[quote=@Darth Cognus]I may as well add adaptability to the above. Sometimes derailing just happens and you end up with something that will be worse by trying to stick to the path. So, an ability to adjust planning for a next-best bet or at least take a wider curve to the main goal helps a lot in making the story natural. You're in for a hard time if you don't keep possibilities in mind.[/quote]
So true. No plot survives contact with the players.

This being said in my experience when plot crashes headlong into players what ends up coming out of that explosion is often better than what you originally wanted to do. So it pays to be flexible in regard to going with the flow to some extent. It's a fine balancing act really. But when it works it bloody works. Like I have had entire tangents happen entirely because a player demanded something mad that were so good that now a days if I ever rerun that RP I am using those as part of the as designed plot.

And I mean mad. Like the official this world face of one of my elder gods is literally an old man selling ice cream sort of mad.