The classic work Les jeux et les hommes (2001/1958) by the French sociologist Roger Caillois is put in analytical relation to the fields of narratology and dramaturgy, mainly by a comparison to some thoughts and ideas in Mats Ödeen´s Dramatiskt berättande (1988). The purpose is to highlight in what way Caillois´s theory can be applied to the study of narratives and to identify analogies between narrations and games. The emphasis of the article is on a description of narratives bases on Caillois´s concept of game. Caillois´s six criteria for game and play as process and phenomenon are systematically investigated: voluntarity, separation in time and space from ordinary life, unpredictability, improductivity, regulated by rules, and fictional. The article concludes that these parameters are valid definitional criteria for narratives as well.