Why should the GM be the one to have to come up with all the ideas anyway? They have enough to do. So why not have your players put some effort into shaping the session?
There is an old adage that says ‘don’t give the GM ideas’. As if we don’t already have enough ideas to cause misery and torment already in our toolbox! But the players can help, and it's a matter of giving them the right incentives to create a fun role-playing session.
Incidentally, the following is also useful if you’ve forgotten your notes and don’t want to let on. Bob McWilliams offered the best advice for this in his Traveller article ‘We have a Referee Malfunction’ in White Dwarf #35. One of my favourite suggestions was to get each player to detail the area they were in and then say quietly afterward “Hmm, so no pot plants? Interesting.” After ten minutes every player character is desperately running about trying to locate a pot plant, even though not one of them has the faintest clue why.
If the wine is flowing there is the opportunity for drunkenness, which always leads to bad decisions, which always leads to story. It might even offer some liquid courage to provoke a little romance, or make a mess of one.
However, shopping need not be just confined to clothes. If you need a new sword, where will you get it? How can you be sure the weaponsmith is really good? What sort of style do you want and how expensive do you want it to be? Do you want it to be showy or elegant or resilient or all three? You can ask these sorts of questions about just about any purchase and by answering them the player has to think a little about what their character wants and what they are looking for. Then they will be able to drive the story forward as they look for what they want.
So I asked each player what their character had been doing to fill in the time, as each duty report was taking only a few moments to complete. Some started new projects, the security chief organised a boxing contest and one of the pilots decided he could tell which shuttle was which by only the controls (provoking a lot of betting and cheating). For each project they decided to do, I gave them a simple test to see how they did. Some projects went well, some badly but they all knew what their characters had been up to and how things had gone recently in their jobs. Once all that was resolved, they picked up a distress call…
There is an old adage that says ‘don’t give the GM ideas’. As if we don’t already have enough ideas to cause misery and torment already in our toolbox! But the players can help, and it's a matter of giving them the right incentives to create a fun role-playing session.
Incidentally, the following is also useful if you’ve forgotten your notes and don’t want to let on. Bob McWilliams offered the best advice for this in his Traveller article ‘We have a Referee Malfunction’ in White Dwarf #35. One of my favourite suggestions was to get each player to detail the area they were in and then say quietly afterward “Hmm, so no pot plants? Interesting.” After ten minutes every player character is desperately running about trying to locate a pot plant, even though not one of them has the faintest clue why.
Organise a Party
The characters must have at least one friend out there to invite them to one, and there are very few places you can’t have a party if you make the effort. In fact, the odder the location, the more interesting the party. Social gatherings are a good opportunity to throw some role play at the characters and see what they’ll do without the option to stab something. While the host will be a friend they don’t want to embarrass (or they’d not have got an invite) not all the guests will be. So you can throw in some NPCs they really don’t get on with and see if they will keep their cool when provoked or cause a scene. Whichever they do, you will either generate a tense role play scene or they will create consequences they will have to sort out afterwards.If the wine is flowing there is the opportunity for drunkenness, which always leads to bad decisions, which always leads to story. It might even offer some liquid courage to provoke a little romance, or make a mess of one.
Go Shopping
I can’t tell you how many sessions I’ve ‘lost’ to a shopping expedition. These are often a consequence of being asked to a party as well; given few player characters have some decent formal wear to hand. Even those who do will probably need to help those who don’t find something, if they don’t want to be embarrassed when they arrive together. When buying clothes, ask each player what their character wants, and how comfortable they are feeling about it. The Elven sorceress may know exactly what sort of gown she is looking for, but what colour silk, can she get the right accessories and where will she get the right shoes. Will the female Orc barbarian just want a nicer set of animal skins or does she want to try a dress? How will she look and how much have the other player character’s assumed about her because she's a barbarian? This isn’t just limited to the female characters either, men can dress up too and the same things apply as to whether they know how to dress well for a nice occasion. Tests can (and should) be made to see if they can find something good and if they know how to wear it with style. There may be a lot of surprises for the group when they find out who scrubs up well, and who doesn’t.However, shopping need not be just confined to clothes. If you need a new sword, where will you get it? How can you be sure the weaponsmith is really good? What sort of style do you want and how expensive do you want it to be? Do you want it to be showy or elegant or resilient or all three? You can ask these sorts of questions about just about any purchase and by answering them the player has to think a little about what their character wants and what they are looking for. Then they will be able to drive the story forward as they look for what they want.
Filling in Time
Not every day is filled with excitement for adventurers. So it’s quite reasonable for the GM to tell the players that nothing is happening and they have to make their own fun. They will usually come up with either a new project or some sort of trouble to either flesh out their character or drive some action. I did this recently in a Star Trek Adventures campaign. They were exploring the frontier but before I let them run across the distress beacon that would start the next scenario I decided to roll for how interesting their time had been recently. I rolled a 1, so decided that despite coming across a load of new systems, pretty much every planet had been a barren dud.So I asked each player what their character had been doing to fill in the time, as each duty report was taking only a few moments to complete. Some started new projects, the security chief organised a boxing contest and one of the pilots decided he could tell which shuttle was which by only the controls (provoking a lot of betting and cheating). For each project they decided to do, I gave them a simple test to see how they did. Some projects went well, some badly but they all knew what their characters had been up to and how things had gone recently in their jobs. Once all that was resolved, they picked up a distress call…
Maybe she is directly involved. Maybe her lover is. Maybe her lover's ex is and is going to try and 'pin' something on her to get back at the man who scorned her. Maybe one of the warring Thieves Guild members notices her comings and goings and tries to blackmail her for support? The opportunities are endless! 
