Decide to try DMing

>pick a random Stargate episode
>change paint for whatever fits your tone

It's pretty easy. It needs a start, middle, and end. Just have an idea of what needs to be done. Have an NPC tell your players what needs to be done then let them figure out how to do it.

Three things you need.

Participants, plans, and provocations.

Participants: who are the big folks in the world that the players are going to be interacting with? Think up of a few factions that the players can either ally with or fight against. Eg thieves guild, Royal guard, Necromancer Cult, dragon menace, small sleepy village etc.

Plans: give each of the above a goal or two, and make them enemies of two others and an ally of a third. Thieves guild is planning on a big heist against the royal guard and the necromancer to give to the dragon. Royal guard is unknowingly helping the dragon while rooting out thieves and Necromancer. Dragon is going to fuck over Royal guard and hates sleepy village but is all right with thieves.

And then you need Provocation.
Throw the party in the middle of this, and suddenly everyone is offering the PCs jobs. See which job the PCs take, and then have an enemy of the faction the PCs are helping attack the PCs.

BAM, the enemy faction is now the BBEG and have the party scale up until that group is defeated. So royal guards may hire the party to protect a caravan, and then thieves guild hits it. Suddenly the campaign is all about killing those bastards who raided your damn caravan while being paid by the Royal guard.

Once that group is defeated, either upgrade ally group and remaining enemy group and have the party fight the next enemy - the Necromancer is more powerful now, royal guard has given the players sweet bling, now KILL THE NECROMANCER
Or have the allies be destroyed in sneak attack and a new ally pop up, or have the ally turn on the party and become the new BBEG.

THAT IS IT, LITERALLY INFINITE CAMPAIGNS CAN BE MADE THIS WAY. INSTANT SANDBOX 101

Try GMing instead. Yields much better results.
And if you can't come up with a story, don't.

1. Think of what you'd want to put your players through.
>>Let's go with a classic dungeon crawl, some suave diplomacy, a heist (to spice things up), and an epic boss battle.
2. Create some memorable set pieces.
>>What about a dungeon that wasn't a building?
>>What about signing a peace treaty between a kingdom and a dragon with multiple personality disorder?
>>What if the only way to talk to the dragon is with a special ring sitting on the hand of some rich collector?
>>What if the dragon wasn't really the BBEG after all?
3. Elaborate a bit more...
>>The rich collector has never spent a day on an actual adventure; he simply pays to journey alongside real heroes, walks away unscathed, and claims all the glory for himself.
>>The ring came from a dungeon crawl where a bout of bad magic from a strange artifact killed the majority of the party, but cursed the dragon to suffer from MPD. Now, a council of split personalities takes a vote to determine everything the dragon does.
>>The only time the ring is removed from the collector's hand is during some parlor trick the collector does when extremely inebriated. Of course, he is hosting a party sometime soon....
>>The dragon is more than willing to put an end to pestering the kingdom, so long as the party can find a cure to end the Dragon Council. The dragon also happens to know that the magical device was swallowed, but not digested, per vote of the Dragon Council. perhaps, the players could see about climbing inside....?

4. Tailor it to your players.
>>Player A really likes combat. What if the dragon had some gut worms that complicate the hunt?
>>Player B loves lore. Write up some fake books or other tall tales about the collector running around, stealing all the glory for themselves.
>>Player C is lawful good. What if the collector agrees to lend out the ring, on the condition they provide security during the party? It just so happens that four very similar NPC's are planning a heist of their own....
>>Player D loves diplomacy. What if the Dragon Council followed parliamentary procedure, and had a Byzantium code of rules and bylaws to adhere by?
5. Tie it together.
>>Some NPC wants the dragon gone, but wants it done without harming the dragon. Players are told they can talk to the dragon, but only if they have a special ring that was last seen with the collector.
6. Enjoy!

Players don't always need some sort of super well crafted story to enjoy their tabletop experience, the best part for many players is often overcoming challenges as a team all you need to do is have some simple fun story happening to add a bit more enjoyment to that. A simple way to make a story more engaging is mystery and intrigue I find, just simple stuff. You don't need complex multifaceted mysteries, just enough to keep players wondering what will happen next. Also steal shit from other media like everyone else has said.

Don't "craft a story", create an interesting situation with lots of options for your players.
The players' antics, the way the world reacts and the players' response to those reactions form the story.

Was this written by a predictive text generator only fed movie blurbs?

Pick a premade
Read it
Change what you don't like or what you think it would improve with a tweak

>All right, what do I want to happen?
>Okay, how does one logically lead from the party's starting point to there?
>Alright, now how do I goad them into saying "fuck that" and breaking straight through a wall and skipping points B-Y and landing directly into Z.

Just be yourself :^)

I don't.

>What you think your players want
>What's actually good enough for them

>DM
You deserve it

In addition to what's been said, do a 1 on 1 for the first couple sessions. You'll learn more disappointing one person than you will multiple.

Take ideas you know work.
Change them to your setting.
My current rogue trader campaign goes something like this.

Episode 1 - Star Trek Voyager.
A massive warp storm chucks the ship across the galaxy, the journey back to imperial space will be long. They start in deep xenos space.

Episode 2 - Land of the giants.
They find a nice uncolonized agri world, the fauna is earthlike but massive. A fox killed one of their crew. (It's head is now mounted in the RT's ship) There's also the remains of busted titans on the planet, that tempted them down to investigate.

Episode 3 - Event Horizon.
They find a half a mechanicus ship they met in episode 1 but it seems the wreck is at least 100 years old and infested with residual demon presence.

Episode 4 - The Prince.(Based on the Borgia's)
They took a hostage in episode 1, turns out he's xenos nobility and several different factions want him for different reasons. They arrive at a xenos trade station where diplomacy between these factions takes place.

Point is I have 8 episodes like this based on tv/books/movies. Also at the start of the campaign I made the players write a list of things they liked about 40k the most. All that stuff will make it in.

Don't craft a story. You're not trying to write a novel. You're playing a game.

All you need to do is create a village for the players to start in and a nearby dungeon for them to explore. Then a handful of plot hooks to get them there, such as someone's been kidnapped, there's a magic item in there or a monster inside needs to be killed.

Then you're done have fun and see what happens.

If you want to go more advanced than this once you've learned the ropes see Don't prep plots prep situations

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

And

Node based design.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach

Make the players come up with it. Give them hard guidelines for writing a backstory and they'll practically write your campaign for you, and they'll fucking love it too cause it's just them telling you exactly what they want out of a game.

>A fox killed one of their crew. (It's head is now mounted in the RT's ship)
See, the way you failed to make the fox the new crew member to replace the old crew member is how I know yousa buncha gits.

Actually depending on how episode 4 goes the xenos prisoner may become their new crew member.
The interrogations have become almost cordial.
This is good too.
My players are all writing campaign journals, it's a very good way of me getting feedback. I was going to do another combat episode but my players hinted it would be nice to meet some friendlies so next episode is a social one.

saved

Well I'm currently preparing my first session as a GM for when our current GM grow tired.
I must admit I started with something really basic for a first time: basically a dungeon crawl.
Except I wanted to have an exploration theme so it's more Indiana Jones and less "kill the evil lich at the bottom of the dungeon".

So I've got my local angry tribe with savages goblins and my local monsters with giant spiders (stolen from warhammer fantasy), I've got the trusty allies with some dwarves explorers (stolen from warcraft explorer's league).
Then I decided to add some sort of rival/potential allies sideplot, with artefact seeking (Orium) dragon minions (Cabir, the not-kobold stolen from HoMM7).
The dungeon is an antique ruin of the usual forgotten civilisation (Basically the shantiri empire stolen for HoMM), left with constructs that guard the place against both the players and the goblins.
The final set piece take place above a chasm leading to the underworld where a titanic spider broodmother is venerated as a god by the goblins. The trick to understand is that the spider is actually just a beast, and can be pushed to attack the too numerous goblins.

I feel I still need to create an encounter with a titanic construct sentry PC will have to deactivate rather than destroy (right now I only have a game of "push the five "Off" buttons in the room while goblin wardancers push them on and a titan tries to squish everyone") and a magic item the not-kobold will take under the PC's nose and maybe some Indiana Jones style obstacles...

So I opted for something basic but drowned under distracting details I suppose. But the details are elements I want to use for future game if I continue. Am I doing ok? I fear I'm going too video game.

>>Decide to try DMing
You mean you've never done it before? And you're going straight to DIY?

Jesus christ. Run a fucking premade to get your feet wet. Then run another one. Keep doing it until you get comfortable, then start adding your own elements. Then once you've got that down, write a one-shot adventure. Then a few more. Then, and only then, consider doing a campaign.

Don't go right to the fucking end, that's like
>Decide to try swimming
>Can't cross the English Channel for shit

>Decide to try running
>Can't finish a marathon for shit

I would suggest two things.

First, plagiarize. Just copy another plot and use that.

Second, the most important, let the players then make/change the plot.

The key here is not to fall in love with your own plot, especially if you are new at it. Instead, start with some other plot that is floating around and then take notes as the players play the game. If they like something, go in that direction. During game play ask them what they think is going on - keep a neutral face. But take notes as they come up with ideas as to what the plot is - and use them.

Take a published adventure and change it to fit what you need/

Use a system that does work against you

cocks

cocks

cocks

I've never had a problem writing story shit for tabletop. I'm always farting out whatever comes to mind and groups eat it up; my current DM is actually constantly telling to write a novel so I can get rich off this shit, but I'm too lazy for that.

So I guess my advice it to be reincarnated into somebody with really great writing talent.

I don't.

My games are 50% Plagarism, 10% Memes, and the rest is blatant lies.