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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

Feb 9, 2010 by 18

Suggestion Pot – Asking The Players To Ride The Rails

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 ...
Jan 26, 2010 by 19

“10 Good Hits” An Alternate Hit Point System To Control Combat Pacing And Drama

While talking with a friend about a game system development issue, I had the spark of an idea for an alternate hit point system that could easily be merged into almost any game system. It applies mostly to enemies and is aimed at controlling the pacing and drama of combat. Sitting down to think about this, it feels really sound and interesting. I'm going to use it ...
May 7, 2009 by 23

System Promiscuity

I have played a lot of d20.  I started right out of the gate, with the release of D&D 3e.  In fact, I took the day off of work, and drove an hour to my favorite FLGS to get my copy of the Players Handbook.  From 3e, I jumped over to Star Wars d20, then to  d20 Modern, over to Mutants & Masterminds, witch lead to True 20, ...
Apr 20, 2009 by 13

RPGs Are Engines for Making Interesting Decisions

When you get right down to it, what is an RPG? It's an engine for making interesting decisions. When your players are playing in your campaign, at the most basic level they're doing one of two things: making decisions, or having stuff happen to their characters. Stuff happening to their characters is by far the less interesting of the two -- it's the decision-making that really matters. Game Mechanics and ...

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Metagaming, Noooo

It's why you always kill the grand vizier.