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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Phasmus" data-source="post: 246804" data-attributes="member: 1827">Here is some elaboration on two general guidelines I've employed in my game with some success:1:  Plot early, plot often.  Plot out the events of your game as if you were writing the initial outline of a book.  Run your game sessions as if you were writing the 'meat' of the story... with the players determining the actions of the main characters.  Note that, with few exceptions, the characters themselves can't deviate from the plot, because they -are- the plot.  It is the DM's responsibility to provide for whatever they do, wherever they go... even if it doesn't coincide with the originally plotted outline.  It is a good idea to have a few pre-plotted not-so-random encounters set up for use in emergencies.  Random encounters are best avoided when a hand-crafted plot-encounter can be used instead.2:  Listen to your players.  Get all the feedback you can.  Change things to make the world fit your characters, when necessary.  The game-world may or may not revolve around the characters, but the events of the game probably should.  Strong character backgrounds are very helpful.  I've made it a common practice to build up my game-world's background by expanding and integrating concepts produced by my players for their character backgrounds.  It may not be feasible for some campaign settings, but it has worked very well for me.</blockquote>