In a previous post chost I talked about maxims I apply to my game writing; personally held, subjective principles. What follows here are a set of maxims I apply at the table, while playing or facilitating games.
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Story is a byproduct of play, not the object. Don't show up to the table with a set idea of what's going to happen. As a GM: I am not an author or storyteller and the other players are not my audience; they're not there to play through a story I wrote ahead of time. As a player: the most important bits of my character's life are what happens at the game table; background should always be in service to play. To borrow a PbtAism, "we play to find out," not to express what we already know. Scenarios, not stories.
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Play towards the scenario. Always point your character towards the action or conflict of an adventure. If you're playing a space horror game, answer that distress call. If you're playing bog standard D&D, for the love of Pelor, talk to the mysterious stranger at the tavern. If what your character would do doesn't engage with the main activity of the scenario, you need to play a different character.
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When you put a game together, have a clear pitch for the starting scenario or build the scenario in session 0. This can be as easy as "let's play an old school dungeon crawl, so everyone's some kind of desperate bastard," Or, "this is a Star Wars game, but we're not going to adhere to canon; in fact, we're gonna write our own title crawl in session 0!"
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Don't fudge the G-d damn dice! "But what if the dice give a result that would ruin the story?" See the first maxim above. I do tend to like game texts that proceduralize re-rolls or otherwise build in ways to override the dice. But those are agreed upon practices and not one party making an executive decision that their opinion is more important than the rules. In this regard I admit I am very much "local anarchist surprisingly strict about game rules".
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When a player rolls the dice, their character should be doing something. Don't waste dice rolls on passive bullshit. If the dice are coming out, a character should be doing something with interesting stakes on a success or a failure. I wrote a whole other chost about this in the context of perception and knowledge rolls.