Paul Spinrad has posted some interesting observations about storytelling, simulations, and reality — concepts which are directly relevant to game design:

[S]torytelling, like language itself, is a compression scheme — ideally, you leave out everything that doesn’t matter or doesn’t in some way contribute to the whole. If you’re decompressing the story — reading, listening to, or watching it — the first thing you need to know is, is this true? You need to know where to put it in your head, whether to incorporate it into the model you use to navigate the real world, or whether it should go into the “not true” bin. Our survival depends on this distinction.

Meanwhile, on the storyteller’s side, there are many reasons to blur true and not-true — particularly, I think, if a story is being told for profit or to maintain of power relationships. Stories interpreted as real demand more attention and more likely to influence people’s actions than fictional stories.

– Paul Spinrad @ Boing Boing

Postscript:
“I think the ‘based one a true story’ line puts the audience in a sort of voyeur mode, the same place our brains go as we slow down and rubber-neck out of our car windows as we drive by accidents. Wanting, hoping, desiring a glimpse of a bloody body or gore spilled out on the pavement.”
– cmyk @ Boing Boing