I wish I had a dollar for every time a gamedev is like, "I am not really into narrative" but then shares how a collision of game systems resulted in an amazing player story.

I've been quietly saying for a while (and I think I might be more bullish about it) that emergent player stories that develop from complex (or simple) systems is, in fact, narrative, and that we should be mentally aligning this with "narrative design".

Like if we more formally acknowledge that emergent player stories fall under narrative design, then I think we'd deliver better overall games (as an industry and as game systems designers) by integrating narrative folks into the design of these systems.

I think in the past when I said this it felt a bit self-serving because I am part systems designer and part narrative designer, so obviously I think (selfishly?) that narrative is really important.

But in the last few years I got to practice what I preach by pulling narrative designers into systems design, especially as gut checks ("what experience will players come away with from these systems?" or even "is this a good idea?").

When thinking about ways your systems can degenerate into chaos or unreadability, and narrative designers are great at this from a "narrative logic" point of view. Does the string of events make sense now? Do they undermine the game's themes?