Chekhov's Arsenal
Everyone here is familiar with Chekhov's gun, of course. Specifically, the proper use of it - the idea that you shouldn't introduce story elements that don't become important later. It's an important rule that can or can be ignored, depending on the authorial skill, when you're writing straight-up literature.
In gaming? Don't listen to Chekhov.
Okay, I probably don't actually mean to lay down an absolute rule here, because there will always be exceptions. But gaming is different. It's interactive. That means that you want a wide selection of guns littering the game, some of which you know to be Chekhov's, but some of which are up to the players to determine whether they're Chekhov's guns or just set dressing.
Backtrack a bit: What got me into this frame of mind was that I'm playing with Obsidian Portal of late. Ordinarily the idea of a gaming wiki was a curiosity to me, something not really necessary when playing with people who've been gaming with me for years. Some of my players have crystalline memory, others keep ledgers and journals, and generally we've done well enough without. But since moving to Atlanta, I find that I'm gaming more with people who are new to my GMing, and not at all familiar with many of the established tropes. Now, I do have lots of information stored on my computer about worldbuilding and such, so I could throw in a file about cuisine here or religion there. But as infodumps go, those are kind of tiresome to read, and who could properly expect the players to retain the information in a giant Word file? At that point the wiki became a very appealing way to distribute information. You put up articles as they become relevant, and players click on the links they're most interested in. And it's all in an easy-to-find place for rereading.
Of course this works well - this is how we frequently play. In many games, there's some level of exploration going on. Players actually engage better if they get to click on the links they want, instead of having to skim a linear document looking for the good bits, so to speak. While Chekhov's gun works well in maintaining a consistent narrative thread that you're following solely as a reader, play is about the decisions you make and how they affect things. So play works well if a game provides a wide variety of links, like a wiki, allowing players to "click" on the things that drive them and see what lies behind the cut.
In building a gaming wiki, I found myself hanging guns on the wall. The players don't have to pursue every bit of potential adventure or intrigue I hint at; no way would we have time to explore them all. But unlike in a literary narrative, those extra guns don't actually distract too much. After all, the thread we're following is the one the player create, and everything else doesn't pull you away from where you should be. It's simply something to be observed if you like. What's more, it gives the sense of a world being more fully realized, and aids immersion if things are going on that don't necessarily involve the players. Perhaps the antithesis to Chekhov's Gun is Tarantino's Royale With Cheese - things that the characters spend time doing, that don't advance the plot but that make the characters more relatable, because they care about things outside the plot. But it's the players who choose whether something is a gun or a cheeseburger. That's very different from writing fiction. And it's a difference we can really exploit.
In gaming? Don't listen to Chekhov.
Okay, I probably don't actually mean to lay down an absolute rule here, because there will always be exceptions. But gaming is different. It's interactive. That means that you want a wide selection of guns littering the game, some of which you know to be Chekhov's, but some of which are up to the players to determine whether they're Chekhov's guns or just set dressing.
Backtrack a bit: What got me into this frame of mind was that I'm playing with Obsidian Portal of late. Ordinarily the idea of a gaming wiki was a curiosity to me, something not really necessary when playing with people who've been gaming with me for years. Some of my players have crystalline memory, others keep ledgers and journals, and generally we've done well enough without. But since moving to Atlanta, I find that I'm gaming more with people who are new to my GMing, and not at all familiar with many of the established tropes. Now, I do have lots of information stored on my computer about worldbuilding and such, so I could throw in a file about cuisine here or religion there. But as infodumps go, those are kind of tiresome to read, and who could properly expect the players to retain the information in a giant Word file? At that point the wiki became a very appealing way to distribute information. You put up articles as they become relevant, and players click on the links they're most interested in. And it's all in an easy-to-find place for rereading.
Of course this works well - this is how we frequently play. In many games, there's some level of exploration going on. Players actually engage better if they get to click on the links they want, instead of having to skim a linear document looking for the good bits, so to speak. While Chekhov's gun works well in maintaining a consistent narrative thread that you're following solely as a reader, play is about the decisions you make and how they affect things. So play works well if a game provides a wide variety of links, like a wiki, allowing players to "click" on the things that drive them and see what lies behind the cut.
In building a gaming wiki, I found myself hanging guns on the wall. The players don't have to pursue every bit of potential adventure or intrigue I hint at; no way would we have time to explore them all. But unlike in a literary narrative, those extra guns don't actually distract too much. After all, the thread we're following is the one the player create, and everything else doesn't pull you away from where you should be. It's simply something to be observed if you like. What's more, it gives the sense of a world being more fully realized, and aids immersion if things are going on that don't necessarily involve the players. Perhaps the antithesis to Chekhov's Gun is Tarantino's Royale With Cheese - things that the characters spend time doing, that don't advance the plot but that make the characters more relatable, because they care about things outside the plot. But it's the players who choose whether something is a gun or a cheeseburger. That's very different from writing fiction. And it's a difference we can really exploit.