By and large, people don’t play with game systems because of the stories. The stories that wrap the systems are usually side dishes for the brain. For one thing, it has been rare to see a game story written by an actual writer. As a result, they are usually around the high-school level of literary sophistication at best.
Quotes about stories
Play. Games. Narrative. Interactivity. What a motley bunch. Honestly, have you ever seen such a suspicious set of slippery and ambiguous, overused, and ill-defined terms?
I have certain “stories” to tell. I am not interested in wars, power and glory. I’m also not interested in the life of a king, I’m interested in the life of the common man.
I’m not smart enough to design mechanisms in the abstract. I’ll leave that to Reiner Knizia and the mathematicians. I try to tell a story about something (usually historical and political, in my case), so I work on mechanisms that fit the story.
