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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 21, 2011 by 9

Three Questions To Start A Campaign

I just recently kicked off a new campaign, running Triple Ace Games’ All For One. I had the fortune of having two months to plan this campaign before I ran my first session, while I was closing out my most recent Corporation game. While I was getting ready for this campaign, I had some discussions with my players about our views of how the campaign would run, the types of ...
Jul 19, 2010 by 12

A Deeper Understanding of GM Notes

One question that comes up over and over when I talk to different GMs is about how to take notes for their session. It is a topic that I take personally, as I have gone through a number of different note taking styles and used all sorts of different tools, over the years. Thanks to Stew reader Tabulazero for suggesting this article topic. Rather than this being an article ...
Feb 17, 2010 by 17

Do We Really Need Our Special Powers

While watching Star Wars the other day, okay Something, Something, Something, Dark-side, I realized that very few people in the Star Wars stories(aside from Jedi) had that many "special" powers. Sure the Jedi and Sith are the powerhouses of the universe, but for the most part everyone was on the same playing field. Tech of course made some people better *cough cough* Bobba fett *cough cough* and a ...
Aug 6, 2009 by 9

What Do Your Players Really Want From Your Game?

A few days ago, after running a session, a thought struck me. It’s one of the most important things that I think can be asked by any Game Master: What do my players really want out of the game?  While it’s a simple question, and something that doesn’t seem like it would be hard to figure out, a lot of groups get into the groove of playing a ...

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Metagaming, Noooo

It's why you always kill the grand vizier.