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Top 30 Game Mastering Articles
Welcome to Gnome Stew! If you’re new here, this page will give you
great introduction to what we’re all about: making your time as a GM
easier and more fun.
With more than 600 articles in our archives, we thought we’d
highlight the cream of the crop — the best game mastering advice, tips,
ideas, tricks, and discussion on Gnome Stew, all in one spot.
If you like what you see here, we hope you’ll subscribe to receive our articles for free via RSS or email (more than 3,100 readers already do), join over 1,700 members and register for a free account, or build a creepy shrine to Gnome Stew in your basement just come back every day to read our articles.
“I check Gnome Stew every day.” — Monte Cook
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GMing Tricks and Tips
Have you ever prepped a ton of adventure material only to have your players ignore all of it? This flexible approach to plotting prevents that problem — and your players will love it.
What seems obvious to you, the GM, may not always be obvious to your players. This tip is incredibly simple, but has the power to completely change the course of your next session — try it and see.
You don’t need to force 10-page PC backstories out of your players. Instead, let their characters evolve organically during play — it can be less work and more fun, and everyone wins.
You carry a tiny notebook, right? If you don’t, you’re missing out on one of the most essential GMing tools ever created — yours for $0.99 at the office supply store.
For fantasy PCs, answering the question “What did you do before you started adventuring?” is one of the simplest tricks for building a compelling character backstory. Try it with your players.
Game Mastering Techniques
When you GM a game for first-time roleplayers, there are some special considerations to take into account. It’s all laid out in this informative article, from simplified character sheets to scenario structure.
If you’re running an extended campaign, leaving individual scenes open-ended will make for a richer, more player-driven experience. Campaign structure tips galore.
The best improvisation happens when you’ve laid the foundation for successfully winging it in advance. Minimize your prep and maximize your fun at the gaming table with these techniques.
There’s an art to running a fun short gaming session, and it’s not just about doing everything faster. From game system choice to goals and rules, here are lots of tips for doing it well.
Campaigns and Adventures
What happens when you cross the Smurfs with zombies? The true origins of the survival horror genre, and tips for running bizarre and memorable games.
Returning to a much-loved gaming system from your past can be a bittersweet experience. Here are the hallmarks of a one-campaign RPG, and how to make the most of them.
Planning on GMing an event at a gaming convention? These 13 tips from the trenches at GenCon will help you and your players have more fun with less stress.
The Craft and Art of Game Mastering
New to game mastering? You’re bound to make mistakes, just like all GMs. Here are five mistakes we all made when we started out — and how to avoid making them yourself.
GMing for the first time can be pretty intimidating: you feel like your entire group’s fun depends on your actions, and the pressure is on. Fortunately, we’re here to help.
Two practical reasons why retconning — “rewinding” time in your game to fix a mistake — is always, always, always a bad idea. Yes, even just this one time.
Players
Building on two examples from actual play, here are the factors that contribute to analysis paralysis — aka wasting game time by talking in circles — and advice for keeping it from happening in your group.
Knowing how and when to share narrative control — which you’re already doing in every game you run, consciously or not — can get everyone at the table more involved in the game.
At some point in your GMing career, you’ll preside over a total party kill — a TPK. And despite surges and beefed-up hit points for lowbies, it can happen in D&D 4th Edition.
Touchy Subjects
Why is it that the people least suitable to run Star Wars games are often the ones you find behind the GM’s screen? A painful truism that ignited one hell of a comment thread.
The title says it all: You really should, in fact, just quit GMing right now. Ixnay on the amegay asteringmay. Cold turkey. Kaput. Done. Seriously — what are you still doing here?
Who has creative control over the player characters’ backstories? Can you, the GM, add elements to them — or are they sacrosanct? Welcome to the world of hot button articles, and the discussions they spark.
Running the Game
It might sound zen, but it’s also quite practical: At the end of the day, we run games so we can have fun with our friends — and if that means ignoring the rules to do what’s best for the group, do it and don’t look back.
The funny thing about dice is that they sometimes do exactly what you don’t expect. If an NPC fails a major roll, don’t automatically fudge it — instead, see where that opportunity takes you.
In-game failures can be planned for, mitigated with improvisation, and, on occasion, a whole lot of fun. Thinking about the meta aspects of failure can improve your game.
By considering focal points — the most interesting aspects of a battle — and focusing on vivid descriptions, your combats will go from humdrum to fantastic. Simple techniques, solid results.
Social Issues
If you’ve GMed more than once or twice, you’ve heard these arguments. They derail games and reduce GMs to quivering blobs of jelly — but you can head them off at the pass.
The foundation of a good social contract for gaming groups is built on establishing the basics and avoiding problems down the road — this article will show you how to do both.
Game Mastering Tools
Google’s free applications are a great way to organize, manage, and stay on top of your campaign — especially when you use several of them for the same game.
That title is a lie: There’s nothing diminutive about this glossary — it’s one of the largest on the web. If a gaming term is used by more than a handful of people, it’s probably here.
The search for the best dice bag ever made is over. No, really — this bag is gorgeous, well-made, durable, and packed with features (and the right price, too). It earns the label “ultimate.”
Where To Next?
If you made it all the way down here, chances are you’ll enjoy reading our other articles, too. Why not subscribe via RSS or email or sign up for an account?You can also dive into the archives or browse your favorite author’s articles using the drop-down menus up top, or search for articles on a specific topic — there’s a lot here to explore.
And if you have an idea for an article on a topic we’ve never covered, we’d love to hear about it in the Suggestion Pot.
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