Recently I had the displeasure of playing a PC in a Shadowrun game run by a friend of mine during which I gained an even higher degree of respect for non plot driven game scenarios. This particular GM had apparently attended the "Pre-Packaged Shadowrun Adventure In Those Neat Thin Books With The Nifty Looking Covers" school of gamemastering, a discipline which teaches the GM to read words off of a piece of paper which resemble the following: "The runners were exhausted and frustrated from their encounter with Big Bad Nuntucket The Barghest and decided to spend a few days laying low at Uncle Slim's Eat And Spew until their Johnson made further contact."

Yeah, ok, sure thing. Exactly what I want to hear, somebody else's drivel regarding how MY character is feeling and what my charector is going to do. A real life example: After a scene in the run I went on the gamemaster stated that I was "tired" and "could think of nothing but getting a good night's rest". Well, quite frankly, after a two day chase after a shadow I could never even get close enough to launch an ICBM at I was FAR from wanting a good nights rest and wished for nothing more than a case of Jolt cola and some Speedy BTLs so I could keep myself going long enough to at least verify that my target actually existed. Then, after I had objected to his statement, the gamemaster announced that I had collapsed from exhaustion and it was now the next day. Swell.

As I've so eloquently mentioned in previous writings, plots blow. They restrict the GMs creativity, they restrict the players creativity, and, worst of all, they give you the unnerving feeling that, no matter what your character does, everything's going to end up the way it's written down on the piece of paper in the GM's notebook. I admit that I once used a plot based system and remember committing such acts as I've described above. Half of the time I would follow the plot because I didn't know what to do if I didn't follow the plot, a problem less experienced gamemasters run into often but which slowly subsides the more you play. The other half of the time I'd stick to the plot because, damnit, I spent a day writing the thing up and didn't want that work to go to waste. By either reasoning the style is inherently flawed because, lets face it, nothing ever goes the way its planned.

I'm not saying that plot driven and pre written shadowruns are all bad. They're excellent for brand new GMs who don't know their way around the system yet. But you eventually have to grow out of them. Here's two suggestions to make the transition easier:

1. While using a pre packaged run revise the plot while the run is in progress. Basically, screw the plot up. You can still use aspects presented in materials but change them subtly, develop new plot lines, and bring everything to a new conclusion.

2. Concentrate on the personalities presented in the run, not the plot. Use their stats and some quotes and so on, but develop a new run premise around them. If things start to go bad you can still refer back to the book. Hopefully you won't have to.

By utilizing the simple methods above not only will you better train yourself to create runs "on the fly" but also reassure your runners that the events to come are not written in stone. That the players still have power and that nobody is ever going to tell them what to do. At least not without a Manhunter pointed at them.