First let me explain, as a disclaimer, that I am from the Marvel Universe, and I have been online gaming through WBS for almost 5 years. I began my tour of duty in the Star Trek Room, before WBS even required handles to be used, and you had to enter your name every time you posted. 

RP back then was much different. Back then everyone would have been considered a Story Teller. That is to say RP back then was like this: I would write a paragraph, a chapter of a story. The person next would write a chapter, that started off after I had finished. Back then, that was online RP. 

Now, in the new genre of RP, Storytelling/Storymastering, or SMing as I will refer to it from now on, has changed as well. To begin with, SMing requires a villain, or a point. So you must set this up through RP. I'll use a generic situation to explain this. 

Darth Vader wants to hunt down the Rebels, specifically finding Leia, Han, or Luke. So he sends out spies throughout the Galaxy to track them. This creates RP for a lot of people. It also sets up your future SM.

Now once, you have the information you need, you have your point to the SM. Darth Vader knows where the Rebels are. Hoth is attacked. The SMer of the night (probably the Mun who is the RPer of Darth) will now openly NPC the attackers of the battle. The heroes will fight back. I don't have to explain the precise mechanics of the RP.

Some general rules that I fondly refer to as the "Tewson Rules of SMing": 

The biggest key to my entire article here though is that SMing is not just the act of mindless violence. It's not just the fight scene. A story must be told, a story must be explained. Things happen for a purpose, it's an SMer's job to explain why. 

I'm often asked to SM for people. I more often than not have to decline. SMing is a big job, and only a few people can do it with enough information, and background, to get people involved, and to make it fun for them. 

In short, if the Star Wars movies started off with Darth Vader blowing up Hoth, and every scene after that was a battle scene, with no story, would you watch it? Would you have read Fantastic Four all those years if you never knew why Doom called Reed "Accursed Richards?" I know that I would not have. 

So keep in mind that stories don't start and end with the battle scene. When you SM, you're George Lucas, or Stan Lee, or Spielberg. Lights, camera, action. It's your story, so tell it

Ben promises not to destroy the Earth, if we will kindly give him ONE...MILLION...TACOS.