How do I come up with a good story? (Guest topic)

Courtesy of Nick today, another friend interested in GMing. Especially if it's your first game, how do you come up with a story people are going to give a crap about? Seeing as in the end of it you want to end up with a plot of some sort, this question has to be answered really before you run your first session. Usually when I pitch a game to my players I have at the very least what the game is about before I ever talk to them. Maybe not specific NPCs, maybe not an antagonistic force - but I know where my story is taking place and what's involved in it.

So when you sit down to write your story, here's what you do. First and foremost, know what a plot is - It's a chain of actions linked in some way, or a series of actions that lead in some logical way to a further link in the chain of actions. Every action is part of plot, and thus every action is important. If you were writing a novel, at this point you would sketch out in one way or another the chain of actions that lead to the end. Since we have players we're working with, we don't have to do that - they'll continue the plot for us, so long as we're doing our job right. So what we need to do is get a skeleton together - We supply reasons for events to happen in the world, driving characters behind those actions we've figured out. What we're doing at this stage is writing the starting line. So instead of worrying about pacing(the way a novellist has to) we need to worry especially hard on the driving force of our setting. We need to know who the movers and shakers are.

I think it's important to take a "lightest touch" approach to this. In theory I am providing a small pebble in the form of a villain or faction or country. I am going to throw this pebble down the mountain towards my characters. I use causation and logic to determine what kind of debris and rocks it picks up on the way down, and it becomes my players' job to interact with it, whether they ride along or try to fight it. That's it. You only have to write a beginning.

Your middle is going to be written only somewhat by you, adding in characters here and there, shaping the world as events occur, but mostly by your players. Your players are the stars. They are more important than everyone around them, and you should make them look good to a limited extent. I personally GM for an audience ( and love having them) so my players are treated to being made sympathetic or unsympathetic, whatever they're going for. If you're playing a thief it's my duty to make sure you get to steal stuff. I'm doing injustice if that theft isn't challenging(to prove your character's worth and skill) or worthwhile(because you played a thief to steal, it's a legit way of life for you, and it should work because of that). If you're playing a coward who abhors combat, or a pacifist, it is my duty to challenge those choices with combat, so we can understand and sympathize with your reasonings for being those sorts of people. Naturally, if you're a beefy fighter type then you better be damn sure I'm going to make you talk your way out of a situation once or twice, and just try to get by when all you're really good at is killing people.

So if I provide a setting, antagonists, allies, goals, and challenges, you will want to write the plot because you're actively living it. It is not some foreign thing to be studied and understood, but instead what you're accomplishing as a player.

So to directly answer the question, you write a good story by writing good jumping off points. You write a good story by giving your players juicy bits to bite into and rewarding them for doing it. In the end, whatever you end up with will be unpredictable, satisfying, and a hell of a lot of fun. You write a good story by writing one you would want to play.