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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 1,110 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

Apr 17, 2009 by 9

Emerging Complexity for GMs: It Rocks for NPCs

It took me some time to get used to the idea of emerging complexity for player character backgrounds and roleplaying elements (which I wrote about in its own article, Player Characters: Emerging Complexity is A-OK), but the concept is one I've always embraced as a GM. In this context, "emerging complexity" is the organic growth of a character from a sketch, or from little more than stats or the ...
Feb 4, 2009 by 10

You Can Use Your Sandbox Too

A few weeks ago I was in a bit of a pickle (how the heck did that phrase come about?). I was supposed to start a new adventure for my WitchCraft game in an hour and I had nothing prepped for it but the vaguest of outlines (more like a mission statement and a couple of notes). Real life had gotten in the way over the last few ...

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Metagaming, Noooo

It's why you always kill the grand vizier.