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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

Oct 20, 2010 by 8

Whose Game Is It Anyways

I just got finished with my stint at Con on the Cob. I and the other gnomes, who schlepped it out to Ohio for the convention, had a blast. By and far one of the best moments of the convention for me was the total improv game I ran on Sunday. The title of it was “WHOSE GAME IS IT ANYWAYS” and the description read like this: ...
Jun 15, 2010 by 15

Players build their characters’ classes, skills, and special powers based on what they want to do in the game

In a previous article on running a game with minimal prep I mentioned that “Players build their character’s classes, skills, and special powers based on what they want to do in the game.” and Rafe pointed out in the comments that this was one of the most fundamentally important things that a Game Master can realize. I hadn’t really thought ...
Apr 20, 2009 by 13

RPGs Are Engines for Making Interesting Decisions

When you get right down to it, what is an RPG? It's an engine for making interesting decisions. When your players are playing in your campaign, at the most basic level they're doing one of two things: making decisions, or having stuff happen to their characters. Stuff happening to their characters is by far the less interesting of the two -- it's the decision-making that really matters. Game Mechanics and ...

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Metagaming, Noooo

It's why you always kill the grand vizier.