I've always felt that the idea of "rich narrative only being possible in adventure games" is kind of elitist. Narrative has always been possible in all genres, it's just that some genres are more conductive to certain kinds of stories. What adventure games can do, and quite effectively, is put you [in] another person's shoes, immersed in another time or place. It's tricky to pull off, but when done well there is no experience like it.