Yeah, I almost always try to include some story. I think it's more fun than just saying "oh, those are your powerups".
We created the character of Dick Storm a couple of years ago, when we tried to invent someone, who would be very good at one thing (fighting cults and ghosts), but maybe not so good at others (thinking that you train parkour under the inventor of parkour, and not a retired PE teacher), while being so cocky and confident that he never realizes it.