Happy GM’s Day! To celebrate this, the Earth’s finest holiday, I wanted to highlight some resources we’ve posted that relate to seven specific topics:

• Setting up your gaming space
• Props and materials
• Technology
• Prep-light GMing and improvisation
• Adventures
• First-time GMing
• Treasure

With over 850 articles, these aren’t the only seven topics we’ve covered in depth, but they offer a good cross-section of the Stew and its 10 current authors, and they all feature evergreen articles — the kind you can come back to in six months or six years and mine for advice and ideas. (You can make that easier by bookmarking this article!)

Whether you’re a new reader or have been with us from the start, I hope this roundup and the 49 articles it features are useful to you!

Setting Up Your Gaming Space

• The Physical Space Of The Game Part 1 – Understanding What The Space Means
• The Physical Space Of The Game Part 2 – Put Something There, It Doesn’t Need To Be Polished Or Fancy
• RPG Background Music: 41 Awesome Soundtracks
• Assigned Seating
• Video Gnoments, Episode II: GM’s Screens
• GMing Screens: What Are They Good For?

Props and Materials

• Video Gnoments, Episode 1: Props
• Mad Props II – AmmoCounters
• Mad Props and the Character Box
• Building the Endurance
• Troy’s Crock Pot: Template terrain
• Accessory Madness
• Free Standees from Gnome Stew to You!
• Gaming on the Cheap

Technology

• A GM’s Guide to the iPad, Part 1
• A GM’s Guide to the iPad, Part 2
• A GM’s Guide to the iPad, Part 3 (Video!)
• Laptops at the Gaming Table, Part 1 of 2
• Laptops at the Gaming Table, part 2 of 2
• Going Digital: Using Obsidian Portal to Prep for, Run, and Document a Campaign

Prep-Light GMing and Improvisation

• Prep-Lite Manifesto- The Template
• Prep-Lite: Wireframes And Skins
• Running A Minimal Prep Game
• My Improv Game Setup – An Article With Waaaay Too Many Pictures
• Why Using a Template for Game Prep is Awesome
• Troy’s Crock Pot: Shopping list adventure planning
• D&D Burgoo: Five Room Dungeon
• Loose Prep, Detailed Play
• Improvisation: Give Your Players Enough Rope to Have a Blast, but Not Enough to Hang Themselves

Adventures

• Gnome Stew’s Giant List of RPG Adventure Types
• The Pilot Adventure
• Re-molding an Adventure
• Customizing an Adventure: Making Published Modules Your Own
• Seizing the reins: One Shot adventures
• Jump Starting a One-Shot with the Familiar
• The Dungeon Crawl Checklist
• Nonlinear (Sandbox) games

First-Time GMing

• First Time GM: Looking for Group
• First Time GM: Job Description
• First Time GM – Game Prep I – Overview
• First Time GM – Game Prep II – Techniques
• Introduction to Game Mastering, Part 1: The Most Important Rule
• Introduction to Game Mastering, Part 2: What You Need to Get Started
• Introduction to Game Mastering, Part 3: More Things You Need to Get Started

Treasure

• Seven ways to Spice up Your Treasure
• Seven More ways to Spice up Your Treasure
• Christmas Morning on the Battlefield
• A Mess of Magic Items
• Why Not Just Give It To Them?

I hope your GM’s Day is an especially fine one, filled with visions of gnomes and halflings making gnomelings sugarplums and plenty of accidental kobold hangings gaming!

About  Martin Ralya

A father, husband, writer, small-press publisher, RPG industry freelancer, and lifelong geek, Martin has been gaming since 1987 and GMing since 1989. He lives in Utah with his amazing wife, Alysia, their awesome daughter, Lark, and their neurotic beagle, Charlie, in a house full of books and games.

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