prokopetz:

Whether you’re writing for a video game or a tabletop game, the secret to effective lore is cow tools.

Back in 1982, Gary Larson drew the following panel for the newspaper comic The Far Side:

According to Larson, it was simply meant to be a faintly surreal joke about how cows would be bad at making tools; it intends no deeper commentary. However, in the decades since, it’s become by far the comic’s most asked-about panel. People want to know why cows are making tools, what aspect of society it’s commenting on, and most critically, they want to know what the tools are for. The one on the right kind of resembles a carpenter’s saw, which leads folks to believe that the other three must have some obvious function too, if only they could puzzle it out.

But they don’t. They’re just random shapes, and the comic as a whole was never intended to actually mean anything.

I’ve become convinced that that’s the real secret to effective worldbuilding in gaming media. Certainly, the “core” of the setting should make sense, but all the peripheral stuff surrounding it? Just throw in a bunch of incomprehensible bullshit seasoned with the occasional bit that almost makes sense, and people will seize on those bits and ratonalise all the rest of it for you – and what they come up with is generally going to be way more interesting than whatever your original plan was, if indeed you had one at all.

Then, once they’ve figured it all out, just nod sagely, congratulate their cleverness, and keep your damn mouth shut.