There is a great book on film by David Mamet[0] in which he describes the authentic way to piece together a story. Roughly, stories should be told through editing and camera movement, somewhat following the montage theory.[1] You see a picture of a man staring. You see a coffin. He's sad. Replace the coffin with a bowl of soup, and now he's hungry instead. According to Mamet (and many others) even feature films should be done in this manner, no dialogue whatsoever (and definitely no voice overs or signs/texts to read).

In the same vein, a game should be told with the protagonist as the camera. You go to the farm house, no one is home. You go the forest, you see broken twigs and no animals: Somethings not right.

The upcoming game The Witness seems to embrace this sort of thinking. So did many rpgs (even vanilla WoW, to a certain degree. Much of the feedback from the game came through interaction with your surroundings[2] and you could always choose a different quest line).

[0] http://www.amazon.com/On-Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/01401... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_montage_theory [2] The first time you see a glowing plant you realise there's something called herbalism etc.