To be fair to nethack, you can not only kill things, you can make them your pet, appease them with gifts, use them defensively in a variety of ways, or frighten them off with bright lights or elven scribblings. And, as for things you can do with objects...I'm not even gonna try.

But, yes, what "story" there is is not emergent, and is injected by human authors, and the game can only really have two outcomes: death (about 95% of the time) or ascension and success (with a few bits of story line along the way based on your character class, race, and alignment). The joy is in the many amusing ways in which your character can die, rather than in the narrative.