NowhereMan's post above is very good advice!
Now, I run mostly horror/comedy, both of which need a fairly linear structure with reasonably tight pacing and range of action to land an atmosphere of unbearable dread/have any shape at all, but if you put a game on a railroad, it will get squished.
So I pretty much think video game: here is what it's about, you have X and Y story-integral NPC to point players at plot, this sub-plot/"mission" can be triggered here, that one there, this is the Good Ending, this is the Bad Ending. I recommend jotting this kind of story skeleton -
https://thealexandrian.net/wor...e-sandy-petersen-way - out in a notebook, but usually the above is all I start with.
Part of my secondary setup is adding player concepts/basic background into the plot: nothing so huge that the player vanishing will collapse the story, but motivation for them to see out the course/play the particular character they've chosen rather than a set of stats with a name slapped on. e.g. the person who ate [PC]'s dog in their backstory becomes a minion of the antagonist, protected by their schemes. Try to come up with creative slants on fairly generic hooks to keep them from staying generic, too, e.g. unknown to [PC], their dog is actually a vampire now.
Lastly, brutal realism is your friend if everyone somehow winds up in a corner with no NPC to lead them gently out. Hiding under a rock until the bad guys go away, for instance, becomes less of an attractive option and potential dead end if it happens to be November in pit viper country (note that this scenario also gives the PCs the opportunity to lead said bad guys into said viper pit if they're smart - that kind of thing should work both ways and reward engagement with the game world).
This message was last edited by the user at 18:30, Thu 13 Oct 2022.