As for my stories, there is an element of planning to them, it is just setting. But I let the players tell me where they want to go and I go there. I make the story about them. I give them incentive to do so, extra experience. I tell them they have to choose the significance of the storyline, it can be minor, major or epic. Minor plot lines are cheap, costing 3xp, Major plots and more expensive costing 6xp and epic plots cost 9xp. Every time the plot line is featured in a story, the player that invested the plot line gets a dividend of 1, 2, or 3 experience points and when the plot line finishes they get the last dividend and the original investment back and every investment is guaranteed to last atleast three sessions. Popular plots include a Sorcery Quest: the quest for the ability to manipulate reality, a Nemesis plot: one person in the recent past becomes the character's biggest foe and wants to kill them, Romance plot: one person in the recent past becomes the character's biggest fan. There are others, the player just has to have the imagination to think of one.
Currently there are two subplots happening, one Sorcery plot and a Nemesis. Just recently, a sorcery plot line wrapped up. In that plot line, the player's character got a teacher, travelled to a new place (in this case travelled from the mortal life to the Exalted life), performed a humiliating task (herding refugees who had difficulty understanding each other through the woods to safety), facing his fears (in his case being powerless and at the mercy of others) and finally, he made a sacrifice (surrendering his need to advance quickly and to take shortcuts to power).
The future Sorcery quest is something that is difficult to plan as it has to be personal and meaningful. The facing of fears has to be something that works for the character and the Player, the sacrifice has to hit close to the central character but not something that would make that player not want to play e character. In this sorcery quest, the player is a crafts person, and that is a core character trait and should not be touched until the time is right, but he was also raised in the temple to an important God, it is a part of the character that has a low relevance to the future character development, but it is something the Character would not want to give up and the sacrifice, it will be; dissolve the connection to the god and gain sorcery or keep it and have sorcery denied to him. To make the sacrifice more ponient I will have to do some subtle manipulation. His Twilight Station of the quest is to find a teacher, he will be called back to Nowhere as his presences is requested. There he finds that his God, Ahlat the god of Cattle and the War God of the South, is in attendance and is gifting his group a large amount of resources, additionally he will give the character at tome of knowledge on crafting artifacts and talk with him on a personal level. He will grant him also a special servant, a large Auroch of Ahlat to serve as a steed and familiar: a grand surprise and boon. His Zenith Station he will travel into the Wyld alone to search for the core of the Forgotten city of Brahm's Bridge. His Night Station, he will face fear, he will confront an unshaped Fair Folk who will attempt to reshape him into its desires and away from what he feels is his own shape, the Auroch of Ahlat will be instrumental to saving him. Lastly, his Eclipse Station, where he will be forced to choose between acquiring Sorcery and his patron. If he chooses Sorcery he will lose the Auroch and his mentor Ahlat. He will still have other mentors though and the Auroch was just a device. If he abandons Sorcery, the Auroch becomes permanent, but he is denied Sorcery until he take the quest again and it will be tougher next time.
The Nemesis was selected as a mortal, so there fore something supernatural must occur for him to be even close to a challenge. I selected an Infernal Exalted. The only thing that is left is to have a plausible way that the character be discovered. Then the Nemesis can show up. This nemesis is a runner; he runs fast all the time, 72kph, and is difficult to see too. He is a conformist, so he is against breaking the status quo. Where the hero is freeing slaves, the nemesis will be attempting to get them recaptured or simply killing them. He will try to discredit the character and failing that kill him. The first time he appears he will dog his antithesis' footsteps and kill a civilian and leave the blood on his hands. After that he will kill only when the character is nearby. When the game is up and he has been discovered, the nemesis will begin killing and causing trouble for the entire group until he is chased off or killed. The real trick will be to keep the presence of the nemesis quiet. Events: a former slave is murdered and the last person that they were seen with was the character, Vael and his knife has blood on it. Later, after the suspicions are put in, the town will be raided by twenty-five Jackal slave hunter and their trail will be a straight from Injahal. Later still a number of slaves will be found dead and the last one will have written Va- in his own blood. Later still if he is allowed alone with slaves, one of them will be the Nemesis and when Vael is not paying attention, the Nemesis will kill the others and implicate Vael. Meanwhile, an expeditionary force of the Wyld hunt will attack Somewhere Else and on their persons a very detailed map of the area will be found and a letter with the forged signature of Vael using camp supplies. The Nemesis will one day reveal himself to Vael, but only him, after his reputation has suffered some. Then one day he will reveal himself to everyone. Remember, revenge is best served cold.
Perhaps by then, a larger plot may have developed and I will have something to run with.
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