The Sims series is one of the few games that let me create a story instead of only participating in one. Call me selfish, but I wouldn't want that taken away from me for the sake of appealing to a wider audience.
As for drama and agnst, that is where you find it. Just yesterday two of my students got turned away at the free uni buffet because of kitchen closing. In most other games that would be a signal that I failed at time management - had my sims arrived at the spot five minutes earlier, everyone would have gotten fed. Now the two that didn't make it had to go find a food cart and invest money and energy as "punishment" for my "bad play".
For a storytelling player the scene is full of opportunities. It takes how long top shove a sandwich across a counter? Twenty seconds? Peggy and Damian were the last two students in the queue, so sealistically he buffet attendant could have servedthem without losing out on his break. But she is an android and he is black, so go figure... Bamm, minor villain in the uni staff established.
My students will now find ways to pay the guy back in subtle ways. One of them already pranked the buffet, something that would never have occured to me if not for the "no serve" incident. So it's a back and forth between us and the game, different from both writing a story and playing an ordinary computer rpg.
