Player Driven Story

One of the talks I heard at GDC a couple years ago was about how games have two kinds of story telling: The designer story and the player's story.  The character's story is the events that happen to the characters and world in a given setting.  Books, movies, TV shows, most video games, and some board games share this form of story.  Video games and board games also share a form of story derived from the interactivity of their medium.  This story is what happens to the players and what choices they make while playing the game.  When a player describes what happens in a game, the designer story will be described using character names ("Commander Shepard becomes a Spectre in Mass Effect") while the player story is described with I ("I romanced Liara in Mass Effect").

Most games have at least a little bit of each in their design.  For example, Left 4 Dead has a setting and characters (the designer story), but the events of the game are what happens to the players.  Making that final run to the helicopter in No Mercy with a Tank chasing your team down, choosing whether to go out and save your friend or leave him to die is all player driven story.  An example of heavy designer story and weak player story would be the Uncharted series.  Essentially you are playing an interactive movie (a really fantastic one, mind you).  The player has no choices to make other than what weapons to use against the waves of enemies during combat.

Some games don't necessarily need designer story (there is no setting, characters, or scripted events in Apples to Apples, Tetris, or Bejeweled) and in fact most of the time designer story is ignored in board games (does anyone playing Settler's of Catan really feel like a settler or even care about that aspect of the game?).  But that doesn't mean it should always be disregarded as a designer.  A proper setting can make a game extra entertaining.  Pirate Fluxx has a card that rewards players who talk like a pirate.  Axe Cop Munchkin is just as ridiculous and entertaining as the webcomic it is based on purely because of its setting.

However, the real fun of board games comes in the player interactions and choices (the player story).   The game of Apples to Apples where everyone's adjectives they won described characters from How I Met Your Mother; the game of Tales of the Arabian Nights where one player spent the entire game in prison, finally escapes on an airship, only to fall to his death (that player hates the game for some reason now...); the game of Betrayal at House on the Hill where all the players start aging except one, so they all kill that player and the only person to escape alive was the player who started as a boy and ended as an old man (I stole this story from my brother, Adam).

So when designing games, it's important to keep in mind the balance between designer story and player story.  What are some great player stories you've experienced?  Can you think of a game with no designer story that has any complexity?  (Every example I've thought of has very simple gameplay mechanics...)