3 Steps to Creating Situations not Solutions for RPGs

My GMing axiom is “What, not how”. I do not want to be shy about telling my players what to do*; BUT avoid trampling on how they do it.

Here are my steps:

1. Give them a focus. Also known as a MacGuffin. Tell the players directly. “This is campaign/adventure is about _________________.” Nights Black Agents is a perfect example. The game is about tracking down Vampires. If you let them know what the game/adventure is about, the players can then formulate their own goal in reference to that focus. Once they have that:
2. Block their goal. Throw obstacles at them: people, things, fate, or nature can all work against the players directly or indirectly. Use them.
3. Making solving the goal easy but costly. This one is really hard to talk about abstractly because it is relative to the game/genre you are running. But if you make it painful for the characters they are likely to “take their time” in order to mitigate the pain. For Example, In my recent Night’s Black Agents game they were about to go up against Dracula and they spent a lot of time talking about (and making rolls) how they were going to approach Dracula’s tomb. I sat back and enjoyed the show.

Here is the upshot: as GM I can spend as much time as I want defining and refining the MacGuffin/Focus of the Campaign/Adventure. Then I trust that as my players create characters who want to focus on that thing; they will develop and refine and drop goals during the session. 

*via genre, setting, table talk, or rules we use.