Writing Your Own Solar Echoes Mission (part 3)

Players can turn a good story into a great story, depending on the decisions they make. In my many years of running RPG games, I've learned that the best stories can happen when the Game Master is able to improvise and adapt the story line. Rail-roading players removes from them the feeling that they have any affect upon the story, so the GM needs to write his missions with a lot of opportunities for player choice. It's difficult to do this, though, because you'll find yourself trying to write branching paths for every possible decision players might make. Trust me, it's impossible to think of everything! Some events will happen regardless of what the players decide, and these “hard events” occur because they are larger than the players—they are outside the players' sphere of influence. At the same time, though, players should feel like they are heroes whose decisions are impacting the story, so the smaller “soft events” should have eventual impact on the storyline. When you begin the mission and introduce the mission goals to the players through their Operations Sergeant (OS), make certain that the goals are actually achievable. When the mission is finished and the players' characters are reporting back to their OS, they will feel like the experience rewards they've earned are fair because each reward is associated with whether or not they achieved the mission objectives.