Let's start with an example taken from the C++ Template Metaprogramming book:

class player : public state_machine<player>
{ 
  // The list of FSM states enum states { Empty, Open, Stopped, Playing, Paused , initial_state = Empty }; 

  // transition actions 
  void start_playback(play const&) { std::cout << "player::start_playback\n"; } 
  void open_drawer(open_close const&) { std::cout << "player::open_drawer\n"; } 
  // more transition actions
  ...
  typedef player p; // makes transition table cleaner 
  struct transition_table : mpl::vector11< 
  //    Start     Event        Target      Action                       
  //   +---------+------------+-----------+---------------------------+ 
    row< Stopped , play       ,  Playing  , &p::start_playback        >,
    row< Stopped , open_close ,  Open     , &::open_drawer            >,
  //   +---------+------------+-----------+---------------------------+ 
    row< Open    , open_close ,  Empty    , &p::close_drawer          >,
  //   +---------+------------+-----------+---------------------------+ 
    row< Empty   , open_close ,  Open     , &p::open_drawer           >,
    row< Empty   , cd_detected,  Stopped  , &p::store_cd_info         >,
  //   +---------+------------+-----------+---------------------------+ 
    row< Playing , stop       ,  Stopped  , &p::stop_playback         >,
    row< Playing , pause      ,  Paused   , &p::pause_playback        >,
    row< Playing , open_close ,  Open     , &p::stop_and_open         >,
  //   +---------+------------+-----------+---------------------------+ 
    row< Paused  , play       ,  Playing  , &p::resume_playback       >,
    row< Paused  , stop       ,  Stopped  , &p::stop_playback         >,
    row< Paused  , open_close ,  Open     , &p::stop_and_open         >
  //   +---------+------------+-----------+---------------------------+ 
  > {};
  // Replaces the default no-transition response. 
  template <class Event> 
  int no_transition(int state, Event const& e)
  { 
    std::cout << "no transition from state " << state << " on event " << typeid(e).name() << std::endl; 
    return state; 
  }
};                        

This example is the foundation for the idea driving MSM: a descriptive and expressive language based on a transition table with as little syntactic noise as possible, all this while offering as many features from the UML 2.0 standard as possible. MSM also offers several expressive state machine definition syntaxes with different trade-offs.