Once you bust out SFB or CW, you're looking at spending a few hours resolving the fight. Both of them are excellent games, SFB in particular has a tight set of rules, but designed for quick play they are not and aren't suitable for RPG night. And that's another problem, vehicle combat in games is often too abstract to be satisfying but if you add complexity you lose the people who aren't into combat games.
As I've said before , usually the worst games are when some GM is writing a story and wants the players to fill in the details for him. A good story is integral to a good game. But when the story is the entire reason for the game it smother's it like a bottle of BBQ sauce on one lone pizza.
"What do you mean I take slashing damage to my feet? You're a RBDM!!!"
It's a bout how one uses the word "story." I think your "A good story is integral" statement is more accurately phrased "a compelling situation."
point taken but a series of compelling situations with out narrative unfortunately is an almost gauranteed bad story. Some of us live in the weeds and don't care about narrative and big picture, some of us can't stand not looking at the big picture. Obviously I'm in the latter. I'd rather mow my lawn than play a game of random but compelling encounters.
Are you using "narrative" here to mean linking the compelling situations together?
Sort of. That doesn't quite get to what I'd call a story. For example, if the only thing you need is the same characters across multiple situations then a literally endless string of random encounters would make a story. To me it doesn't. That's a whole lot of isolated scenes with the same characters, a series of vignettes maybe, but not a story.
