Ah, I understand.  A random story generator and player made scenarios wouldn't be mutually exclusive.  People would still make scripted scenarios and backstories, but you will have played them all very quickly, even if they are made on a consistent basis. 

And I think we are again getting caught up on the pejorative term "random" again, as is often the case in many other threads.  People seem to always assume that random means "completely and utterly unpredictable, with no apparent sense being garnered before and after results."  Random doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't some over arching method or schema, but simply means that the player does not have complete knowledge, and therefore cannot make perfect decisions toward an objective.  For instance, when a random map is being generated, a player understands that certain things will be appearing on a map in certain order.  For instance, they know that a tree will not appear in the middle of the ocean or a neutral city on top of an unpassable terrain.  Ideally, you could choose certain themes when generating a map with storylines for each faction that would ammend how the stories would be manifested, and the player would have inklings of what to expect. 

In a way, this is how I run my D&D campaigns, which have become very popular.  I set parameters instead of making up a story ahead of time that players must follow.  Instead, I create a world that ascribes to certain rules, use the dice as a "random" element to determine geographical and geological ranges during the world's creation, and then cut the players loose to discover their own objectives and discover their own villains.  If they arrive at city they haven't visisted, there is a host of political and civil matters that are taking place (if any at all) that are "randomly" determined based within certain parameters (what ethnicity are the locals?  Do they belong to a nation?  Are they xenophobic?  Are there nearby perils?  Do they have national enemies?  Is there a war in effect?  Do they have a history of civil unrest?)  Things happen in the world around them, some of which is their doing and some of which was simply set in motion before the campaign started.  It was this kind of feature that inspired my idea for a "random" story generator based on my system in these campaigns.  There are certain overarching themes and parameters set to a given game, and the random generator builds a story and world within those parameters.  

This sounds freaking awesome lol

Hee hee, thanks.  Sometimes it can get difficult, though.  I always keep a d20 in my pocket throughout the day and turn over different scenarios and such in my head for world events in the campaign.  Unfortunately, if the players find some unexpected motive to sail off to the "dark part of the map," it can be tricky producing ideas as to what has happened there since I first put it on the map. 

But yeah, we have a lot of fun with our campaigns.  The players (siblings in game) basically took the story into their own hands, started a merchant house, got married, fought intercontinental maritime wars, and produced children who are all off adventuring themselves.  Strangely, they've plunged very few dungeons, but toppled plenty of foreign sovereigns for inconveniencing their merchantile plans.

Huh. I have a very similar GMing style, except I never determine things randomly.

Well, if there isn't some degree of uncertainty, then it just becomes the DM's novel--- why bother even having players at all?  If the players start to realize that the DM is simply building a world around them, rather than just representing a world, the game tends to lose it's flare.

Story-driven games vs sand-box games, the endless RPG debate

I disagree strongly. I do run basically a sandbox game with only very broad goals, but I never roll randomly for elements.  I do this by having enough detail that I have some sort of idea of what lies over the next mountain range. As elements come up, I invent them as appropriate.

I don't understand how certainty equals to the GM's novel. I totally agree that making your players characters in your story is a terrible way to GM, which is why I hate the term "Storyteller" to describe a GM.  But to maintain a non-linear gameplay you really only need to ensure players are making their own choices. I don't think it really matters if what's over the mountain is either randomly generated or made up, because players really only care if there's some internal logic to what's there. If there's no internal logic, then the illusion will be broken no matter what. Simply, I have always found my judgement to be superior to what I can determine randomly, and frankly, it's just easier to think it up.

I also do something that I don't think many GMs do, which is have a lot of story arcs going on at once. The players can't possibly pursue them all, so they're forced to make priorities. If they can't resolve an arc, it resolves itself, and usually in a messy way. Eventually, they'll start pursuing their own goals which is what I want them to start doing anyway.

In any case, I've never recieved complaints about how I generate my worlds, or whether they seemed fake. And I've run some campaigns that have lasted years and people keep coming back, so I must be doing something right.

Okay, I think I understand what you are saying, and I'm in the same boat.  It comes back down to that wretched term "random." 

For instance, if the players walk into a city, a dragon can't just pop out of nowhere if there is no history of dragons nearby.  Instead, when I'm letting the characters know about "Adventure hooks," I first observe the history of the location to see if it is a region that is strife filled or not.  I then roll a dice which is modified with values based on that history to actually see if anything is worth mentioning beyond the setting descriptions (a peasant revolt, bandits in the woods, etc.)  If the city has a whole slew of reasons to have bandits in the woods, it's much more likely that bandits will be there, rather than, say, a dragon popping out of no-where.  So I generally create a small table of the variables in my head or on paper, assign them modifiers based on local history.  If it turns out bandits are in the woods and the players investigate, I then repeat the process to determine what kind of bandits they are.  If there happens to be a rival baron to the local duke, then it's going to be pretty probable that the local baron might be responsible.  If there are nomadic, aggressive tribes nearby, there is a high likelihood that they are responsible.   

So you see it's not actually random, per se.  Yes, sometimes a dragon might appear out of nowhere because, yes, improbable things do sometimes happen (a young red dragon userped and sent flying to find new territory?)

I don't provide "story arcs."  I instead just have a living world that goes about its business, and the players may take part if they'd like.  The players are only limited by the physics of the world and the personalities of their characters, which they defined at the start of the campaign.  Stories arise when players get involved with a specific place and specific people.  If they clean out those bandits and the baron is responsible, then its likely they've found a new arch-villain, but if there were plenty of other possible sources of bandits in the area.

But I do insist that if there is no "constructive uncertainty" in the DM's decision making, the players end up spending a lot of time "guessing what the DM is thinking" whether they are good at avoiding metagaming or not.

I agree with this statement. That is sort of the weakness with storytelling in general, since almost all stories have a predictable arc. This is why I encourage my players to pursue their own goals, so that they take up some of the "creative burden" that I think sort of makes GMing difficult.

Well, by "story arcs", I really mean a list of events that occur, barring PC intervention. For almost all my games I have a timeline of events that occur at specific times. These can either serve as adventure hooks or just background events to the setting.

I respect this method of GMing, although it seems awfully complicated. I wouldn't be organized enough to do it.

Although, if you wrote the book, I'd read it.

This would be cool but it should only be an option. Sometimes I like to play the traditional way as well.

I agree. I hate those campaigns when the DM does not roll the dice for outcomes of battles or other feats the characters attempt. I have played in a couple of these campaigns and once we as the player discovered what was going on we quit the campaign (we of course give the DM a warning but rarly do these type of DM's change thier style to allow the campaign to be more like a game instead of a DM novell.)

And I HATE when DM's fudge the dice.  We have one standared rule in our group...DM's are not allowed to fudge the dice PERIOD. If this results in a PC dying then he dies and we make another. Dying is part of the game and if you take this element of defeat away from the game the challange will no longer be there and the game is not fun anymore.

We do play a hardcore game and some players and DMs don't like our syle but what is the point of playing if the game is not a challange.