While reading these (very) interesting and provocative posts about examples of and debate over "emergent gameplay" in action games and scripted games, it suddenly struck me that there are several games that have that element in them that haven't been talked about as much: so-called "player as god" games, where you direct an open-ended environment and the people in it as much or as little as you want, and they can make some pretty wild choices on their own.
Games like Black and White (where I had a creature that led superstitious villagers in these funky dances, and liked to plant trees) or The Sims (where my VERY FIRST family lasted exactly 1 day, before the wife walked out to live with a neighbor, and the ex-husband spent the rest of his days drinking alcohol and passing out on the living room couch) have communities where the emergent storytelling has become incredibly advanced. Some of the best online films are the ones I see made with tools from The Sims 2. And message boards and chat areas are filled with people telling their characters stories.
It'd be interesting to see what kind of hybrid could be created from all of these game genres merging together...a game set in a wartime environment where a vast character-driven conspiracy exists, and character could age and act indepedently in various terrain, as the situation called for it?
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