Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
My theory for some time is that the GM's job is not to come up with a story, but to come up with a situation (including a potential conflict, or maybe more than one) that has the potential for story, and then turn the PCs loose on it. The thing that's needed is to have the instinct for a fruitful starting situation. But the tale grows in the telling, as Tolkien put it; the story and the plot are not designed by the GM, but emerge from the play. But then the GM can see what's going on in the story, and introduce elements that will make the situation more interesting and enhance the tension. And a sense of plot can help in this, even in a type of story where you can't know in advance where the plot is going.
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I think there's a range of this that falls within "most players will enjoy it". Some players like more direction (e.g. "your mission this week is…" games); others prefer to come up with their own subplots and plots, e.g. by seeing a bad situation and deciding how to get involved.
This is where I part ways from Robin Laws and
Hamlet's Hit Points: I don't think that the up-and-down beat structure of some linear fiction is necessarily a good fit to an RPG, which is not only constructed in ongoing collaboration but (with very few exceptions) is always a first draft, happening in order, with little possibility of going back and changing things after the fact.