Goals and Storytelling

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They have to be treated as Seperate, or the game ends up as an interactive movie, like, say, Plumbers Dont Wear Ties or Night Trap... do you really want to go in that Direction?

It is in fact completely the reverse. Interactive movies treat storytelling as a seperate thing and paste on minimal interaction hence their failure as games. In an interactive medium your storytelling has to take the interaction into account as a core aspect. If storytelling is one of your main goals you have to make it a game mechanic. Seperating your story and gameplay means creating a divided player experience. This approach is the reason games went so long without respect as art and the creation of ridiculous non sequitors such as finding health kits hidden in exploding barrels. Mechanics before story create Pong, story before mechanics create Fahrenheit (this is not a good thing, I despise Fahrenheit, it's a goddamned movie that keeps getting interrupted by pointless hoops to jump through).