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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 1,186 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

Jun 27, 2008 by 17

El Cheapo Miniatures for Fantasy PCs

With D&D 4e out (and looking awesome so far), I wanted to start building a collection of prepainted fantasy minis for future use. While I plan to buy some boosters as well, I figured I'd kick things off by ordering a host of cheap minis for representing PCs. Even if creatures get counters instead, it's always cool when the PCs have their own minis. Back when I was collecting ...
Jun 19, 2008 by 4

So You Want to GM a Roleplaying-Intensive Game, Part 3

(The first three steps, and my definition of "roleplaying-intensive," are in Part 1; tips 4-6 are in Part 2.) 7. Make Good on Your Promises By this point, you've made two promises to your players, one explicit and one implicit: Here's the kind of game I'm going to run. This is the explicit promise you made in in step three, when you pitched a roleplaying-intensive campaign to your players. The follow-through ...
Jun 5, 2008 by 11

The Main Cast Rule

When you're watching an episodic TV show (think Lost), who does everything happen to? The main cast. And who drives the action when things aren't happening to them? The main cast. The same should be true in your campaign (which, in a lot of cases, resembles an episodic TV show more than most other types of media): Whenever something worth playing out at the table happens, it should happen to ...
May 21, 2008 by 13

So You Want to GM a Roleplaying-Intensive Game, Part 2

(The first three steps -- and my definition of "roleplaying-intensive" -- are in the first post in this series.) 4. Choose Your System Wisely Suggested by the Stew's own Patrick Benson in the comments on the first roleplaying-intensive game post, picking a system that reinforces the kind of game you want to run is critical. Some games are just better suited to a focus on roleplaying than others -- despite all ...

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