GM-less games are one of my favorite formats!

I think some of the games that leave things too open can make for sputtering scenes.

For example, Remember Tomorrow has a section that basically says “decide who is in the scene and then free roleplay until it comes to a decision point”. That’s super easy to leave someone framing a scene with a brainfart moment.

On the other side of the coin, the Protocol series of games have you draw cards to determine scene type/location/etc, allowing you to spend some of your chits to change one or more of them. Leaving most of the framing up to fortune seems to make for more solid, directed scenes.

I posted in Rob Brennan’s answer that my favorite style of framing actually comes from Microscope, where you begin with a single question (“Will Davey kiss James?”) and then it ends immediately when the question is answered (“Huddled in the dark of the cave, hiding from the creature, Davey can feel James’ breath on his cheek. He turns his head and kisses him!. End scene”). What I like most about this is in the structured ending and how it opens up to framing scenes immediately after the end of another scene (“How will they escape the creature this time? Scene opens with James roughly shoving Davey away, right after the kiss”)