In the early days of published adventures, quite a few dungeon features were used in a clever* manner to add confusion to the mix. This confusion was largely placed on the shoulders of the players, especially those that tried to create a player map to track where the party had been and where they...
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Over the last few years, my gaming group has gotten really good at something… finishing campaigns. We have over the last two years and four campaigns been able to bring our campaigns to a satisfying conclusion before moving to the next game. This is in contrast with nearly all my past...
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With the start of the new year, some folks are starting to think about processing and paying their taxes for the previous year. I’m certainly one of them since I have more complex taxes than the Average Joe. Deductions. Expenses. 1099 income. W2 income. So on and so forth…. Another...
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“Are you sure?” “It’s going to be a high DC.” *Rolls dice behind the screen* If you’ve played tabletops to any degree you’re aware of these /things/ that gamemasters do. Some refer to them as ‘GM moves’ or just ‘things GMs do’ but,...
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This article was jointly written by Senda Linaugh and Wen Reischl. It’s a story we all know. The Popular Girl with a wellspring of opportunity before her (Stacie) meets the Troublemaker with the heart of gold (Harrison). He’s already head over heels in love with her when the...
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In nearly every way you can gauge how a campaign is going, my Things From The Flood game was knocking it out of the park. The story was gripping and grim, the players were dialed into their characters (the grown-up kids from my Tales From The Loop game). Our sessions were intense. We were dealing...
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When do you game? Is it a weekly thing? Does the date and time change, or is it consistent, like some kind of gaming pact? Holiday Traffic The holidays have a way of disrupting a gaming group’s routine and testing the commitment of each of its members. For some of us, from Thanksgiving to...
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A long time ago… No. Even longer ago than that. Yes. That far back. We’re going to change reality for that long ago, and that change is going to ripple forward into the current time. I’m not talking about going back in time to kill someone we all consider the epitome of evil....
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About a year and a half ago, I was in one of my local used book stores searching for ancient tomes. While perusing the shelves, I stumbled across a large collection of books by the same author: David Eddings. He hit it big in the 1980s and had quite a prolific career through the 1990s and into the...
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I recently tried to launch a new gaming group, and for the first time in a long time, I failed to get the group off the ground. Well, that’s not entirely true. We had a session zero for The Expanse and then a first session where an introductory game was played. However, it took me about...
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Written by a team of veteran Gamers and Gamemasters, Gnome Stew is a widely read gaming blog with multiple awards and thousands of articles. We're dedicated to helping gamers have more fun at the gaming table.
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