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
Recently, I've been reading the five Otori novels, and have really enjoyed the complex world that they've created. I don't know a lot about Japanese history, so I have no idea how closely the concepts correlate to real world events, but it's a great, complex world that I'd love to game in. But it'd only work well under unusual circumstances.
Playing in her world is similar to playing ...
Back before Gencon, Phil threw out an article asking for Gnome Stew fans to pick games for us to pick up and review. Phil reviewed Vornheim – The Complete City Kit and I am now reviewing Microscope. We got no compensation or free copies for these games. I take a long time to do my reviews, mostly because I want to get deeply into what I’m reviewing ...
At our last roleplaying meetup, we cast about for a good game. We had kicked around the idea of playing Diaspora on the message board, but no one had studied enough to lead everyone through the process. Or so we thought... until we agreed that building a cluster together sounded like fun, and decided that we'd share the responsibility instead of relying on a GM to guide us.
So ...
Game ideas come from the strangest places. I'm currently working out details for a new campaign--and I think I've stumbled on a few interesting elements that apply more generally. One big element that I'm considering is how much I want to work out before the players come to the table--do I create a detailed world with 80 pages of history, detailed maps, and several detailed alphabets? Do I ...
If you only have a sketch of a little area and haven't planned out the rest of the world, don't worry-- that's one of the best ways to start. You shouldn't waste your time working up beautiful maps and histories long in advance, unless you have the time and get a lot of pleasure from it. For a good overview on detailed world building, this wikipedia article has ...
There are a lot of takes on monsters and myth in books, TV shows, and everywhere else in pop culture. I recently read the Twilight series, with its very different (though still somewhat familiar) take on supernatural beasties. Every game and game world has to pick through myths, legends, and other game systems' takes on the creatures of legend. Every GM then has the option to ...
One of the most iconic ceremonies is the wedding ceremony. In this article we'll look at weddings throughout history and see how you can create weddings that reflect the traditions of your world-- or even glance slantwise at our own. Along the way, I hope you find yourself incorporating a wedding into your upcoming games and worlds.
Weddings and marriage have consequences. Some researchers suggest that marriage came ...
Building a world
Mo spread Simon C's way to use a deck of cards to generate characters who relate to their cultures-- kowtowing to social pressures, rebelling against their peers, and more.
Paul Tevis pointed out Superstruct, a game/future forecasting of the world in 2019, after one of several drastic changes. It's a big collaborative project that started October 6th and runs through November 17th.
Speaking of ways for the world ...
