The Forge has a resources section that links to a number of free and commercial independent games (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/resources/).
One of these is The Pool by James West
http://www.geocities.com/randomordercreations/thepool.html
Its not long (a couple of pages), and you might want to surf over and take a look at it. I mention it because, the principals behind its mechanics should be familarish to HW players, but in this bare bones state you can see how they are being used to create narrative. It might inform your opinion on some HW mechanics.
Now I'm not suggesting that you will all want to go out and play with these rules, but that you might find it informs on your understanding of what HW is aiming to achieve, because the Pool is clearly distinct in its approach from say D20 or RQ. HW and the Pool are of course different but they form part of the same family.
If you are keen you can check out James's The Questing Beast - An Arthurian Romance derived from the rules in The Pool. It's about 22 pages. Again it might not be to your taste, but you will get a feel for an approach to narrative games.
I found it helpful in understanding what the system is trying to achieve
If that piques your interest follow some of the other links to free or commercial games.Try for example Ron Edwards sorcerer http://www.sorcerer-rpg.com/. There is Hero Wars forum at the forge which discusses some of these sort of issues, though the tenor of the conversation is a little different than here.
Anyway hope some of you find it useful. Hero Wars is considered by the Forge to be part of the indie games community and you might find some other indie games interesting too. Not all indie games are narrative either.
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