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
It’s that time of the year again, where as a belated holiday gift, I hand out my accumulated B-string campaign ideas from the previous year. Lucky you! The real gift however, is the ideas in the comments section from readers.
These are not only great campaign ideas, but they can be dropped into an ongoing game as a new location hook. And if you’re on the lookout for a ...
Years ago, before the Stew was cooking, I read a great essay by Richard Garfield written for The Horsemen of the Apocalypse anthology discussing how he came up with the idea of Magic:The Gathering. In the essay, he talked about the idea of playing the game outside of the game...a metagame, and how the metagame intensified the game. That got me thinking about Metagaming in RPG’s.
It’s Not This...
So ...
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: ...
The way a GM sets up their personal fortress of solitude at the gaming table is very indicative of their style. Some GMs run their games behind a stack of books and official published material, while some GMs run their games with just a pair of dice, a pencil, and a notepad. Some of us turn everything digital and call their laptop savior, while some of us make ...
As I've started to run more and more published settings and adventures, I find myself doing something new to my GMing style. I've been turning the adventure/setting/rule book to my players and just pointing to art that is built into the product.
Using pictures to backup description isn't a new practice to me, but I usually try to first use a verbal description to hook the players into the ...
