I looked up at our little counter this morning and saw that as of February 9th, Gnome Stew had published 599 articles. We're all eyeballs-deep in our secret project right now, and I think I've cracked the whip over my fellow gnomes' backs enough over the last few months, so I thought I'd give them a break and make #600 a short article asking a simple, reflective question: What has ...

That's right, only 6.7 eons after our last contest -- celebrating 500 Gnome Stew articles by asking you, our readers, to contribute new taglines for the site -- we finally winnowed down the list and got them all set up. Well, I say "we." While we all winnowed down the list, someone else actually created the graphical versions (my good friend Darren, who did our site design) -- and the ...

Our first anniversary contest ended last night, and rather than dawdle like lazy little gnomes, we decided to get the lead out and announce the winner the next day -- today, in fact. The only catch is that because of the way Gnome Stew is set up, we need a certain amount of pointless, filibuster-style text at the start of this article, or you'll be able to read the ...

To celebrate Gnome Stew's one-year anniversary (of the marriage between delicious dead gnome flesh and game mastering, of course!), we're giving away a set of Battlegraph Dry Erase Tiles courtesy of Longtooth Studios. Battlegraphs Battlegraphs are the first commercially available successor to Tact-Tiles, which were one of the best gaming products ever made. And they look like an excellent successor. They're modular -- they lock together like jigsaw puzzle pieces -- ...

Today, Gnome Stew turns one year old -- we launched on May 12, 2008. We're rocking our anniversary with a contest, which has its own article. Check it out and enter for a chance to win a set of Battlegraph combat tiles. At the close of 2008, when I did the last State of the Stew, we were going like gangbusters. After 12 months, we've passed every milestone I hoped ...

It's been a long time in the making -- herding gnomes is just as difficult as herding cats -- but it's finally ready: Gnome Stew's Top 30 Game Mastering Articles page is now live. We chose the top 30 using a highly scientific process involving gnomish fungus ale, roshambo, plaintive gnomish whining, knife fights, and public drunkenness. With any luck, the results will provide you with a solid snapshot of ...

My friend Darren Hardy, a professional graphic artist and web designer, just put the finishing touches on a complete Gnome Stew redesign. In addition to the many visual changes, some more subtle than others, you can now a) actually FIND things with our new Google-powered search (go ahead, try it out!), and b) browse the archives by author. You'll also encounter a wider main (content) column, better balanced white space, ...

We've enjoyed using our Gnome Stew Facebook group to share our upcoming article topics, but we know the majority of our readers don't use FB -- so we figured we'd try the same thing right here, too. I polled the gnomes and asked everyone to write a quick blurb about what they're slaving away at behind the scenes. (We write to avoid winding up in the stew pot, so ...

I've just added a new feature to the site that I think will be handy for regular readers: the Newest Comments page. This is something I look for myself on blogs I read regularly, so I figured I'd better implement it here. That page automatically displays excerpts of the 15 newest comments on Gnome Stew, including a link to individual comments and to the articles they're attached to. There are ...

One thing we've been wanting to do since we first launched Gnome Stew is have a contest for our readers -- and here we are with our first contest! Last week I promised that the prizes would be surprising. We've never seen a contest like this one on any other gaming site, and we're thrilled to be able to offer something this unique to our readers. World oF Twilights Studio Gnome ...

Welcome back, ye tired, ye broke and ye awesomed-out! Here's what you missed on Gnome Stew while you were in Indy (thanks for suggesting this, Troy!): Monday ('cause let's be honest: Mentally, you started GenCon at least this early) D&D Burgoo (4.0): Remaking the Realms IV: Adventure Hooks Along the Rauvin, Troy's adventure seeds for the re-imagined Realms, and The Best Break from GMing: Playing, my simple recommendation for recharging your ...

Yep: One hundred posts old. My custom dice tray review was our 100th article since we went live on May 12th, 2008. I expected us to have posted about half that many articles by now, so my first thank you goes to my fellow gnomes: John Arcadian, Patrick Benson, Walt Ciechanowski, DNAphil, Scott Martin, Adam Nave, Matthew J. Neagley, Kurt "Telas" Schneider and Troy E. Taylor (click on any ...

We have a logo! It was created by my friend Darren Hardy, who is made of solid awesome. We hope you like it. Here's a closeup so you can see more of the details in the gnomes' faces (I love their little Xed out eyes). As an aside to WotC: See what happens when you take gnomes out of 4th Edition? See! They volunteered for stew duty -- you drove them ...

We've been floored by the level of response Gnome Stew has gotten since we went live in the wee small hours of the morning on Monday, May 12th, and we have a host of folks to thank. Dungeon Mastering, Musings of the Chatty DM and Tactical Studies Rules got things started by writing about the Stew before we'd even launched. With our sneaky "You've found Gnome Stew" teaser site in ...

Today is launch day on Gnome Stew, and we couldn't be happier to have you here -- welcome to the Stew! Gnome Stew is a brand new blog written by GMs, for GMs. We think about GMing in every waking moment (okay, GMing and hot, hot gnome sex meals), so we figured we'd put our obsession to good use. Here on Gnome Stew, it's all game mastering, all the ...