I'm a relatively experienced GM with an experienced group and recently we have been enjoying the story games over the crunch games. 7th sea was my favourite setting, so when we came to play I added a simple scene:

The players had a simple outline: Vendel merchant has stolen a local loved statue monument and bribed officials to get away with it. Local relasciare group have been largely imprisioned so the players are approached to help. 

With a lot of things to find out, the players had to use their skills to go gather information. They said what they were planning, collected dice pools and formed raises. 

Now comes the bit that made the session. 

They spent raises to add elements to the story. One raise per element. A neutral fact is one raise "the merchant is Avalonian". Something that hinders you gets you a hero point "his estate is heavily guarded". Something that helps you costs a hero point "but some of them are ill-disciplined".

Before they spent raises I told them to look at their story, quirks, arcana and advantages. Then they built a much better adventure than I would have, hitting notes for each character, allowing their stories to progress and giving them what they wanted in the story. 

We've kept doing this throughout the campaign, with a few "hard points" from me to tie in the overarching story, but each episode is 'crowd sourced' to flesh out the details. It's a great way of saving GM set up time, and making sure your players are getting what they want in a session.