his usual deep (and mostly bullshitted) posts about meta-gaming to try something different. I'm going to start a series of posts called Johnny's Five, wherein I detail 5 nifty things about Gaming, 5 ideas that might help out a GM or 5 unique pieces of . . . something you can use in a game. You ...
In honor of GM's Day, I'd like to help out the beleaguered GMs out there with some universal advice on how to be polite. Players, this applies to you, too!
The Golden Rule: Treat others as you would have them treat you. There's a reason this formula shows up in almost every human culture.
Some general guidelines:
Bathe daily, even if you're at Gen Con. Hell, especially if you're at Gen ...
You think you know a little something about a genre, then you uncover a fact that turns everything on it's ear. Here's a little sample:
In 1968, John A. Russo and George A. Romero pioneered a new genre in film with Night of the Living Dead, generally accepted to be the progenitor of the Zombie Survival Horror genre. In addition, this was the first instance of the word zombie being used to describe the shambling risen corpses we ...
I can’t wait for GenCon 2009. One of the many reasons that I’m looking forward to it is because I get to do something that I almost never do the rest of the year: I become a player.
I’m one of those gamers that just prefers to GM over playing and, for the last two years, I’ve been GMing for both of my gaming groups. While I do enjoy ...
I once ran an adventure that resulted in a TPK. Darn Hodags. Everyone rolled up new characters and wanted to take it on again. It was a playtest, so that wasn't a big issue. However, I wasn't quite happy doing an exact reset and sending the players through again. I didn't think they would be able to resist knowing where the secret doors were or having their characters ...
Happy GM's Day to all you GM's, DM's, and Screen Monkeys out there. GM's day is a day to thank the GM's who run the games you play, for all their hard work and dedication for preparing sessions, mediating rules disputes, bending the rules to let you get into that character class you really wanted, and all the other nameless tasks that they do during and between sessions ...
Happy GM's Day! As part of Gnome Stew's March 4th blitz, we're holding our third contest.
We thought, "What does every GM need?" And the answer was "A set of badass metal dice."
The Prize
Specifically, a set of 16mm solid metal polyhedral dice with a brushed steel finish from Crystal Caste.
Crystal Caste makes great dice, and these puppies are $45 -- they're not your grandpa's worn, un-inked plastic nuggets.
Sure, they're ...
