These techniques are less apparent in Western culture which is highly literate, and therefore a story is understood to be the same in every telling. In oral cultures, every telling is a different take on the same framework.

The motivations and goals of NPCs are key. How the players interact with the NPCs is key. By loosely writing a framework for the plot idea, the game can have more of a focus on player action or inaction and their conflict or alliance with NPCs.

I very much agree that some things don’t need to be played out. If the players want a shopping trip, let them deal with it quickly and without the need for a scene detailing every little thing. But have a scene if something important is going to take place.

I’ve even fast forwarded to the end of a large battle because the outcome wasn’t in doubt and there was no chance of failure. A short narrative description filled everyone in on what happened and moved the game forward to the next scene, which was more important.

On Sunday we played a one-shot game of Spirit of the Century that was a more coherent story. I suspect that several factors contributed: the game featured only two players, it was the first session (when GMs often lead more while players figure out their characters), and play focused on two sharp prompts.

Despite the above, a significant subplot developed that surprised me– a rivalry with the nobles in the Raja’s smoking room. It was a great scene that revealed a lot about the character and it sprang up on the spot. In retrospect, the tensions it added to the story and character revelation were essential to the story, however unplanned they were as game prep.

An RPG produces story by creating room for the structure of the story to grow. Traditional RPGs are basically terrible for this, with the odd exception of the pure Dungeon Crawl. If a GM writes a big epic plot, and then tries to shoehorn the PCs into it, it will be a mess that will aggravate everyone — the players because they can’t do what they want, and the GM because the players don’t want to enjoy his big plot.

The best ways to avoid this are

1) The “open” story, wherein the GM only sets up the background and environment, and then lets the players explore at their own pace and preference — this is why dungeon crawls generate great “stories”, in the sense that a well-constructed dungeon will let players gain reward at the right pace, suffer setback, and ultimately triumph over seemingly-impossible odds.

or

2) The story-game. A story-game, as best I can figure the definition, is a non-traditional RPG where the game mechanics themselves reinforce storytelling qualities rather than concrete mechanics. Dogs in the Vineyard is a common and excellent example, since in Dogs a trait called “A corrupt preacher chopped off my finger 2d6″ is just as valuable and useful as “My pa taught me to shoulder a rifle 2d6″, and where you can get long-term “damage” in the form of relationships with other characters and places. This means that in any given conflict, the players are going to be scouring the sheets for ways to bring their traits into play, and thus elements of their character’s story.

This can be adapted to trad games in a shoehorn kinda way by getting “plot hooks” from players beforehand. Get everyone to write down three cool things their character might do (Cassius steals the governor’s horse and rides hard to deliver the intercepted message; Cassius finds himself a pawn in the political game between the king and the cardinal; Cassius faces his greatest fear: the ogre that killed his parents). Once you have everyone’s hooks, see which ones can be used together, and then structure your “story” around that.

or

3) Shared narrative control. Whether you let players describe the outcomes of their own actions, even if you haven’t had anything prepared (“Spot 16″ “You succeed” “I see an orc assassin climbing up the wall!” “OK, just let me grab stats!”), use Dirty Dungeons, or use a narrative control shifting game like Houses of the Blooded or Polaris, letting everyone at the table have a turn pulling the story in the direction they like is a good way to a) ensure that everyone is satisfied with the story, and b) you get the creative power of everyone at the table making the story, rather than just one.

So then we start playing. The first few sessions will work upon what we had created before. Afterwards, however, things might drastically change. We will review the past sessions and I will write a story to reflect what happened, with some changes to make the session more story and less game (like lasting injuries). This way, during the next session, we have a beter story to work upon. Some players get to play a bit differently (again these lasting injuries which makes them suffer some penalty are an example).

The players also have the possibility to redo some of their mistakes or to add something they forgot. I also have the possibility to pass some extra information they could find useful.

We hope that in the end we actually ahve a real story, like in a book, to remember our DnD.