What drives a good narrative?

Good question that, and one which has more than one potential answer:- perhaps it's allowing for a large amount of player expression, maybe it's strong characters, mayhaps it's following a strong storytelling formula, or perhaps even just maybe it's putting the right amount of tragedy in the right place at the right time. The common factor in all these answers is that they all expect and empower the player to care about the game world or the character they are controlling.

Without this sense of care from the player, you could write the best story in the world but it would still fall flat on it's face because the player doesn't care and thus can't identify with the story - it becomes meaningless to them. Many times have I sat at a friend's house and watched as they thoroughly enjoy the game they are playing, but then proceed to skip every cutscene they come across and speed through every bit of dialogue as if it were in the way of their enjoyment. Heck I've been caught doing this myself, 9 times out of 10 it was because neither myself nor my friends cared about what was going on in the story - we just wanted to play the game. To this end, at least for personal reflection's sake, it might be a good idea to think of this in terms of what could motivate the player to care about their character, the game world and everything in it.

Two possible motivations on this thought would be that of self preservation and providing a strong player identity within the game world itself. Self preservation largely concerns a more ludological approach to tieing the player together with the story - through their own desire to keep their character alive they develop some sort of identity with that character, acting as if that character has become some part of their self. This motivation can become very strong if the difficulty of the game is just right - too easy and the sense of preservation is lost due to there being no challenge to speak of, too hard and the preservation takes effect but diminishes as the player gets more and more frustrated.

Providing a strong player identity can also drive a strong narrative, though this is unfortunately situationally effective depending on the type of player. There are multiple ways to go about this, and when done right it can provide incredible potential to immerse the player in the game as they are presented with a medium through which to imprint their own method or madness upon the gameworld.