Shakespeare mash-up

I would be surprised if this was an original idea, however since I hadn't heard of it, it's original to me :)

I often find myself lacking in story ideas, and this method is meant to be the foundation of a story arc as well as a fun exercise people can do as a group and then maybe end up roleplaying it along the way.

So this is what you do: Find yourself a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare (my house has at least 3 copies, so that wasn't very hard).  Then turn to a random page.  You could either pick a line randomly, or find a line on the page that you like (after the first one, I think it's better to pick one off the page).  Copy down or bookmark that line, and then pick another random page and find another line.  Do this as many times as you see fit.  Now that you have a bunch of lines together, turn them into a script of sorts which becomes the basis of your story.  Each line can be said by different characters, or it can be a conversation between 2 or more, or even a monologue, if it works.

This is what I came up with on my second try:

Male Character 1:  "The fairest hand I ever toucht! O beauty, Till now I never knew thee!" ( King Henry The Eight I.iv)
Female Character 2: "Worthy sir, thou bleed'st; Thy exercise hath been too violent For a second course of fight." (Coriolanus I.vi)
Male Character 1: "Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay." (Antony and Cleopatra I.ii)
Female Character 2: "Follow me; thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet." (King Lear I.iii)

Two strong-willed and rather aggressive soon to be lovers (maybe soldiers of some kind) have gotten into a fist fight.  As the woman is dutifully kicking the ass of the man, he blurts out that he loves her more than anything.  The woman stops fighting for a second and realizes two things 1. the man is pretty beat up and 2. she in fact loves him too, but does not want to admit it.  She comments on his injuries and suggests that he give up.  The man knows this to be true, but takes it as an insult none the less, calls her a whore and tells her to leave before he catches his breath. The woman, not wanting to leave his company, but not wanting to say so directly tells him that if he takes her out to an expensive restaurant and he behaves, she might forgive him for whatever it was that started the fight.

On "winging it" and my method of GMing

It's nice to work with a pre-written script at times, it takes so much less effort to GM when you have most of the story on a page infront of you. But it's just so stagnant, even if it's a story you've written yourself.

I find it so much more interesting when you know only a bit more than your players, and you find yourself just as surprised with the game as you. It keeps you on your toes, and results in a livelier game. People feed off of others' energy levels. If the GM is bored, which could very well happen especially if the story is from a can, then your players will be bored too; but if you are able to produce a level of excitement and energy about what is going on in the game then your players will reflect and amplify that same energy. The downside is that it draining to keep only a step ahead of the players, whereas if you wrote everything beforehand than your creative energy was spent at whatever pace you wrote the thing.

What I have been doing with my campaignlets is having a rough sketch of the story. The underlying problem that the PCs solve, who the badguy is and a few features about the world. I often have a handful of events that are expected to happen, but these events don't usually have resolutions built into them.

By not knowing what will happen next, you don't end up railroading the players unintentionally. If there is no track to begin with, then there can be no train.

A word of advise for those considering this style of GMing. Fill the environment with a smattering of random details, and take notes, or have a really good memory. Those random details can be used later as clues or jumping points for the plot which you didn't think of before. But that can only work if you actually remember those random little things. I take quick little notes during the game, and after write down everything fully in a session recap. It's often during that process that I get ideas as to where to go next.