Obligatory recap: I’ve read about a system for creating urbancrawls (similar to hexcrawls but set in a city) from The Alexandrian. I had also been enjoying the Sorcery! gamebooks by Steve Jackson and their strange magic setting. Enter this series of articles, where I use The...
Read More
Obligatory recap: I’ve read about a system for creating urbancrawls (similar to hexcrawls but set in a city) from The Alexandrian. I had also been enjoying the Sorcery! gamebooks by Steve Jackson and their strange magic setting. Enter this series of articles, where I use The...
Read More
So to recap from last time: I was excited about a system for creating urbancrawls outlined at The Alexandrian and was also inspired by the feeling of the Steve Jackson Sorcery! gamebooks and decided to give the urbancrawl system a shot to design a “strange magic” city. Links: Part 1 of...
Read More
So to recap from last time: I was excited about a system for creating urbancrawls outlined at The Alexandrian and was also inspired by the feeling of the Steve Jackson Sorcery! gamebooks and decided to give the urbancrawl system a shot to design a “strange magic” city. Links: Part 1 of...
Read More
I’ve been excited by a series of articles I read on The Alexandrian from way back in 2015 on building a city based campaign with a hexcrawl feel (it was called an urbancrawl there). I’ve also been inspired by the way the Steve Jackson Sorcery! gamebook series, which was translated to...
Read More
It’s time for me to amble into my garage and offer up an assortment of the strange things that I find there. It’s a bit of a post-Christmas tradition here at the stew. I have to make room for all the coal Santa keeps bringing me for some reason… Each has an adventure seed baked in so feel free to...
Read More
In the past, I’ve written holiday articles about sinister Santas, and evil elves. This year I present a roughed out tongue in cheek Holiday adventure ready to be adapted to a system of choice or stolen for your own game. Setup: A dark god is spawning an avatar on the material plane. The PCs...
Read More
This story has been told before, way back on the Treasure Tables forums, before they became You Meet In A Tavern, before that site also went defunct. Since none of those places exist anymore and I doubt the story got caught by the wayback machine, and since it was well received back in the day,...
Read More
A brief plug: for the foreseeable future, I plan on writing about one of these a month. If you think you can do a better job than I do at making maps (and who can’t?) and want to sell me one and have your work featured here, send an email with the subject line “details” to...
Read More
Here’s an example area to steal for your game generated using my 100 Overland Descriptors Table article. Like the example in that article, I’ve rolled 5 results, and used the first two as general descriptors for the whole area, and the remaining three to apply to sub regions. My rolls...
Read More
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.
"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