The stars you see in the night sky have been dead for centuries.
Last night's HARP session was an utter disaster. Two of the four players died facing off against a group of skeletal warrior/sentinel type monsters. I'd planted the seeds of a way to defeat said guardians without actually fighting them, but the players didn't pick up on it. What's more, the story (?) hasn't managed to proceed past "you're travelling along and finding yourself in combat and/or strange circumstances". After the two surviving characters finally figured out how to defeat the guardians, the proceeded into the building that was being guarded, climbed the stairs to the top of the tower where they discovered a portal which transported them into the sewers of a city that is completely foreign to them. I have no idea why yet. I have all the enthusiasm of a sixty-year old hooker when it comes to actually writing plot for a game these days. The reason, I think, is fairly simple.
I have very little player buy-in.
My group (with one notable exception) prefer to have a story served to them, rather than really participating in an interactive fiction. I don't feel inspired by a group dynamic like I used to. There isn't any excitement over the setting or even the individual characters anymore. Running the game just isn't any fun. And what the heck is the point of doing it if it isn't fun?!