If your player characters have strong innate goals and objectives, you place situations around them with no expectation of how they play out, and at the end of that see what happens next - building the story of play together based on choices made and the rolls of the dice, sounds in keeping with the principle! Generally the principle is placed in opposition to the idea of plotting - the GM having determined that something will happen and just seeing how the players get there.
To use an example from the last big AP/Campaign I ran, when you play through Call of the Netherdeep the players must get a teleport gizmo and proceed to the desert city or the campaign ends. The objective of everything you do from the very start to the end is to have that final confrontation where you can press one of three buttons. As a GM, I must ensure the players have enough hooks and awareness to grab onto some mechanism for getting that teleport gizmo; for getting into the ruins beneath the city; for making it to the final confrontation.
In comparison, in my last Blades in the Dark game, I didn't even know how the next moment in a score was going to go after that engagement roll; much less what was going to happen in the wider world next! Turns out they burned down the Grey Cloak's establishment while making a whole bunch of corpses! Their heat skyrocketed, the Bluecloaks came calling in accordance with teh game's procedures; and the Grey Cloaks moved a step closer to open war. Ok...time to ask the table what we do next because I don't know until they say so! Although because I advance the Faction Relationship and we did some clocks in there, I know I need to have the Grey Cloaks do something proactive; and then the Spirit Wardens are going to come investigating due to that Devil's Bargain they took, and...
To use an example from the last big AP/Campaign I ran, when you play through Call of the Netherdeep the players must get a teleport gizmo and proceed to the desert city or the campaign ends. The objective of everything you do from the very start to the end is to have that final confrontation where you can press one of three buttons. As a GM, I must ensure the players have enough hooks and awareness to grab onto some mechanism for getting that teleport gizmo; for getting into the ruins beneath the city; for making it to the final confrontation.
In comparison, in my last Blades in the Dark game, I didn't even know how the next moment in a score was going to go after that engagement roll; much less what was going to happen in the wider world next! Turns out they burned down the Grey Cloak's establishment while making a whole bunch of corpses! Their heat skyrocketed, the Bluecloaks came calling in accordance with teh game's procedures; and the Grey Cloaks moved a step closer to open war. Ok...time to ask the table what we do next because I don't know until they say so! Although because I advance the Faction Relationship and we did some clocks in there, I know I need to have the Grey Cloaks do something proactive; and then the Spirit Wardens are going to come investigating due to that Devil's Bargain they took, and...
