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
"If you aren’t reading Gnome Stew, you’re missing out." -- Wolfgang Baur
Have you ever had this happen at a game? “I roll to see if I know anything about ancient ankthyrian architecture and where they might have hidden a secret door. Crap, didn’t get it. Let me just try that again…” or how about? “Ok, I know I’ve rolled 8 times to try to force the door, but the 9th time is the charm!” ...
If you happen to do a search on the tag meta here on the stew, you’ll find that I tend to dominate use of the tag. That could be because I’m the only one who uses it, but it is also because the metagame is a key component in a lot of my Game Mastering philosophy. Looking it up on Dictionary.com, meta is defined as: ...
Every gaming system handles magic a little differently, but one thing holds true in any gaming system that has a magical component. At some point it is going to be used to move the narrative along. When magic becomes a McGuffin, it’s going to break the rules. “I’m sorry Vansha. While you can clearly see the princess is in this castle, she is ...
Imagine this fairly common scenario: The character sheet talks about a backwoods, uneducated fighter with a low intelligence score. The player knows that the word puzzle on the wall can be solved by removing every third letter and putting the min order. The fighter might not know this, but the player does. Should the player be able to bring in their knowledge and find some way for the ...
There’s a lot of subjects that we as gamers and GMs have giant raving debates over that at their core revolve around “Will I lose a friend if I do this?” Everything from fudge to player kills to dealing with problem players at least partially hinges on the reaction of the rest of your gaming crew and how well you can trust them to act in a ...
Reading a fascinating Guild Wars 2 design diary about character death penalties (via Penny Arcade) got me thinking about PC deaths in RPGs -- and specifically, about why PCs should ever be killed at all.
For your consideration:
Dying? Yawn
In the vast majority of traditional-style campaigns, regardless of the game, PCs almost never die for good. D&D is the main example, and also the source of why this stereotype tends ...
Recently, Jared von Hindman wrote an article for the Wizards website on why playing evil races is perfectly legitimate, and how to properly integrate yourself into a party if you are playing one. I’m a long-time fan of Mr. Hindman’s work at his website Head Injury Theater. In fact, one of my first major “Wooo! Someone on teh Intarwebz noticed me!” moments was getting my name in his ...
Fudging is and always has been a hot topic -- here on the Stew, in most gaming groups, on message boards, you name it.
That's because it gets at the core of what gaming is all about, and once you figure out where you fall on the "NEVER FUDGE EVER EVER EVER!!!! -- I heart fudge, I love it, it's the bestest!!!!" spectrum, it reveals a pretty fundamental divide ...
Today's Hot Button is related to a previous article, but I think it is worth debating on its own.
Psionics (or psi powers, or psychic powers, etc) have traditionally had a troubled relationship in fantasy games, especially in Dungeons & Dragons and its various permutations and dirivatives. The first time I'd encountered psionics in RPGs was in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (1e), which relegated psionics to ...
I can't stand playing in a Star Wars RPG.
The problem, as I see it, is there's two types of players in any Star Wars game. There's the 80% of players who have seen some or all of the movies, know who the big names are, understand some of the bigger themes and plots, or have heard about the setting, acknowledge that it's pretty awesome and want to play in it. Then there's the ...
