Be true to the game because the game will be true to you. If you try to shortcut the game then the game will shortcut you. If you put forth the effort good things will be bestowed upon you. That's truly about the game and in some ways that's about life too.
If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world then the positive valences - where things turn out better than you thought they would - ought to be in there somewhere too.
