For years I’ve been kicking around a system in my head for simplifying hex crawls, point crawls, West Marches style games, megadungeons, etc… Something that keeps but abstracts the process of wandering, searching, and eventually discovering points of interest without requiring the...
Read More
Recently I came across another video featuring the float test for testing die fairness. For those not familiar, the float test consists of floating your dice in a dense bath of salt water and repeatedly spinning, rolling, or shaking them and letting them settle to see if a certain face or set of...
Read More
Three days from the time of this article going live, I’m going to be running a one-shot adventure at my FLGS at their first attempt at running a one-day convention at the store. I honestly hope the con goes well, so that they’ll consider expanding it to a larger venue, more days, etc....
Read More
A Task in Need of a Tool Back in March, I was in a position I didn’t expect to be in. I was doing a lot of pre-work to have actual play and live streams of my new version of Iron Edda live for when the Kickstarter launched in July. (It’s live now, go check it out!) I’d run online...
Read More
Stealth GMing Over the past few years my game mastering to playing ratio has significantly shifted towards running games. I love both roles, but now that I understand more about GMing role playing games I am certain I have become a very different (read: better) participant overall. Sometimes when...
Read More
At its core, the art of writing convention game descriptions for the preregistration website or booklet is all about setting expectations. They say brevity is the soul of wit, but it is also a necessity when it comes to writing convention descriptions where the word (or even character) count is...
Read More
This article is a companion piece to the earlier article 100 Dungeon Descriptors Table. Just like that article, it’s a d100 list you can roll on for random descriptors. This time it’s for overland areas. Roll a few and see if it inspires you, or roll a few for an overall area and more...
Read More
I grew up in the 1980’s when D&D came in two flavors: Basic and Advanced. Back then, we just played the game and didn’t worry about table safety and how people felt. That was in a large part for two reasons: First, we lacked the experience and lexicon to describe the concept of table safety....
Read More
Recycling isn’t just for paper & plastics anymore. Turns out you can recycle anything, even art. A popular exercise in many internet music circles is the Mashup, two or more distinct tracks chopped & screwed together to make one new piece of art, that would not have been possible without...
Read More
Nothing fancy today, just a list of dungeon descriptors, helpfully listed in d100 format. Oftentimes I find myself wanting to make a new dungeon or area and am short on ideas. This list is useful for inspiration, kickstarting design with an idea or two about which ideas can be formed. Alternately,...
Read More
Written by a team of veteran Gamers and Gamemasters, Gnome Stew is a widely read gaming blog with multiple awards and thousands or articlesrticles. We're dedicated to helping gamers have more fun at the gaming table.
"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 —
Through our partner Engine Publishing, we've published six system-neutral books for GMs, with over 28,000 copies sold. Available in print and PDF.
Focal Point
Unframed
Odyssey
Never Unprepared
Masks
EurekaThrough our partnership in the G.E.M. collective, many of the Gnomes are affiliated with creating products through Encoded Designs. Available in print and PDF.
Misdirected Mark Productions
Rockerboys and Vending Machines
Character Cache
Hydro Hacker Operatives