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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 1,109 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

Mar 15, 2011 by 12

Prep-Lite Wireframe How To

In my last installment of Prep-Lite, I talked about the concept of Wireframes & Skins; using and re-using condensed NPC stat blocks, as a way to reduce prep time. In this article I am going to discuss, in more detail, some of the assumptions I was working under, how I condensed the stats I needed, and how I populated different tiers of NPC’s. The Assumptions So lets start with a ...
Feb 18, 2011 by 10

Prep-Lite: Wireframes And Skins

A few months ago I started down a path of reducing my prep for games that I run. I named my path of enlightenment: Prep-Lite. In my continuing quest to reach Prep-Lite nirvana, I decided to tackle another time sink in my prep: NPC (or Monster) creation. Along the way I learned some important lessons about NPC’s, and the difference between what players experience, and what GM’s see ...
Aug 4, 2008 by 29

Stat generation

How do you and your group generate stats? A lot of games answer this question for you; Hero System and World of Darkness are two popular games that lack random stat generation. For the last twenty years most newly designed systems have lacked random stat generation, though the exceptions have been the biggest players in the field. D&D in all of its prior incarnations and the ...

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