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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

French Vanilla or Mint Mocha? Fleshing out your Character

Piggy-backing a bit on yesterday’s Johnny’s Five, one tool that I’ve found useful in fleshing out characters is to ask one question at the beginning of each session and let the players answer it (and answer it myself for NPCs).   The questions are generally “every day” type of stuff, things that have little impact on mechanics (unless you’re playing an RPG that includes mechanics for such things) but really ...

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