1. This is a tricky one. The key thing to remember, in my opinion, is that everyone likes being the hero of their own story. It's not always easy to enable this to happen for everyone in an arc, but it's a good goal to have. Every RPer is different, but you can start looking at the general cohorts your players fall into: Do they like high fantasy or low? High power or low? Dark and gritty? Heroic adventure? If you advertize your arc, you'll naturally self-select people who want to play in the type of arc you're running. If you start out with a collection of players committed to playing in it before you've unveiled it, though, you'll want to spend some time making sure the arc suits the type of players you have.
2. The main pitfalls I'd warn about are heavily scripted stories (if you've ever played in one of these, you'll know what I mean. You feel like an actor who's been handed a script. That's great for actors, but not for RPers), and stories where a few players get to be the hero while the rest are there to support them. It's fun for the heroes, but seldom fun for everyone else.
One very specific pitfall to guard against, by the way, is the failed skill check. It's really common to set up skill checks where success is needed to progress the story: The players need to find the missing princesses' locket to know that she's in love with Prince Elderberry, and until they can succeed in that, the story is halted. This is bad because it turns the skill check into an unsatisfying time sink, especially if it's a skill check that's resolved with some sort of roll. At best, the players keep rolling until they succeed. At worst, they're frustrated because some branch of the story gets closed off to them because of the luck of the dice. Instead, try to structure the skill checks such that success brings them some advantage, while failure brings them some sort of disadvantage that still allows the story to progress. If they can find the secret door into Castle Black before the patrol returns, they don't have to fight them. If not, then they still find the door but the guards see them and they have to fight.
3. Have NPCs. It's fun to imagine that the entire arc will be entirely player driven, but that seldom happens. Having NPCs that are available to administer gentle nudges is a good thing. NPCs can make good foils for your players, or they could support them, or any number of things. Some people like playing NPCs, too, so don't be afraid to ask people to play throw-away NPCs during events.
4. Having some sort of tool that lets you keep track of all the elements in the story is a good one. I like Trello a lot, because it's basically a digital cork board with cards. I can keep track of the players in a story, what they're doing, all the elements in play, etc.
Do things to help your players feel that they're part of all this. OOC threads talking about the arc. IC threads for people to write the stories of their characters during the arc. Some sort of out-of-game forum or tool to let people communicate about things going on in the arc. An arc is an arc, and that's fun, but what you really want is to build a community around your arc.
2. The main pitfalls I'd warn about are heavily scripted stories (if you've ever played in one of these, you'll know what I mean. You feel like an actor who's been handed a script. That's great for actors, but not for RPers), and stories where a few players get to be the hero while the rest are there to support them. It's fun for the heroes, but seldom fun for everyone else.
One very specific pitfall to guard against, by the way, is the failed skill check. It's really common to set up skill checks where success is needed to progress the story: The players need to find the missing princesses' locket to know that she's in love with Prince Elderberry, and until they can succeed in that, the story is halted. This is bad because it turns the skill check into an unsatisfying time sink, especially if it's a skill check that's resolved with some sort of roll. At best, the players keep rolling until they succeed. At worst, they're frustrated because some branch of the story gets closed off to them because of the luck of the dice. Instead, try to structure the skill checks such that success brings them some advantage, while failure brings them some sort of disadvantage that still allows the story to progress. If they can find the secret door into Castle Black before the patrol returns, they don't have to fight them. If not, then they still find the door but the guards see them and they have to fight.
3. Have NPCs. It's fun to imagine that the entire arc will be entirely player driven, but that seldom happens. Having NPCs that are available to administer gentle nudges is a good thing. NPCs can make good foils for your players, or they could support them, or any number of things. Some people like playing NPCs, too, so don't be afraid to ask people to play throw-away NPCs during events.
4. Having some sort of tool that lets you keep track of all the elements in the story is a good one. I like Trello a lot, because it's basically a digital cork board with cards. I can keep track of the players in a story, what they're doing, all the elements in play, etc.
Do things to help your players feel that they're part of all this. OOC threads talking about the arc. IC threads for people to write the stories of their characters during the arc. Some sort of out-of-game forum or tool to let people communicate about things going on in the arc. An arc is an arc, and that's fun, but what you really want is to build a community around your arc.
