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
Saturday was the “Day of Fudge” and overall it was a great experience. You can check out my personal blog for more details if you are interested, but I want to focus on one particular moment of my game. Maybe you can relate to it as a GM yourself.
The Setup
My game was a four hour one-shot held at my local game shop. The premise was that the players ...
Stew reader LesInk threw an interesting morsel into the suggestion pot the other day. It is about the concept of railroading and how you force an event to happen when the plot absolutely calls for it. The concept is an interesting one, and LesInk put forth a great solution along with the question and story. Dear Gnomies, I believe ...
In a recent game that a friend ran we were railroaded as players. The game was a science fiction setting using Savage Worlds, and I and the one other player were both playing PCs who had arranged passage on a small starship. While the ship was docked at a space station the PCs were in private living quarters minding their own business. Panicked pounding on the door to ...
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of non-linear plots and story structures. However, as the Game Master, you are responsible for making sure the story progresses and certain things happen. Sometimes the players just aren’t picking up what you’re putting down. Here are a few things that you can do to help your players stay on track, without having to railroad them. 1. Make ...
“Or: How to draw aggro on a GMing blog”
One of the Holy Grails of gaming is the “sandbox game”, where there is no overarching meta-plot, or even individual plot arcs, but where the characters are put into a world that is both realistic and autonomous, and allowed to interact in that world however they see fit. To a True Believer of the Way of the Sandbox, everything else ...
A big problem with many role playing games is that the player characters can make their own decisions and then take actions based upon those decisions. Another problem with RPGs is that the game master may want to control the scene and direct the game session towards a predetermined plot point.
If you think I am a complete moron after reading those two sentences I don't blame you. It ...
