I am come again, turning hope to ruin and victory to death.
Anyway I think that YAWYW's success was not just due to the flexibility of the plot device. The "endless introduction" chapter established the few rules of the stone, yes, but it also established three characters with pre-existing personality types and relationships that made it very easy to get started, albeit not so specific as to shut out other options. It's a balance. I'm guessing that if a similar story to YAWYW was posted only without any initially defined characters, it would remain less popular than YAWYW has become due to the extra work involved in starting a new story thread with home brewed characters.
Future of Gaming, which I love despite how neglected it is, was kind of screwed both ways. Not only was the main plot device fairly restrictive compared to the Stone, but it started with only two characters with very little definition beyond their relationship to each other, (although what was there was well written) and no immediate change to prime the pump and spur the plot in the intro episode.
Altered Fates on the other hand, is more restrictive than the wishing stone, but judging by most of the site's content most people could generally get what they wanted out of it anyway, yet it remains very neglected. Personally I suspect it's because we don't really start with ANY established characters.
And on the highschool thing: This is kind of an odd phenomena. I'm pretty sure most of the people on this site, and the many other sites hosting stories of this nature, are not highschoolers. But it does have a certain resonance. I think it's a combination of 1. All of us sharing some awkward teenage years that generally make it somewhat relatable despite your age. and 2. That most of us discovered our...interest in this sort of thing during puberty, when the characters were that much more relatable and we just sort of stuck with it.
But maybe I'm assuming to much about the rest of the audience based on my self.
