Gaming as Interactive Storytelling

Got to thinking a few minutes ago about the Player/GM relationship in games. Here's some quick thoughts...

- Gaming is interactive. There must be give and take on both sides of the table (GM & Players) for a game to work. In other words: Seeing Hackneyed Plot Quest For Game means following it, by and large, but having a REASON to do so.
- The story the GM has planneed out and wants to tells is never the story that gets told.
- The PCs are the main focus of the story. They are the stars.
(Oh, and they can die. They're not THAT important: the world will survive.)
- Each PC should be useful and get their moment in the spotlight, as it were.
- USE character backgrounds. Demand they have friends, make use of the wider world around them through said friends as allies etc..
- If players ask "is there an XXX?" around they likely have a reason for asking: let there be one. They likely have a really cool in-game idea with it. (Obviously veto things that wouldn't be around at all etc.)
- Make sure the players KNOW about the world and the type of game you plan to one, so they can make characters that suit the setting. The GM should find out what they expect from the game and ensure they know what the GM expects and has planned for as well.
- Find a way toiincorporate player ideas into the game world (unless they're too much trouble or contradictict stuff in it) .... allow them to add to the world as a result.
- And remember that BOTH sides are telling a story .. if the players don't want to go rescue the Golden Acorn and save Squirrelville for Princess Pirahna and decide that they're rather save Molly the Maid from the unwanted attentions of the kings son, Dud, then go for it. The story is about THEM, after all. (And if the game goes too far out of what the GM sets out to tell, scrap it and begin again, if you really want to.)

Any other suggestions?