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
My group is three sessions into a Star Trek series with me in the GM's chair, and last night's episode cemented one of the things I like most about running this game: the episodic structure.
I've played episodic games before (notably Stargate) and enjoyed them, but until now I'd never run one. There are different ways to approach them (and the Decipher Star Trek RPG Narrator's Guide offers excellent ...
Reading fellow Gnome Scott Martin’s article on “Setting vs. Cast” made me realize that I generally don’t enjoy RPG settings borrowed from books, movies, or television. (For the sake of this article, let’s call them literary settings.) Asking “Why not?” led to this article, which includes advice for using literary settings. I recognize the popularity of literary settings; entire systems are written for them. But they ...
This is the second TV case study. Previously we reviewed Lost . This week we leave the Island and head to LA, to look at a Life. We will look at a few elements that make this police drama stand out from its peers, and we will talk about how you can use those same elements in your own games.
Synopsis
Detective Charlie Crews has spent years in prison for ...
Hello, and welcome to the first TV Case Study. In this new series of articles, I will focus on a single TV show and pick out some elements that are key parts of the TV show, and show you how you can apply them to your campaigns. Our first case study will be on the show Lost.
Synopsis
After a mysterious and bloody airplane crash, 48 survivors ...
When you're watching an episodic TV show (think Lost), who does everything happen to? The main cast.
And who drives the action when things aren't happening to them? The main cast.
The same should be true in your campaign (which, in a lot of cases, resembles an episodic TV show more than most other types of media): Whenever something worth playing out at the table happens, it should happen to ...
