Just a quick read and link for GM tips: http://therattsnest.info/gm-tips/5-tips-for-game-masters#comment-880

Nice article, allthough I did not really see the point about the contact paper.

Anyway, these are all things I have mostly allready realized as a GM. Mostly through trying to run official adventures. Official advenutres have a tendency to make a bunch of assumptions about the PCs and what they will do and write everything based on the story it intends to tell. It can suddenly say something like this:

"The NPC tells the party to head left. After the party has headed to the left they..."

And I will go "What? Why would they head left? Because som NPC told them to? What if they don't believe the NPC or ignore him? To the right is a major spoiler for the adventure that will change everything if they see it. You could not sacrifice one paragraph to touch on what to do if that happens?"

I have run into several adventures that do this. The author has written a story beforehand and then expects the players to just play out the story without even railroading them. He just expects them to be good little players and not ask akward questions that disrupt the story.

I have found that the best way to write adventures for me; is to not decide on a story, but just setting a stage and then let the players make the story. Roughly, it goes something like this:

1 Decide vaguely what the story will be about. Not specifically what will happen, just generally what the adventure will revolve around and why the PCs will be involved.

2 Decide on the map of the area. What kind of interesting places are there?

3 Populate the area with NPCs. What do they want? What tools do they have for getting what they want?

4 If the party had not shown up in this area, what would have happend? If you have tought about this, you have a better idea of what will be going on when the party does not interfere.

This basically boils down to: "Set a stage and give the players a task. Let them figure out how to solve it with whatever you put on the stage."

The thing is, the more you are writing a story when actually writing an adventure, the more off balance you become when the players mess everything up by doing things you did not forsee. If you just have rough ideas of the NPCs and what they want to achieve, it is easier to just go with the flow. You can still plan out the story somewhat, just realize that the players are your co-writers, and they are likely to do some major revisions to your work.