Contrary to popular belief, games do not tell stories. It might come as a surprise to some, that I write this. Others may feel validated in their claims that games are “just games” and have nothing to do with culture.

But that does not mean that games and narratives aren’t tightly intertwined. Because I do believe they are. A game is remembered fondly and positively, specifically because there is a narrative underneath. But I consider it a mistake to locate this narrative in the game itself. Or put differently: the story does not emerge out of the game. Instead the story or narrative happens with the game. The game does not tell a story. That doesn’t mean, that no story is getting told.

This might read like semantics. But what I am trying to get at is a fundamental shift in our understanding of what makes games a medium. A shift that makes it necessary for us to question how we approach games and how we interrogate them critically.

The way we talk about books or games telling a story is, of course, meant figuratively not literally. In both cases they are objects, that do not speak themselves. They merely lay out text before us. Just as this article doesn’t “speak”, but is still perceived to do so by readers. To read a text sometimes means transposing it into the written word, we hear in our imagination. A book speaks to us figuratively. It is perceived as a story being told to us: a narrative, if you will.

It’s tempting to adopt this idea for games as well. If a written text in a book “speaks” to us, why shouldn’t a game with its rules, illustrations, components and terminology not “speak” to us in the same way? Why shouldn’t a game tell stories?

The fundamental difference with games is that players aren’t a patient audience that is told a story. For that to be true, the story of the game would have to be scripted in its plot, contents and statements. It would only need to be transmitted or mediated to the audience. The game’s story would have to be an immutable text contained within the game’s elements, and simply unearthed through the players’ actions. Just as the story of a book is already written, and figuratively “heard” by its readers.

Instead players are the driving force that make the story happen. Its their decisions, actions and reactions that create a text, which we can then perceive as a story. This observation is far from groundbreaking. But it is often countered with the argument that the game prescribes what players actually do. Whether they attack countries, plant trees, build habitats or trade wood for sheep. All this is set out by the game, and players simply follow those instructions.

This is where I believe that the elements that make up playing a game get miscategorized. A game’s terminology like food, money, workers, ships, etc are only a metaphor. They do not constitute the game’s content (meaning its story). They are simply how it is transferred into an easy to grasp imagery. The metaphor of the game fills out our experience. It adds an imaginative layer to the game. We have pictures, ideas and concepts we can imagine during play, to enrich our otherwise strongly regulated interaction. But this layer of metaphor is not the game’s story.

The story of the game is bound to what we actually do, and not to what we imagine it to be. There are no casualties in Memoir ‘44, we simply lose a tactical advantage. We do not build factories in Brass Birmingham, we simply expand our area of influence. We also do not have children in Agricola, we simply widen our options per round.

A game does not tell us a story. But it does offer us a language to grasp the story in a simple, and more importantly entertaining manner. But if the game doesn’t tell the story, who does? How does the material reality of the game (i.e. what we actually do) come together with the ideal layer of a story (i.e. what we imagine it to be)? Who is the connecting link between those two? The answer is: it’s the players themselves.

Through our actions, we create the story’s plot. This must also include our interactions at the table, as social deduction games (like Werewolf), negotiation games (like Chinatown), but also games with a strong metagaming-element (like Netrunner) show. But this observation can be expanded to all multiplayer games. The actions of the players constitute the narrative framework for the story. The game provides us with the language with which we get to narrate this story.

If a game has a very strict grammar, i.e. gives us little agency in choosing our goals, the story, we end up telling us feels repetitive. It seems to continuously follow the same tracks, and offer the same peaks of tension. It feels like we are always doing the same thing, in order to always reach the same result.

Whether we understand a game’s grammar to be sufficiently different, is only somewhat dependent on individual rules mechanisms. What matters is feeling like you have enough agency to choose your path (or goals) in the game. A game’s grammar is open or dynamic, if it offers us various paths and goals.

Games do not tell stories, because they are actually the language with which players create, narrate and experience a story. In other words: our play makes the story. A critical examination, analysis and interpretation of game as a cultural product and medium, must look at the tools and narrative devices the group is given. It shouldn’t and mustn’t reduce itself to what kind of associations it invokes or which historical references it presents. A game empowers players to turn play into a story. Both how? and what? are the most pertinent questions to ask.