I've been playing swords for a couple of months now, and last week I finally had someone other than me be the...

I've been playing swords for a couple of months now, and last week I finally had someone other than me be the overplayer. Somehow this made me realize some things which maybe should have been obvious.

I've been madly reading and playing story games (or some such category of games) since being introduced to Fiasco in the fall, and Sword still stands out amongst them as unique; and I think I'm finally understanding why. The word I keep using for it is "imagery", though that's a little off. Maybe a better term would be "compelling narration". Either way, it's clearly something baked into the rules. Tone doesn't tell you what happens, it tells you how it should look or feel; and the thunder, whether it's used or not in a scene, ensures that there's some mood and color. Even more obviously, the motif cards focus everyone on cool, compelling images and ideas. Other story games might do a good job of making sure there's narrative material hanging around, but plot (or just plain worldbuilding) isn't everything.

Of course this makes me wonder how a focus on good narration could be taken further. What are some things people actually do to accomplish compelling narration? Sprinkle in detail, sometimes with smell or sound rather than just sight... Give a bit of unexpected perspective, such as an overhead view or from a character's view. Those are just the first couple of things to come to mind, but... what if the tones were changed to Detail and Perspective? Not that that's necessarily a great idea - it gets rid of the mood element, and these narrative details ought to feel relevant to the mood - but it might be interesting to try.

I have a couple other things to say but they're less speculative, so I'll give them a separate thread.