https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CG_219-Fabula-Ultima-review-Final.mp3 Josh and Chris take over the Gnomecast as Ang is on her Gnomecation. They talk JRPGs and the JRPG TTRPG Fabula Ultima. They played through a session 0 and four four hour sessions. Now they’re here to give you their thoughts and feelings on the game. Links: DIE by Kieran Gillen and Stephanie Hans Draw Steel released| 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
https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CG_218-Niche-protection_final.mp3 Join Ang along with Jared and JT as they revisit a topic they discussed way back in episode 80: Niche Protection! When is it important to make sure that each PC has a specialty that is theirs alone? When can you ignore that worry? They discuss it all again! Links: Ginny Di on Sympathetic Villains JT Evans Novels Streets of Jade| Gnome Stew
A few weeks ago, one of my players in my Cortex Prime game was not feeling well. We canceled the session. As the next session came up, that same player reminded us they had a family obligation and would not be able to play, but encouraged the rest of the group to play. So we did. This gaming group does not have an agreement when someone can’t make it, so we figure it out every time. On the other hand, my Cyberpunk Red group has a very explicit agreement that says we will play if only one pe...| Gnome Stew
You ever just realize everything about something you love changed when you weren’t paying attention? It’s happened to me twice when it comes to tabletop Roleplaying Games. In 2014 Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition released to the public and took the ttrpg space by storm. It was a throwback, self-referential, nostalgic game that built on […]| 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
Not too long ago, I was in an online roleplaying community hangout where I was the only woman and the conversation turned to the types of the people that play roleplaying games. The prevalence of men vs. women in the hobby came up and one guy commented sadly that his wife used to be a […]| Gnome Stew
https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GC_217_GM-Burnout-final.mp3 Join Ang along with Chris and special guest Carl Lehmann as they talk about GM Burnout. How it happens, what to do when you’re in the middle of it and how to prevent it. LINKS: Symphony Entertainment Fultimator| 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
https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CG_216-How-do-you-prep-final.mp3 Join Ang and JT as Matt leads the questions on how to prep for our games and how to make that easier for yourself. Links: Ashes and Embers Scapple JT’s D&D Tools| 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
Last month, I covered thematic bosses and how they can support the style, theme, and tone of your adventure. This month, I'm moving on to those people/creatures that work for the boss. In this case, I'm shifting a bit away from directly supporting your adventure's concepts to supporting your boss. There a multitude of ways to approach this, but it comes down to two large categories: direct allies and unwilling support. Mooks Are Important Having a group of people in your boss's organization a...| Gnome Stew
Way back in the first installment of this series, I talked about mood, tone, and theme. In the theme section of that post, I talked about story themes and how they can power the focus in your adventure. Today (and in the upcoming months), I'm going to talk about thematic environments, thematic bosses, and thematic mooks. Each of those will be a different article spread across three months. In that first installment, I urged you to seek out lists and examples of literary-based themes for your ...| Gnome Stew
While it's sometimes fun to flip open a bestiary or monster manual to find a random monster to throw at the PCs, when you're planning a boss for your party to face, it's best to put some thought and care into the selection. You might even go so far as to make the boss of the adventure a full-fledged and statted-out NPC using the typical character creation rules instead of relying on the sparse monster stat block in the book. How much prep you put into the boss is up to you, and is, quite hone...| Gnome Stew
After you have your story arc put together, you'll notice that the PCs will need clues and information to get between the various plot points. The first bit of information they receive is the story hook. This launches the whole adventure. If the story hook doesn't grab them, then the adventure screeches to a complete stop before it gets up to speed. You don't want this to happen. Your opening salvo of information needs to be timely, pertinent to the PCs, actionable, achievable, and not too ho...| Gnome Stew
This time around, I'm going to talk about the order in which you design your adventures. There are many takes on this, and loads of approaches to use. However, I'm going to focus in on what works for me. If it works for you, great! If you give it a try, and it doesn't quite jive with how your creative processes work, that's fine too. As you can tell from the title of the article, I'm going to be talking about adventure design in the order of do the back of the book first, then work toward the...| Gnome Stew
Ang Here at The Stew, we have a turnover rate that would make any corporate grindhouse proud. To that end, we have to keep the ground chuck flowing, which of course brings us to our newest gnome. Why don’t you tell us about yourself Chuck? It’s Stewart actually. Anyway, as they say, I was born wherever gnomes are born, usually in winter. I was introduced to RPGs at a pretty young age, sort of against my will. My big sister Brie and her friends were introduced to the game via the HeartQues...| 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
An interesting side effect of having multiple iterations of D&D 5th edition based on the 5e SRD is that some content allows publishers to produce content that works in their game but may also be helpful to people who aren’t utilizing the entire ruleset. One of the most prominent examples of this are monster books. As long as most of the assumptions of the core game remain similar, monsters can translate across different variants. Kobold Press has had a long history of producing 5e SRD monst...| 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
Onyx Path has been around since 2012, taking over the publication of the New World of Darkness RPGs from White Wolf via a licensing agreement. They rechristened the New World of Darkness the Chronicles of Darkness and began producing updated anniversary versions of the original World of Darkness RPGs. All of this got a little more complicated in 2018, when White Wolf’s new owner Paradox Entertainment launched Vampire: the Masquerade 5e and has handed development of the new “fifth edition...| 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
During session zero, the GM is usually hopping on hot (maybe just warm) coals between the various players to answer questions about rules, character creation, setting information, styles/themes/tones for the game, and so on. However, the players will have some idle time as they wait for a question to be answered or as they ponder their character during conceptualization and creation. When I'm a player, one of the things I use this idle time for is to come up with goals for my character. I do ...| Gnome Stew
