Snark aside, the issue of a GM rambling about stuff that may not actually be necessarily revelant is really more an issue of style and expectation.
Games that hinge around these kinds of open-world sandboxes have to both be pitched and run in a way that makes the use of background details apparent in their use, but flexible enough to come into focus.
For instance, take this Encounter tool I came up with for my game: Click here
As part of this tool, I have two different kinds of Worldbuilding encounters between Lore and Flavor. These are intentioned to provide a structured way to introduce random background details about the world, and the extent to which they're used for that is left up to the GM.
A common example I use though is a dragon flying around in the distance. If upon presenting this the PCs decide they're going to go hunt that Dragon down, then so be it! If they're that confident they can take on a Dragon, then by all means.
This doesn't mean I intended them to do that. The only reason the encounter appears is just because time keeps ticking on in the game and things keep happening (and this particular encounter type, a Flavor encounter, is meant to just add some minor *but ubpredictavle worldbuilding flavor) , and while the PCs actions do have some direct influence over the possibility that these Encounters will directly impact them (regardless of their choices), the Encounters do not exist only for the sake of the PCs.
They exist to flesh out the world and better emulate the idea that the world doesn't pause while the PCs sit around and crack fart jokes.
Plus, they also exist to mechanically represent something Open-Worlds need in terms of points of interest. While one can simply write and forcibly introduce such POI's, its much better when the GM's authorship is shared with the system, because it not only helps (at least through my games use of the Tension pool as a core mechanic) integrate these encounters with the players actions, but also enhances the fun for the GM as they'll never know the circumstances of how each encounter will come into play, even if they know the general bounds of each one.
After all, the same encounter can be very different depending on the context it happens in.
An encounter with a couple of low level goblins may not be anything to worry about in any given situation, but when the party is in the middle of climbing a narrow mountain pass, just as a Blizzard rolls in, giving the Goblins a terrible advantage as they disappear in the snowy wind, oh, how the circumstances change.
And again, this could be written ahead of time with all of these elements.
But what is more interesting? Pre-writing an encounter down to its bones, or having the encounter emerge organically as you play?
Story games try to make this kind of emergence happen through human authorship but it seldom works in the same way systemic authorship does, and ultimately, by doing that you're ultimately trying to make a game of writing, rather than making a game of dungeons and dragons.
Games that hinge around these kinds of open-world sandboxes have to both be pitched and run in a way that makes the use of background details apparent in their use, but flexible enough to come into focus.
For instance, take this Encounter tool I came up with for my game: Click here
As part of this tool, I have two different kinds of Worldbuilding encounters between Lore and Flavor. These are intentioned to provide a structured way to introduce random background details about the world, and the extent to which they're used for that is left up to the GM.
A common example I use though is a dragon flying around in the distance. If upon presenting this the PCs decide they're going to go hunt that Dragon down, then so be it! If they're that confident they can take on a Dragon, then by all means.
This doesn't mean I intended them to do that. The only reason the encounter appears is just because time keeps ticking on in the game and things keep happening (and this particular encounter type, a Flavor encounter, is meant to just add some minor *but ubpredictavle worldbuilding flavor) , and while the PCs actions do have some direct influence over the possibility that these Encounters will directly impact them (regardless of their choices), the Encounters do not exist only for the sake of the PCs.
They exist to flesh out the world and better emulate the idea that the world doesn't pause while the PCs sit around and crack fart jokes.
Plus, they also exist to mechanically represent something Open-Worlds need in terms of points of interest. While one can simply write and forcibly introduce such POI's, its much better when the GM's authorship is shared with the system, because it not only helps (at least through my games use of the Tension pool as a core mechanic) integrate these encounters with the players actions, but also enhances the fun for the GM as they'll never know the circumstances of how each encounter will come into play, even if they know the general bounds of each one.
After all, the same encounter can be very different depending on the context it happens in.
An encounter with a couple of low level goblins may not be anything to worry about in any given situation, but when the party is in the middle of climbing a narrow mountain pass, just as a Blizzard rolls in, giving the Goblins a terrible advantage as they disappear in the snowy wind, oh, how the circumstances change.
And again, this could be written ahead of time with all of these elements.
But what is more interesting? Pre-writing an encounter down to its bones, or having the encounter emerge organically as you play?
Story games try to make this kind of emergence happen through human authorship but it seldom works in the same way systemic authorship does, and ultimately, by doing that you're ultimately trying to make a game of writing, rather than making a game of dungeons and dragons.