If I understand your position Jim, you're implying that the existance of game mechanics to account for a certain effect is inherently gamist.
You suggest that Humanity in Sorcerer is a gamist thing because it has a number, that number fluctuates, and that fluctuation influences game effects.
Didn't really have anything to do with my posts but a very intriguing angle I find quite interesting.
but it sounds like you're making a case for Simulations have only mechanics that quantify actual things that are measureable and quantifyable. Quantifying anything else (like Humanity of which there is no real objective measure) is Gamist. Further that narrative games should have virtually no mechanics associated with them...that even those whose purpose is to encourage story development are inherently Gamist and thus out of place. Have I characterized that correctly?
The question was why is it needed for a narrativist game. Well 1 reason is that narrative game play is learned, and as such is a foreign concept to many. The existance of a mechanic such as plot points, gives a way for inexperienced narrativists to learn this type of play...by giving clear rules and structure to the type of behavior expected.
Now here I don't mean abuse in the gamist sense of game balance, or the simulationist sense of inappropriate use of OOC information, but rather in the sense of 1 player taking too much control of the story and thereby decreasing the involvement or enjoyment of the other players.
Wouldn't only that very rare breed of highly experienced and fully intune which each other play groups be capable of play without any mechanical parameters at all?