Last month, I started a new way to manage the information for my campaigns, and I have been excited about it. Excited enough, that I started doing something that in my 40 years of gaming I have not really done before, that is to have a post-session debrief. It happened by accident, the first time, but then I caught on and made it more formal, and now I think I might be on to something. So, let’s talk about it. Disclaimer: I may have just been late to the party… The internet being what i...| Gnome Stew
Does the word GMPC even mean anything anymore? Let’s find out. Tally Tally is one of my favorite characters ever. He also happens to be an NPC. He was a hobgoblin from a space prison ship my group ran into during session one of a new campaign. They found a crashed part of a prison spaceship on their fantasy planet and a bunch of alien prisoners had escaped. These aliens were about to start causing havoc in an attempt to create a way to get back up to the rest of the prison ship where they h...| Gnome Stew
Handwavium is a neat concept in fiction that can be applied to tabletop RPGs. It can be used as a McGuffin for a goal. It can be used as a solution for an esoteric problem at hand. It can be used as part of a riddle or clue. It can even be used to give […]| Gnome Stew
Over the past few months, I had been in a bit of a gaming slump. Of my two groups, neither group was gaming well, and I was starting to get those detached feelings that typically come from when I am not getting emotionally fed from my games. This was not my game or game group’s […]| Gnome Stew
When your PCs reach the upper echelons of power, there is a fundamental shift in the kind of story you’re telling. So yes, if you want to send your PCs into dungeons, hunting for loot, or solving crimes, the characters are too powerful. The math does break. There aren't any challenges. But that’s because at level 20, the question is no longer “will they succeed.” The question is “How will they succeed?” And also maybe a little, “Will they be able to live with themselves after?”| Gnome Stew
During your tenure GMing, your life is going to force you to change your GMing style several times. There are style changes, such as learning to run games a certain way. I am not talking about that; you can always change your style willingly, and honestly, it's good to do so. I am talking about times when your lifestyle is not congruent with your GMing style, and the friction of those things creates issues with your gaming. It could be too little time to prep, disruptions to concurrent sessio...| Gnome Stew
This is the final article in my adventure design series. Over a year ago, I put out a call on social media for ideas that people wanted me to include in the series. I guess my list of ideas (the previous 11 articles) was comprehensive enough because I only received one idea from Michael Morton, and his request was for me to write an article about node-based design when it comes to adventures. Many articles have been written on this very in-depth topic. Because there are so many ideas packed i...| Gnome Stew
To get your PCs to move from one scene to the next logical scene, you need a series of connective tissues. These can come in the form of clues, rumors, lies, truths, and red herrings. Each one of these serves their own purpose and come from a variety of sources. Some of these will come from evidence found via investigative efforts. Some of these will come from conversations with NPCs. Some of these might even be sourced by overheard conversations. At the end of each scene, the PCs should have...| Gnome Stew
In any adventure, the party of player characters (PCs) will inevitably encounter other intelligent creatures and people. These are the non-player characters (NPCs) of the world that are largely controlled, run, an enacted by the game master. There are moments (and some systems greatly support these moments) where an NPC will be "taken over" by a fellow player at the table to reduce the load on the GM or to allow for a wider variety of interactions. That topic, however, is an entirely differen...| Gnome Stew
A narrative promise is a commitment you make to your audience. When you're running a TTRPG, there are two kinds of narrative promises: the ones you say out loud and the ones you don't. They're both tricky to keep, though, so let's look at each category on its own.| Gnome Stew
Dice are not just randomizers. They are tension-makers. Suspense-creators. Engines of uncertainty. When we’re rolling dice, we’re taking a chance, and chances are dramatic. Chance creates tension. Here are five weird ways to up the tension at your table using weird dice.| Gnome Stew
Recently, I had the chance to do something I never thought was possible. After 36 years, I returned to the table with most of my high school gaming group to play a game. I spent a few weeks preparing for it and ran two sessions during the weekend. It went fantastically, and along the way, I learned a few things about this specific type of session… Nostalgia Gaming. So let’s talk about it. What is Nostalgia Gaming? Let me make up a definition for this. Nostalgia is defined as, “a sen...| Gnome Stew
Planning in RPGs has always been a problem. On one hand, it’s often necessary for a group of players to plan out something their characters are trying to accomplish. On the other, most groups are not adept at planning, and even if they were, the activity is never that exciting at the table - worse if you are the GM who is more of a spectator. All of this is worse if you are under any kind of time constraint, like running a one-shot. That is the problem I was having. In a few weeks, my hig...| Gnome Stew