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
Of course, you already knew that, didn’t you? GMs have a number of jobs to do: think about the next session(s), prepare material, engage the players, drop hints and clues, introduce conflict, convey information to the group, manage the table, answer rules and setting questions, run the game (including all the little jobs therein), take notes, write up summaries, rinse and repeat. (Your mileage may ...
This past week, I finished entering and rating my entire RPG collection on RPGGeek, something I've been putting off for two years. I first posted about RPGG -- which is part of Geekdo, the umbrella site that also includes BoardGameGeek and VideoGameGeek -- almost exactly two years ago: Geekdo.com: Pure, Distilled Awesome.
RPGG is an amazing tool, and one that many GMs -- and gamers in general -- could ...
In this episode I talk about what I am including in my GM’s kit for Gen Con 2011. I also refer to Kurt Schneider’s Index Cards for Prep articles, as well as my own Three of My Favorite Items for GMing article.
What do you have in your GM’s kit? Tell us by leaving a comment below.
A couple of weeks ago I was at a convention and got to jump into a game of Apocalypse World. Definitely an interesting system with some unique elements and ideas, but one of the things that struck me most about it was a very non-unique element – something I remember doing a long time ago and that somehow slipped out of my library of gaming tools. It was ...
My wife is a neat freak. Spring cleaning never truly ends for her, but when the seasons change suddenly the house is redecorated right under my nose. Winter themed knick-knacks are replaced with spring themed knick-knacks. Artwork changes, colors change, and everything seems to change ever so slightly.
My utilitarian mind cannot comprehend why she does this. Do we really need a little banner in the garden that changes ...
The Stew's own Kurt "Telas" Schneider uses a cigar box instead of a GMing screen, and I decided to try that myself when I started my current campaign. Six months later, what do I think of it?
I love it, and I'd recommend it to any GM.
Why a cigar box instead of screen?
I love GMing screens. I'm a lifelong fan with numerous screens in my collection, and I used ...
Luke Crane, the creator of the Burning Wheel RPG and one of the best GMs I've ever gamed with, often does something very clever for convention games: He runs replayable scenarios.
"Replayable" as in, even if you've played the exact same event before, it will be dramatically different -- but just as fun -- every time.
That sounds like a pretty handy thing for a GM to have on hand, ...
My planning cycles for my current game are, for me, pretty short -- usually one week. That's actually a good thing, because it forces me to focus on the important stuff and helps me avoid getting bogged down in crap that won't hit the table, but it does mean that I'll take all the help I can get.
One thing I find helpful is having a list of adventure ...
The post-combat treasure handout can be the most electric and exciting moment in a lot of RPGs, especially traditional dungeon crawl oriented campaigns, but it has one fatal flaw: the nature of the treasure itself. All too often, treasure is codified and organized in a way that destroys a GMs carefully crafted sense of wonder and immersion. Instead, players are given a laundry list of coins and ...
One of the best ways to convey the theme of your campaign, the tone of your game, and the flavor of the game world is to use reinforcement -- specifically, reinforcement of small things. This technique is based on two principles:
Choose elements that represent what you want to convey, and repeat them. As part of your game prep, consciously choose a few things you can reinforce. They don't ...
With Halloween being tomorrow, I figured I would lay down a few ideas for horror/monster themed games that I’m not going to have time to run. My regular game will take the party into a city where necromancy is legal. My party plans for Saturday night will have me carrying along a block tower and characters so that I can co-opt whoever is awake at 3 in ...
There are many ways to build a good character, but one aspect that often gets overlooked -- or conversely, over-worked -- is motivations.
If you know what motivates a character -- PC or NPC -- you can extrapolate a lot of other things on the fly.
The trick is not to make your motivators too broad or too focused. Too broad, and they're meaningless ("She's motivated by a desire to ...
On May 13th, 2009 (I suggest that you read that article first if you have not already) I posted a review of the EpicWords web site and service. I gave the site a solid “C”, and I mentioned that the site was constantly improving. Well I believe that it has improved in enough ways for me to revisit my original review and to add this follow-up. Hey! ...
My group is currently playing a D&D 4th Edition campaign, and I love having lots of accessories in front of me when I play. I have a couple hundred D&D Miniatures from past sets, and they rock -- for the price, they simply can't be beat. And I've been using fan-made power cards, printed out on cardstock, ever since we started our campaign.
As a GM, I like any ...
As GMs we tend to create a “toolbox” for managing our games and campaigns with. This toolbox changes and evolves over time. The toolbox is often eclectic in what it holds, with tools as simple as GM screens to high technology solutions like online databases. You can build a great game experience with just the raw materials of friends and a game system, but it is lot easier ...
