User blog comment:EvilMegaCookie/Maya/@comment-28898344-20150310004056/@comment-4867780-20150323221855

You know what puzzles about conflict ? The difference between stories and games.

I mean, broken characters and abilities almost always ruin the story, while in games tweaking your character in a broken way is pure awesomeness when done right. This allows players to fully enjoy the narrative experience (minimal stress), along with a comfortable feeling of decisive superiority, while keeping all the satisfaction of progress and evolution.

That's what I did in "Divinity - Original Sin" (surgical cheating), and it truly worked wonders, multiplying the overall pleasure of the game with no noticeable downsides.

Why can't stories be like that ? Probably because the relation to protagonists is very different. To players they are avatars, so players completely identify to them, and thus reap the full benefits of their awesomeness and achievements. While to readers they are someone else, so protagonist have to be relatable (suck sufficiently), otherwise readers won't be able to empathize, and just get bitterly jealous of thi superior "other".