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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

Aug 15, 2011 by 21

Hot Button: Who’s Down with OPC?

I've seen it a thousand times. Two PCs are facing a problem and some variation of the following exchange occurs: GM (looking at Player 1): What do you do? Player 1: I'm going to do X. Player 2 (glancing at Player 1's character sheet): X? Are you kidding. You have Y, why wouldn't you use that? Player 1: Fine, I'll use Y then. This is a classic example of a player using OPC ...
Nov 12, 2010 by 9

Hot Button: To Meta Or Not To Meta?

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: ...
Dec 4, 2009 by 16

How Much Metagaming is Too Much?

There are lots of ways to metagame, including: Using out-of-character knowledge for your in-character benefit, generally regarded as a bad thing Discussing mechanics during a session, which runs the gamut from useful and fun to a terrible idea Considering the rules in a way that your character probably wouldn't, which I consider to be common to most RPGs, and often just fine Sharing mechanical tips with other players, a real mixed bag ...

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Metagaming, Noooo

It's why you always kill the grand vizier.