One of the GMs in my role-playing days wouldn't award experience points to players until they had written a journal entry on the session of play they had just finished. It was his way of preserving some sort of storyline.
Personally, I think it's worth the extra effort on the part of players to expand the game's horizon into epic narrative. That's the sort of thing that can take a game from some clever version of chess into a lifelong memory. When I wrote a bit about my Far Horizons space empire detecting a sign of Grimfinger on the aether, I had so much fun that I found myself anticipating his reaction more than the next game turn. Here's the snippet, as clipped from the august halls of this very forum:
"Sir, we've lost contact with Space Pioneers #3."
"Yes, I know that already you impudent fool. Why do you come to me with this again? Please, enlighten me before I assign you to KP duty for the rest of the cycle."
"Sir! Please, anything but that! It's just that, well, there was something else in the data. We ran a gravitics test pattern around the failed jump-target. We found the expected hyper-haloes, but there was something else as well."
"Out with it, dishwasher boy!"
"There was an anomaly in the background radiation. Something we haven't seen before. It was hard to translate, but we think it was an image - meant for us to find and decipher."
"Oh? And what would that be, kitchen help?"
"A finger. A grim finger. At least that's the way I would describe it. Here, take a look."
"Hmm, well, it *is* grim..."
"Our best guess is that this is a message - a warning from a starfaring species we have not yet encountered. They are out there, sir, and they are definitely evil. Or at least ill-tempered."
"Can we send them a reply? A response in the local background radiation?"
"Not yet, sir. Not without risking another Space Pioneer."
"Hmm, pity. I thought we might share with them an image of our famous Consortium 'moon'. Ah well, we'll handle that another day. Now off to the mess hall, boy, and fetch me some coffee!"
and later on, he came out with this bit of epic writing:
Granny Goodness had arrived in sector. She had been dispatched by Darkseid as Ambassador to the Consortium - an ambassador of war!
Long had this galaxy basked in relative peace. This Harmony of the Ages was about to be abruptly ended. How very fitting, then, that the author of its destruction would be Darkseid.
A long chain of events had long since been set into motion, the ripple effect of which would eventually span the length and breadth of the entire galaxy. This was not the result of chance or mere happenstance. Rather, this was a culmination of cold calculation.
Intercepts of transmissions along entire communication spectrums had been occurring for years on end. The entire mass of space in this galaxy had been seeded at Darkseid's direction. It was beyond question that there was method to his madness, but to what end? What grand purpose motivated him escaped even Desaad's cunning mind.
The war forges of the empire were churning out warships with ever-increasing size and regularity. The early scouting efforts had paid off. Entire worlds now fell under Darkseid's sway with systematic precision. The rape and plunder of these worlds fueled an explosion in new Apokoliptian technologies.
Granny Goodness was the vanguard of the invasion force. The peace-loving fools of the Consortium had severely miscalculated. There was a reason that proper implements of war were hideously expensive. It all just depends upon how much that a given species values their survival and their freedom.
Granny Goodness locked her weapons on target. For a moment, time, itself, seemed to pause, and the priesthood of peace stood ready to be sacrificed upon the altar of one who calls himself........DARKSEID!!
(this was after a number of posts hinting at some large new dreadnought he was building. The name alone sent me into hysterics for days...)
Personally, I think it's worth the extra effort on the part of players to expand the game's horizon into epic narrative. That's the sort of thing that can take a game from some clever version of chess into a lifelong memory. When I wrote a bit about my Far Horizons space empire detecting a sign of Grimfinger on the aether, I had so much fun that I found myself anticipating his reaction more than the next game turn. Here's the snippet, as clipped from the august halls of this very forum:
"Sir, we've lost contact with Space Pioneers #3."
"Yes, I know that already you impudent fool. Why do you come to me with this again? Please, enlighten me before I assign you to KP duty for the rest of the cycle."
"Sir! Please, anything but that! It's just that, well, there was something else in the data. We ran a gravitics test pattern around the failed jump-target. We found the expected hyper-haloes, but there was something else as well."
"Out with it, dishwasher boy!"
"There was an anomaly in the background radiation. Something we haven't seen before. It was hard to translate, but we think it was an image - meant for us to find and decipher."
"Oh? And what would that be, kitchen help?"
"A finger. A grim finger. At least that's the way I would describe it. Here, take a look."
"Hmm, well, it *is* grim..."
"Our best guess is that this is a message - a warning from a starfaring species we have not yet encountered. They are out there, sir, and they are definitely evil. Or at least ill-tempered."
"Can we send them a reply? A response in the local background radiation?"
"Not yet, sir. Not without risking another Space Pioneer."
"Hmm, pity. I thought we might share with them an image of our famous Consortium 'moon'. Ah well, we'll handle that another day. Now off to the mess hall, boy, and fetch me some coffee!"
and later on, he came out with this bit of epic writing:
Granny Goodness had arrived in sector. She had been dispatched by Darkseid as Ambassador to the Consortium - an ambassador of war!
Long had this galaxy basked in relative peace. This Harmony of the Ages was about to be abruptly ended. How very fitting, then, that the author of its destruction would be Darkseid.
A long chain of events had long since been set into motion, the ripple effect of which would eventually span the length and breadth of the entire galaxy. This was not the result of chance or mere happenstance. Rather, this was a culmination of cold calculation.
Intercepts of transmissions along entire communication spectrums had been occurring for years on end. The entire mass of space in this galaxy had been seeded at Darkseid's direction. It was beyond question that there was method to his madness, but to what end? What grand purpose motivated him escaped even Desaad's cunning mind.
The war forges of the empire were churning out warships with ever-increasing size and regularity. The early scouting efforts had paid off. Entire worlds now fell under Darkseid's sway with systematic precision. The rape and plunder of these worlds fueled an explosion in new Apokoliptian technologies.
Granny Goodness was the vanguard of the invasion force. The peace-loving fools of the Consortium had severely miscalculated. There was a reason that proper implements of war were hideously expensive. It all just depends upon how much that a given species values their survival and their freedom.
Granny Goodness locked her weapons on target. For a moment, time, itself, seemed to pause, and the priesthood of peace stood ready to be sacrificed upon the altar of one who calls himself........DARKSEID!!
(this was after a number of posts hinting at some large new dreadnought he was building. The name alone sent me into hysterics for days...)